Madam, - I wish to protest at the continued vilification of the people of Cadamstown, Co Offaly, in the wake to the continuous stream of articles surrounding to tragic deaths of the Pearson brothers at Coolacrease in 1921 from the publication of Alan Stanley's book culminating in the recent " Hidden History" programme on RTÉ.
Allow me to point out to correspondents such as D Kelly (October 31st), this attack was not carried out by or on behalf of the people of Cadamstown. From July 1921 to this day many in the village of Cadamstown were sickened and traumatised by what happened.
It was the opinion of at least one volunteer from the village, that had they not been interned at the time, this would not have happened. Let me quote Paddy Byrne, the only former Coolacrease resident to appear on the " Hidden History" programme, "they were good neighbours".
To this day, the land they owned is known locally as "Pearsons", effectively becoming a sub-townland, far from being deliberately forgotten as alleged by Pearson descendant Jenny Turnidge on the same broadcast.
This was no land grab. There were bigger and better farms in the Cadamstown hinterland had that been the motive.
The raiding party was from north Offaly, and its leader would become an officer in the Free State army. What they did that day in Coolacrease was barbaric (a view I have shared since as an eight-year-old, I heard the story first hand from a former member of the Pearson staff). But nonetheless they were the military force of the democratically elected representatives of the people in the 1918 landslide election win.
- Yours, etc,
GERARD HAYDEN, Tullamore, Formerly of Coolacrease.
Madam, - In reply to Daithí O hAilbhe (November 2nd) Sinn Féin in the 1918 election received only 47 per cent of the votes. "Acting under a democratically elected civil authority" means you must obey only legal orders. The law to be obeyed must be enacted, published and due process followed before it is obeyed. The military, police or others must not act outside the law even if ordered to do so by their superior; in fact they should charge their superior with a breach of the law. Bad patriotism is when the love which is proper to God is given a "State" and blind obedience replaces the Ten Commandments; then atrocities such as Coolacrease can occur.
- Yours, etc,
NOEL FLANNERY, South Circular Road, Limerick.
Madam, - On July 24th, 1920, The Irish Timespublished a letter from a Mr GW Biggs: "I feel it is my duty to protest very strongly against this unfounded slander [of intolerance on the part of] of our Catholic neighbours, and, in so doing, I am expressing the feelings of very many Protestant traders in West Cork. I have been resident in Bantry for 43 years, during 33 of which I have been engaged in business, and I have received the greatest kindness, courtesy, and support from all classes and creeds in this country." Five days later Mr Biggs's substantial business was burned down in an act of deliberate arson.
In September of that year, in the course of a series of letters to the Timesof London, J Annan Bryce, brother of a former chief secretary to Ireland, commented on a British military notice threatening to burn the houses of republicans if those of loyalists were targeted.
He wrote: "There is no justification for the issue of such a notice in this district, where the only damage to loyalists' premises has been done by the police. In July they burned the stores of Mr. G.W. Biggs, the principal merchant in Bantry, a man highly respected, a Protestant, and a lifelong Unionist, with a damage of over £25,000, and the estate office of the late Mr. Leigh-White, also a Unionist. Subsequently, in August, the police fired into Mr. Biggs's office, while his residence has since been commandeered for police barracks. He has had to send his family to Dublin and to live himself in a hotel. Only two reasons can be assigned for the outrages on Mr. Biggs, one that he employed Sinn Feiners - he could not work his large business without them, there being no Unionist workmen in Bantry - the other a recently published statement of his protesting - on his own 40 years' experience - against Orange allegations of Catholic intolerance. The July burning was part of a general pogrom, in which a cripple, named Crowley, was deliberately shot by the police while in bed and several houses were set on fire while the people were asleep."
Statements such as those from Bryce and Biggs, were a consistent feature of public life in Ireland right up to and beyond the Truce in 1921. On May 11th 1922, a Protestant Convention in the Mansion House reiterated these points ad nauseam. They may be read in The Irish Timesand Irish Independentof May 12th.
On October 20th and 25th in your newspaper, an alternative picture was painted, concerning an event in Offaly in July 1921, in articles by Niamh Sammon and by Ann Marie Hourihane. Essentially, the same story of anti-Protestant violence was broadcast by RTÉ on October 23rd in its " Hidden History" series. Had it occurred as depicted, it would have been reported in that way at the time.
Given a choice between Biggs and Bryce, who were on the spot, and Hourihane and Sammon, who were not, and the reporting of The Irish Timesthen and now, I take the Protestant view.
- Yours, etc,
NIALL MEEHAN, Offaly Road, Cabra, Dublin 7