Sir, - Referring to recent correspondence on this subject, an article by Ms. Anne Cahill in the Sunday Independent of November 28th, 1993, refers to a Mr. Joseph Sweeney who was present in the Rotunda Gardens where the Easter Week prisoners were held after the surrender. He identified the officer responsible for maltreating Thomas Clarke as Percival Lea Wilson, a 28 year old Englishman who was a captain in the RIC at the time.
Ms. Cahill quotes Joseph Sweeney relating how, in the bar of the Wicklow Hotel, he heard Michael Collins recounting the shooting dead of Lea Wilson on a road near Gorey, Co. Wexford (in 1919) and linking the event with the Rotunda Gardens surrender.
Lea Wilson had studied history in Oxford; subsequently he joined the RIC as a cadet and served as a district inspector, first in Woodford, Co. Galway, and then on promotion in Charleville, Co. Cork. From there he was transferred to Dunshaughlin, Co. Meath and on the outbreak of the 1914 war he joined the Royal Irish Regiment and was sent to France as a musketry instructor. He returned to Dublin early in 1916 and served as a captain in the RIC. - Yours, etc.,
Stillorgan,
Co. Dublin.