A Chara, - Fintan O'Toole's recent column headed, "Leave Jerry McCabe in peace" (Opinion, February 21st) misses an important historical point.
Garda Jerry McCabe left behind a widow and five children. But so did Garda Detective George Mordaunt: a widow and one child. Mordaunt was killed in Dublin in 1942 in a shoot-out with two IRA men, one of whom, Maurice O'Neill, was arrested and executed by firing squad. The other man, Harry White - my uncle - wasn't arrested until four years later and was also sentenced to death. However, after a clemency campaign and a successful appeal in 1947 he was sentenced to serve 12 years.
His lawyer was Sean MacBride who, a year earlier, had set up Clann na Poblachta in opposition to Fianna Fáil. In the 1948 general election one of its slogans was "Release the Prisoners" and after the election Clann na Poblachta held the balance of power.
Fine Gael entered into discussions with MacBride to persuade him to go into coalition. His price was the release of the political prisoners. Fine Gael agreed. The prisoners were freed within weeks, including Harry White. Not for the Belfast Agreement. Not to underpin a peace process, but simply so that Fine Gael could oust Fianna Fáil and get into power.
That is why the current stance of all parties in relation to the Castlerea prisoners (those convicted of killing Jerry McCabe) is so hypocritical. The Supreme Court ruled that these men were "qualifying prisoners" under the Belfast Agreement. In March 2005 they said they deeply regretted the death of Jerry McCabe and the wounding of Garda Ben O'Sullivan in Adare in June 1996 and apologised "for the hurt and grief we have caused to their families".
Hundreds of nationalist families in the North watched as the loyalist sectarian killers of their loved ones received early release in 2000. There were no protests because, while it was a bitter pill to swallow, it was generally perceived to be in the interests of peace and making a new beginning. On the other hand, nationalists never experienced the sense of well-publicised outrage that unionists felt at seeing the early release of IRA prisoners simply because the state killers of their loved ones - those in the British army and RUC - were never imprisoned in the first place and have been protected by government to this day.
The nature of the celebrations around the 90th anniversary of the 1916 Rising (which gave rise to the subsequent Tan War) have been the subject of much controversy. But it also presents the opportunity for perhaps some sobering honesty from the likes of Enda Kenny about how yesterday's warriors can be today's peacemakers.
For example, Fine Gael TD Gen Sean MacEoin, who was also the party's presidential nominee in 1945 and 1959, came to the Ministry of Justice with a past which Fine Gael honours. In the Tan War the IRA killed almost 500 members of the RIC. When MacEoin was the leader of an IRA Flying Column in Longford in 1920 he had been responsible for killing up to two dozen of his fellow Roman Catholic Irishmen in the RIC. A small sample includes: 23-year-old John Kelleher from Cork, who had been in the RIC only four months; 45-year-old Constable Peter Cooney, a married man, shot in the back while returning from leave; and 30-year-old District Insp Thomas McGrath, a single man from Co Limerick, shot in the head by MacEoin when he knocked on MacEoin's door.
Men like MacEoin shot and bombed British soldiers and RIC men, killed them where they could - on holiday, on leave, in bed with their wives, at their dinner tables, on patrol and in the barracks.
If Enda Kenny is ashamed of IRA men like MacEoin then he should say so. After all, he brought Fine Gael to power. He fought the British in his country - though mistakes were often made and innocent people were killed. This has happened throughout Irish republican history.
And that is why Fine Gael and any other party opposed to the release of the Castlerea prisoners rightly stand accused of double standards and hypocrisy. - Is mise,
DANNY MORRISON, Belfast.