Some Irishmen were festooned with laurels by a grateful Empire. Those laurels were paid for by theft – oil from the spoils of the Ottoman Empire or from Iran, taxes levied by the
aerial bombing of Iraq, tithes and rack-,rents from Ireland, fish from her rivers and lakes, profits from drug-pushing in China, to name but a few.
Fergal Keane belongs to that tradition, like the late Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab, Sir Michael O’Dwyer. As a writer he appears to have a less than fanatical devotion
to historical fact, and very little grasp of Irish history or of its impact on the wider world.
In a few weeks India will celebrate the 73rd anniversary of Britain’s withdrawal from India. It was an Irishman, Sir Michael O’ Dwyer, who gave the Quit India movement much of
its momentum in 1919, and another Irishman, Terence MacSwiney who inspired its endurance by his death on hunger strike in 1920. Two years ago in Amritsar a statue
was erected to the man hanged for shooting O’Dwyer in 1940, on the site of the 1919 massacre.
In 1948 Eamon de Valera, temporally out of office, visited India, and was given a hero’s welcome by the world’s most populous democracy. (Churchill was also out of office
at the time. He would probably have been lynched in India)
Keane despises Ireland, her better traditions, and her achievements in establishing a state, and in preserving that State in the teeth of a powerful empire when at its zenith,
and the survival and development of the State, despite the continued capacity of the former empire’s ubermenschen to create mischief
Keane’s family is from Listowel, Co. Kerry, where on 19 June 1920 Lt Colonel Gerald Brice Ferguson Smyth DSO, Kings Own Scottish Borderers, Divisional Commander for
Munster of the Royal Irish Constabulary, addressed the RIC garrison of Irishmen. Smyth was accompanied by Major General Tudor, handpicked by Churchill as Chief of the
RIC in Ireland.
Smyth was quoted by the garrison -“The more you shoot, the better I will like you and I assure you that no policeman will get into trouble for shooting any man. In the past
policemen have got into trouble for giving evidence at coroners’ inquests. As a matter of fact coroners’ inquests are to be made illegal”
The RIC men all resigned from the force on the spot.
But they were replaced by other regular RIC men. Including Tobias O’Sullivan who had been wounded as Sergeant in charge of Kilmallock Barracks when it was mostly demolished
by the IRA in May 1920. Promoted to District Inspector, Sullivan was shot dead by the IRA on 20 January 1921,
THE INDEPENDENT (London) some years ago carried a piece by Fergal Keane headlined “Ireland has paid a high price for….myths”. He called for a Truth and Reconciliation
Commission, rubbished de Valera’s life’s work, damned Charles Haughey, who as Justice Minister, Agriculture Minister. Finance and Health Minister had played a blinder, and
as Taoiseach supported such “white elephants” as Knock Airport, Dublin’s Financial Services Centre, broke with sterling, facilitated the unification of Germany, encouraged the
Hume-Adams dialogue.- all to the greater good of Ireland. There is little of what I have read or heard from Fergal Keane over the decades that I could reconcile with truth as I
understand it.
But what really got Keane’s goat was the State Funeral and Christian Burial, 80 years after their hanging and quicklime disposal, of soldiers of the electorally established Irish
Republic. Keane asked why Crown Forces’ casualties hadn’t had similar funerals.
I realise that Pathe News faked at least one Newsreel for Dublin Castle during the Tan War which Dubliners immediately recognized as fake.
Never the less,as a Dubliner,I believe that the PATHE NEWS FOOTAGE of the Funeral of RIC DI Tobias O’Sullivan , available on the net will give as much pleasure to Fergal Keane
as it gave to many Dubliners when it was first screened.
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