IRELAND’S AVIATION HEROES? by Donal Kennedy

I note that next week sees the launching in Belfast by Air Vice-Marshal D.M.Niven of a book entitled “IRELAND’S AVIATION HEROES OF WORLD WAR II” by John C.Hewitt.

Irish aviators committed to Ireland’s defence, a forlorn hope in the event of Ireland engaging in hostilities, served in the Irish Army Air Corps, and never rose to the rank of Air Marshal, nor even Vice-Marshal, then or since. Irish-born men served, and served bravely and with distinction, in foreign air, naval and ground forces. But their lives were not sworn to Ireland nor were they paid by Ireland’s Department  of Finance nor subject to the orders of the Irish Department of Defence. The treasuries which paid their wages called the tune.

The book is published by Mercier Press of Cork, founded in 1944 and described as Ireland’s longest established independent publishing house. It seems that the longer established Irish publishing houses have sold out to foreign domination. My maternal grandfather and one of my uncles were master-bookbinders in Dublin and others of the the family were in ancillary trades. Not all change is for the better.

When I was at school in the 1950s  Captain Matt Feehan gave us a talk on publishing and  on the Mercier Press of which he was the head. The Captain was one of Ireland’s soldiers and served in her Army during the Second World War. It seems to me that the Mercier Press is in peril of its soul, which was always strongly national.

I’d like to know what Irish-born airmen in foreign forces would have done if ordered to bomb Dundalk, Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway or Athlone. I like to think they would have bombed their own armouries but I can’t know.

Some years ago a history of the Irish Army claimed that the British Air Force was detailed to drop chemical weapons, Anthrax, I think, on Ireland in the event of German forces landing there. The Germans occupied the coasts of France, Belgium, Holland and Norway at the time but no such weapons had been used in those places. The late  Proinsias MacAonghusa, a distinguished and experienced journalist, reported in the SUNDAY PRESS that a BritishCabinet Minute of October 1940 was the source of the claim and that an airbase in Suffolk was equipped with the weapons.  It would be no harm if Vice Air-Marshal Niven and John C. Hewitt were asked to investigate and report on the claim.