“In the United States very practical action was being taken in the hope of checking the excesses of the British troops and police in Ireland. On the inititiave of Dr. W.J.Maloney and with the help of Frank P. Walsh and with President de Valera’s approval, a committee was formed for the purpose of investigating conditions in Ireland. It was proposed to hold public meetings in Ireland. Villard, Editor of the Nation*, supported the project in his paper and a committee of a hundred and fifty eminent Americans was formed. By September 15th, Dr.McCartan** recalls, ‘the committee included Cardinal Gibbons,Archbishop Keane and four Catholic Bishops, seven Protestant Episcopal Bishops, four Methodist Bishops, the Governors of five states, eleven United States Senators, thirteen Congressmen, the Mayors of five large cities, and college presidents, professors, editors and leaders of labour and industry, representative of thirty-six states and numbering over one hundred in all.’
From this Committee there was selected by ballot a list of names who were to act as the Court of a Committee of Into Conditions in Ireland. Five members were to constitute the Court and vacancies which occurred were to be filled, in rotation, from a list. The Court had power to request the attendance of witnesses from Ireland representing English and Irish opinion, to pay their expenses and take their evidence at public sessions inWashington.
As news came to America of murders ,burnings and other outrages in Ireland, this committee cabled its invitations to witnesses from the scene.
Among those invited to attend were Lord French and Hamar Greenwood, but no British witness accepted. The Committee secured promises from the British authorities that passports would not be refused to persons coming from Ireland to testify and that reprisals would not be taken against them.”
*An American paper.
** Dr Patrick McCartan TD author (1932) of “WIth de Valera in America” from which Dr Maloney emerges as the real hero.
It is hard to believe that the invited guest, Father Michael Griffin, whose body was found in a bog on 20 November 1920 was killed at the instigation of the 14 year old William Joyce. But it is hardly likely that the British regime in Ireland would have been unaware of the American invitation for Father Griffin to give evidence in Washington, particularly as he would have needed a British passport to travel.American opinion is , and has long been, of great importance in Britain, whose agents lied through their teeth to White House Staff in their attempt to stop an Irish passport-holder, Gerry Adams, being given a US Visa, when Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, in pursuit of peace, requested President Clinton that Adams should have it.
See LEGACY COVER-UP: BREXIT GAME PLAN by Michael and Nuala Cummings and then tell me is the malign, lying, evil spirit of Winston Churchill still marching on?
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