Was 1916 a Crime?

Was 1916 a crime?

That was the issue for discussion at the Berry Perry Summer School in Gorey, Co Wexford, on Friday 24 June. None of the speakers, Brendan Howlin TD, journalist Deaglán de Bréadún of the Irish Times, and Cormac O'Malley, son of Ernie O'Malley, a participant in the Rising, could bring themselves to say it was a crime but neither could they bring themselves to say it wasn't. They were further discomforted when a participant asked if the killing of a member of the RIC who walked up to the GPO on Easter Monday in 1916 and was shot through the head, was a crime.

Brendan Howlin argued there was no equivalence between the 1916 Rising and the IRA campaign in Northern Ireland from 1969-1994 because the IRA had wanted to coerce a million Protestants into a United Ireland. But that was precisely what the 1916 leaders wanted also – a united, independent republic, irrespective of what the unionists wanted and indeed irrespective of what anyone else wanted. In the course of the seven days of the Rising, 1,351 people were killed or severely wounded, 179 buildings in central Dublin were totally ruined. A third of the population of Dublin had to be given public relief.

So was it a crime? Unlawful. No democratic mandate. Massive death and injury and destruction to property in the space of a week. Venerated only because the subsequent execution of the leaders evoked massive public sympathy for the insurrection in retrospect and because those who won independence later venerated the 1916 "martyrs". But if the leaders of the IRA 1969-1994 have evolved massive public sympathy because of their execution and if they were to be venerated by future generations, would that retrospectively validate what they did over the 25 years?

Trevor Sergeant gave the opening address, also on 1916, and he said that if the Irish language was lost our identity would be lost. He then went on to tell of his own family history which had some tangential connection with one of the 1916 leaders. He illustrated this with snaps of his great grandfather and grandmother, a snap of the family shop in Dublin and other family memorabilia. And then he went on to talk about happiness and bemoan why there wasn't more talk about happiness.

Pompous piggery on Wexford Council?

On the evening of Monday 21 June, a new mayor of Wexford was elected. Before the election got underway, an independent councillor, Padge Reck, complained about the distribution of a leaflet around Wexford advertising the accomplishments of the outgoing Labour mayor, David Hynes, and his party colleagues. The outgoing mayor called Councillor Reck "a pompous ass". The independent councilor responded by describing the outgoing mayor as "a pig".

McDowell advised against Morris Tribunal

On 4 August 2000, Noel Conroy, then Deputy Garda Commissioner, submitted to the Department of Justice a 37 page report on the investigation conducted into Garda misconduct in Donegal. The report contained almost every one of the key findings of the Morris Tribunal. And yet Michel McDowell, then Attorney General, advised John O'Donoghue, then Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, against holding a public inquiry.

They have since justified their opposition then to an enquiry on the grounds they did not know what had gone on but the Conroy letter of August 2000 contradicts that.

No wonder they were so opposed to extending the terms of reference of the Morris Tribunal into the handling of the affairs by the Minister and the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.