No pardon for Irish deserters

Despite the Northern Assembly adding its unanimous voice to calls for the Government to issue both a pardon and an apology to the 5,700 Irish soldiers who deserted their posts during World War II and joined the British Army, the Government must remain resolute and refuse.

While recognising and acknowledging the significant contribution and sacrifice these men made in opposing Nazism, they nonetheless had deserted their posts at a time of national emergency in Ireland.

The offence of desertion is a crime under military law in every army in the world, including the British Army which itself had executed in excess of 300 deserters (28 of them Irish) during the Great War, and pursued relentlessly those who had deserted during the Second World War. Those who deserted the British Army were subject to court martial and imprisonment, yet the Irish government is being asked to apply different standards to those who deserted the Irish army.

It seems that those who deserted are now being regarded as victims. What message does this send out to those soldiers who remained loyal to the State in her hour of need? Those who joined the Irish Army did so voluntarily, it was not a conscripted force. These men swore an oath of allegiance to Ireland and betrayed that oath. The fact that they fought against Nazism did not legitimise their desertion. The actions of these men imperilled Ireland’s sovereignty and the safety of her citizens. During the war, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had threatened to invade Ireland to secure the treaty ports if it was in her interests to do so, and it was the function of the Irish Army to uphold and defend the neutrality of this State, a neutrality unanimously endorsed in Dáil Éireann. With a threat of British invasion looming, for Irish soldiers to enlist in the British Army was unpardonable and unforgivable. It begs the question, if the British had re-invaded Ireland to seize her ports, would those Irish deserters who joined the British army be part of that invading force or would they have deserted instead, again?

Regardless of the nobleness of their intentions and the worthiness of the cause in fighting Nazism, a cause which I unambiguously support, they were still wrong. Duty to one’s own country must come first. These men may have had a conscientious objection to being left out of the fight for liberty, but nonetheless their actions imperilled the safety and sovereignty of the Irish nation.

They were duty-bound to give their primary allegiance to Ireland and no amount of subterfuge or revisionism can alter that fact.

Tom Cooper

Knocklyon,

Dublin 16