Opinion

Retrospective attempt to justify imperial might over right

Finally bowing to public opinion the minister for justice Mr Charlie Flanagan, has deferred the planned commemoration of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP), who were killed in action during the period of the Irish War of Independence.


It seems, however, that the minister continues to misunderstand the controversial nature of his original proposal.


The RIC was an illegitimate paramilitary police force, which took up arms against its own democratically elected Irish government.


The election in question took place in December 1918 and resulted in Sinn Féin winning more than 70 per cent of all seats on the island of Ireland. Subsequently, Dáil Eireann was formally established in January 1919. Britain refused to recognise the mandate of the Irish people and employed the RIC to hunt down the elected representatives and their lightly armed guards.


A war of unequal forces was thereby unleashed upon the people and their representatives. (Though unarmed, the DMP worked hand in glove throughout the period in question with the RIC, the Black and Tans and the Auxiliary police).

Even in the middle of this RIC-led war on the rule of law, the Irish people again reiterated their support for democratic government. The urban and rural elections of January and July 1920 resulted in even more emphatic gains for Sinn Féin.

It is surely somewhat disingenuous to suggest that the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries sullied the reputation of the RIC. It was the latter who murdered Tomás MacCurtain, the democratically elected lord mayor of Cork.


So far the minister for justice has had nothing at all to say about the real police heroes of the conflict, such as the poorly-armed republican police force.


Nor has he mentioned the heroic RIC mutineers of Listowel in June 1920 – and the hundreds of other RIC throughout the country who followed their example. These men sacrificed their careers rather than ‘commit murder’ (the words of Constable Jeremiah Mee, police leader at Listowel). Once again, we have heard nothing from the minister of justice about these upholders of democratic law and order.

Honouring those RIC who took up arms against the democratic Dáil’s own army and police is a retrospective attempt to justify imperial might over right, to justify violence over the rule of law.


Above all, it represents a slap in the face to Irish democracy and brings the department of justice into disrepute.

BILLY FITZPATRICK


Terenure, Dublin 6

Putrid commemoration of RIC is an ominous sign for times ahead

The government in their haste to create in indelible fog of revisionism around the role of the much-despised RIC in Ireland have forgotten an important aspect in remembrance. They intend to ‘commemorate’, which means honour, memorialise, celebrate the roles of the RIC and the Dublin Metropolitan Police on January 17, in a shindig in Dublin Castle.


How do they propose to remember the victims of these two arms of British rule in Ireland? Or will they be included in a different context where they will be construed as troublesome rabble rousers who should have obeyed a sectarian regulated law that was weighted against the native Irish?

Was it okay for the RIC to drag starving families from their stone and mud-built hovels that stood as homes and forced to watch as their meagre belongings were trampled in the winter slush?

Men women and children died huddled together on roadsides due directly to the actions of the RIC colluding with unscrupulous landlords.

I cannot comprehend the mindset that allows the perpetrators of such atrocities to become glorified heroes. Every county in Ireland has got a compilation of thuggish and murderous acts committed by collaborators in the RIC in conjunction with the Black ’n’ Tans who were their reserve force.


This putrid commemoration of a paramilitary police force is an ominous sign of the times ahead.

This is nothing short of being a thoughtless farce.


God save Ireland.

JAMES WOODS


Gort an Choirce, Dún na nGall

Heartless stance to adopt

The mindset of people like Cathal Crowe, Fianna Fáil mayor of Clare, is stark in its rejection that the casualties on one side of our warring history, are not worthy of centenary commemoration over the next couple of years.

To suggest the fallen police members of the RIC who died when in direct opposition to his favoured participants, presumably the IRA, ought not be remembered in coming events, is a heartless stance to adopt.

Those of us who are the children of fathers, uncles and grandfathers who were in the forces of the rebellion and indeed who took the IRA side in our civil war, do not think like this.

In fact, when there is war the police always uphold the orders of the current state. This is their job and are on oath to do so.

When they died in our terrible series of conflicts, they were no less Irish than those IRA who later compromised with former enemies to form the peaceful state we now enjoy.

The RIC were never spoken of with distaste such as Mr Crowe espouses. In my republican house where the history and consequences of conflict was often debated.


There is no reason to suppose the RIC were habitually criminal in their conduct. They were the police first and foremost. How dare people like Cathal Crowe decide who will be remembered, officially or otherwise, regardless of what uniform they wore.

ROBERT SULLIVAN


Bantry, Co Cork

Complexities of modern world

I honestly think the whole world now stands shoulder to shoulder with Iran – unless, of course, you happen to be of the extreme evangelical persuasion, in which case you’re probably on the side of Trump.

The wonderful thing about such a position is that the complexities of the modern world can be simplified so beautifully –  ‘good’ versus ‘evil’.

In this world view ‘good’ means North America, along with the Anglo-Saxon civilisation which gave rise to it, and also including its colonial extension, Israel.

‘Evil’ means everything else.

GEORGE TZAMOURANIS


Belfast BT13