President Macron recently opened a museum dedicated to the memory of Alfred Dreyfus, who was wrongfully convicted of spying for Germany while serving as a captain in the French Army.
Dreyfus was paraded on a barrack square, his epaulettes torn from shoulders, his sword seized from its scabbard and broken in front of him. He was transported to Devil’s Island where he was
expected to die. Dreyfus was Jewish and his
humiliation celebrated by anti-Semites, mainly claiming, though not practising, the Catholic faith and its moral principles. The French Government was
Catholic clericalist and the hierarchy and many clergy poisonously right-wing and anti-semitic.
The evidence against Dreyfus was eventually exposed as a forgery, and twelve years after his 1894 conviction he was exonerated, restored to his army rank and served in the Great War emerging as a Lieutenant Colonel, He died in 1935,
Passions in France were very high for many decades. In 1906 France adopted a Secular Constitution, but anti-Democratic and anti-Jewish forces, including violent ones, rocked France for decades.
The supposedly anti-German Jew-haters morphed into Nazi collaborators and handed Jewish refugees, together with native French Citizens of Jewish heritage, over to the Nazis for extermination in concentration camps.
A prospective French Presidential candidate who apparently is an apologist for the anti-Dreyfusards, prompted Macron’s museum dedicated to Dreyfus, and apparently he wants to promote the deceased former Captain to General, if not to a Marshal of France. As Macron is himself standing for re-election to the Presidency this year, his love for Dreyfus is probably not platonic.
Captain James Kelly of the Irish Army served Ireland dutifully, He was accused with others of an attempt to import arms illegally in 1970. The Ministers of Defence and Justice in Ireland alone
have the right to import arms and Captain Kelly acted in accordance with orders passed down from the Minister for Defence through the army chain of command. A jury acquitted all the defendants.
In Captain Kelly’s case it heard evidence from Colonel Michael Hefferon, Director of Military Intelligence who said that Kelly had acted in accordance with orders. The jury and apparently regarded the Colonel’s weightier than that of Minister for Defence, James Gibbons.
The sequel was an attempt by Dail Eireann to over-rule the verdict of the jury. That attempt (a Contempt of Court?) was over-ruled by the Chief Justice, Cearbhall O Dalaigh. O Dalaigh cited the
the code of fair play attributed to the Fianna comrades of Fionn MacCumhal in prehistoric times Cothrom na Feinne – It is not Cricket to have the DOGS LET LOOSE and THE STONES TIED
DOWN
Eighty three years ago the 26 County Electorate enacted by plebiscite a Constitution guaranteeing defence of a citizen’s name and reputation against false attacks. But some Fianna Fail and many other partisans in Ireland know little of pre-historic fair play or historic codes of honour.
Years after his acquittal Captain Kelly sued Garret Fitzgerald for libel and won substantial damages,
Perhaps Captain Kelly should be commemorated and posthumously promoted to General and a Scholarship established in his honour?
Further reading The Arms Conspiracy Trial Ireland 1970: The Prosecution of Charles Haughey, Captain Kelly & Others by Angela Clifford Arms Crisis Series No.3 A Belfast Magazine.
Comments are closed.