The Queen’s visit to Dublin made such an impact on the Republic of Ireland that anything now seems possible – Kevin Myers. Will Irish government take part in Somme ceremonies in north?
Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Kevin Myers states: The Irish government has finally announced that it is giving active consideration to exonerating the thousands of Irish army deserters who joined the British Army during the Second World War. In 1945, after a number of courts martial of such soldiers, the Dublin government announced that it would no longer prosecute deserters. Instead, they would be barred from state employment or any social welfare for life. Effectively, these Irishmen who had fought for the freedom of Europe were exiled forever from their homeland.
The reconsideration of this matter was prompted by a petition organised by the “Irish Soldiers’ Pardons Campaign”. According to its website, the campaign was prompted by an article I wrote on the subject last May in The Irish Independent. While researching the fate of returning Irish soldiers in 1945, I had come across newspaper reports of the courts martial of Irish army deserters. Quite independently, a former British soldier now living in Ireland, Robert Widders, has written a book on the subject.
Some 5,000 wartime deserters from the Irish army joined the British forces. In 1945, as the moral cause of the Allies was made irrefutable with the discovery of Belsen, Buchenwald and Dachau, word spread among the Irish deserters in the British Army that their government had declared an amnesty. But instead, hundreds of them were arrested as they returned home. After a series of rather embarrassing courts martial, the Irish government decided on a mass and non-judicial punishment, which almost certainly had no basis in law.
More at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ireland/8992258/Will-Ireland-forgive-its-soldiers-of-the-King.html
Irish Government may join Somme ceremony
The Belfast Telegraph reports that the Irish Government has signalled it would likely take up an offer to participate in the Somme and Remembrance Sunday commemorations in Northern Ireland this year.
A spokesman said it would look positively on any invitation from Belfast City Council to have a representative attend its solemn armistice day ceremonies in the north’s capital.