Honour these executed men
Since then, the campaign for pardons for 306 of these young men (the Shot at Dawn campaign) has gathered momentum.
It has done so in the face of official opposition and obstruction that in some disturbing respects has mirrored the original acts of injustice.
The campaign has required its own heroes, not least an indefatigable Geordie hero of the Second World War, John Hipkin, who at the age of 14 saw his ship sunk by the Scharnhorst and served out the rest of the war in a German concentration camp. He has needed all the determination and fortitude derived from those experiences in the conduct of the present campaign.
Indeed, in 1997 he was arrested for displaying a placard in the Garden of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey on which he had the temerity to demand pardons for these young men.
It is a telling commentary on the lack of true respect shown by officialdom for the heroes of both wars.
The cases of these 306 men, tragic cases indeed, will not rest until they have been granted pardons.
We must not content ourselves with the recitation of barren and barely comprehensible statistics. Justice requires the scrupulous examination of individual cases, so that there is a need for the study of each individual case of the 306 British and Commonwealth soldiers shot at dawn.
Among that number are 26 Irishmen and I had the honour of adopting the five following men for the Shot at Dawn memorial dedicated at Alrewas, near Lichfield in Staffordshire, on 21 June 2001.
1. No 48: Private M. Monaghan (Stephen Byrne), 1 Royal Dublin Fusiliers (16 Division); Shot at dawn, Oct 28, 1917; Age 27.
2. No 52: Private Joseph Carey, 8 Royal Irish Fusiliers (29 Division); Shot at dawn, Sept 15, 1916; Age 35.
3. No 72: Private Thomas Davis, 1 Royal Munster Fusiliers (29 Division); Shot at Dawn, July 2, 1915; Age 21.
4. No 111; Private James Graham, 2 Royal Munster Fusiliers (1 Division); Shot at dawn, 21 December 1915; Age 21.
5. No 231; Private Albert Rickman, 1 Royal Dublin Fusiliers (29 Division); Shot at dawn, Sept 15, 1916; Age 26.
I write to urge the British government (even at this late hour) to show the magnanimity required to pardon these young men. It is my opinion that the Irish Government has the legal right to do so, and also the moral obligation.
The Australian Imperial Force - bearing in mind no doubt the celebrated cases in the Boer War of Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant and Peter Handcock, shot by order of court martial within 24 hours of the arrival of their defence lawyers - refused to countenance the shooting of deserters or cowards.
Our Australian friends reckoned that those who volunteered to fight for their country (as all these young men did) had by so doing already done enough, especially when compared with those who stayed at home. Surely they did do enough. And by facing the firing squads of their own companions in battle they did something more.
Let us abandon the process of retrospective vilification in order to protect an unjust system. Let us honour our dead.
Gerald Morgan,
School of English,
Trinity College,
Dublin 2.
