Bid to smear Irish who fought in First World War

IN THEIR letters (October 20) on the upcoming commemoration in Cork of the Irish soldiers who died in the First World War, Jack Lane and Tom Cooper infer or suggest outright that any such event would be an endorsement of the post-war military operations of the British army and security forces, specifically the Black and Tans and the Auxiliaries.

This is a simplistic and historically disingenuous suggestion.

It is, to use Tom Cooper’s word, an “insidious” suggestion, as was his casting a shadow over the use of “great” when describing the war. The word was and is used to give a sense of the traumatic magnitude of the event experienced by contemporaries, including the 200,000-plus Irishmen and women who participated directly in the war. The references to the Black and Tans are an attempt to besmirch the reputation of the Irishmen, Catholic and Protestant, who followed a long tradition by joining the British army. And it is particularly unjust to the Irishmen who joined up during the Great War. Of those who joined then the majority (though a relatively small one) were Catholics and while their motives for enlisting were varied and not always idealistic, those Catholics who enlisted did so on the understanding they were fighting for small nations and for Home Rule.