Sir, – Diarmaid Ferriter’s column (Opinion, December 14th) on the recently opened files regarding the Army mutiny of 1924 was very interesting.
However, his comments seem to have a depreciatory tone about the role of Kevin O’Higgins in the depoliticisation of the Irish military, a step which spared the newly self-governing Irish Free State and the succeeding Ireland from lapsing into military dictatorship, as did so many European countries in of that era.
While Richard Mulcahy did oppose the mutiny, his leaving the government further minimised the impact of the IRB spirit, thereby guaranteeing that the institutions of the State never again “take their stride from a soldier’s boot”.
The economic troubles of the discharged soldiers were difficult, but understandable in a time when conditions even prompted a reduction in the old-age pension. – Yours, etc.
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JOHN P MCCARTHY, PhD,
Professor Emeritus of
History,
Fordham University,
New York, US.