Sir, – I write concerning the column of Stephen Collins (Opinion Analysis, August 25th) in which he blames the Government for having “no plans to honour the ordinary Irish policeman who served the community before 1922”. In response I would suggest that the attitude of the first Dáil Éireann not only supports the policy of the present Government but also justifies it.
Éamon de Valera, speaking at a Dáil meeting on April 10th, 1919, declared, “they are no ordinary police force, as police are in other countries. The RIC, unlike any other police force in the world, is a military body armed with rifle and bayonet. They are given full licence by their superiors to work their will upon an unarmed populace”.
Eoin MacNeill, at the same meeting, stated that “the police in Ireland are a force of spies. The police in Ireland are a force of traitors, and the police in Ireland are a force of perjurers. I say these things, not that your feelings might be roused, but to convince you of the necessity that exists why you should take such measures as will make police government in this country by the enemy impossible”.
MacNeill was particularly incensed that, during the conscription crisis of 1918, the police had attended novenas and then reported the words of the clergy to Dublin Castle; de Valera was concerned at the role of the police in the arrest and deportation of many Sinn Féiners at the time of the “German Plot” in the summer of 1918.
Fundamentally, Dáil Éireann recognised that, since the passing of the Defence of the Realm Act in August 1914, the police force had an essential role in the implementation of martial rule in Ireland. It had become an integral part of British military rule in Ireland and retained that important position until the truce of July 1921. In that historical context, it is, at best, naive, for Stephen Collins to portray the police force as “ordinary” and with “democratic standards”; at worst, it is tantamount to saying that the IRA, rather than the British crown forces, were responsible for the terror in Ireland during the War of Independence. – Yours, etc,
Sir, — My grandfather Michael McArdle served in the RIC but I don’t know why he left Loughrea, Co Galway, and died soon after in London around 1923. He was lost to his family who remained behind in Ireland and his story died with him in London where he is buried. His brother, Peter McArdle, also served in the RIC. He was fatally wounded on October 12th, 1920, and four of his RIC comrades were also killed, in an IRA ambush at Four-Mile House, Ballinderry, Co Roscommon.
My grandmother, May, was a daughter of John Sweeney, who was prominent in the Land League in east Galway and in whose house in Loughrea were sown the seeds that would become the GAA. My other grandfather, Seán Ó Cathasaigh, was a republican who marched from Howth with arms in 1914. I have heard his story. I have held his rifle and bayonet. He is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.
Like so many Irish people today, my grandparents came from both sides of the War of Independence. These men and women were Irish. They should all be commemorated.
The commemoration in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin on August 25th of RIC and DMP members killed in the struggle was welcome. – Yours, etc,