During the 1959 Presidential Election, Fine Gael’s candidate, General Sean MacEoin, was interviewed by the Sunday Independent. MacEoin recalled that he’d been chosen by Minister for Defence Cathal Brugha in 1921 to lead a unit to to London shoot membersof the British Cabinet who were directing a campaign of murder in Ireland. MacEoin said that, as a soldier, he’d have been quite happy with the assignment.
Those of the electorate who remembered those times, and those younger ones who’d been told about them by their elders were not scandalised by MacEoin’s interview. Few people in the 26 Counties had been to Secondary schools back in 1959. Despite, or because, of that, citizens were then better informed about their history than today’s electorate.
The Sunday Independent did not attack MacEoin, nor did the Sunday Press, organ of Fianna Fail, whose candidate was Eamon de Valera.. MacEoin polled very well but was defeated by “Dev.”.
At the first meeting of the 2nd Dail Eireann in 1921, the newly elected TD MacEoin nominated de Valera as President, not just of Dail Eireann, but of the Irish Republic.
MacEoin had been elected TD in 1921 when he had been in jail, under sentence of death, for the”murder” of Crown Forces in a battle where he had chivalrously treated his defeated enemy..
And yet on a daily basis the Indo poison pen hacks, abetted by our supposed national broadcaster tell republicans that they are revisionists!
Articles like yours, Donal, should be nailed to the front doors of these malicious propaganda machines.