Sir, – Diarmaid Ferriter correctly highlights the brutal impact of Civil War executions but doesn’t consider the threats facing the Irish State 100 years ago (”Civil War executions remain ugly legacy of State’s foundation “, Opinion & Analysis, November 18th).
In the June 1922 election, 78 per cent of all votes cast were for pro-Treaty candidates. Members of the Provisional Government, including Michael Collins, faced the threat of assassination.
Before any executions took place, WT Cosgrave offered a full pardon in October 1922 to any anti-treaty IRA members that would surrender arms. Erskine Childers’s legal team would later make an appeal for clemency for his death sentence.
However this was rejected by a senior judge, declaring “Salus populi suprema lex esto . . . The supreme law is the safety of the people”.
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The IRA by now had declared execution orders against TDs, ministers, some judges and journalists, which were implemented with the assassination of Seán Hales TD.
Today, we can look back knowing that the Irish State survived; however, this outcome was not clear or certain to members of the Provisional Government, some that would later form Fine Gael.
The dilemma facing Cosgrave was either assert the authority of the people by restoring law and order or face British military rule being reimposed.
After Collins’s death, Cosgrave reflected on the threat to the State and his own life, writing: “None of us could be indispensable, my place will be easily filled, but they – the people of Ireland – will endure, they must prevail against any minority seeking to order their will or their life.” – Yours, etc,
Cllr DAVID McMANUS,
Fine Gael Group Leader,
South Dublin
County Council,
Tallaght,
Dublin 24.