Should the Fianna Fail party want guidance in its new code of ethics on the vexed subject of taxation, it should look no further than the midlands, where two previously unpublished letters have surfaced after nearly 60 years.
They are the inner thoughts of Eamon de Valera, which are contained in correspondence with a Portarlington priest on the morality of taxation.
What is extraordinary is the length to which the then Taoiseach went to look into a query from a rural priest whom he described as his friend.
Father Thomas Burbage was born in Mountmellick in 1889 and was ordained in 1904. He was a rebel and while working as a curate in the village of Geashill during the War of Independence was arrested and taken to the Curragh.
He was moved from the Curragh to Arbour Hill and later was sent to the British internment camp at Ballykinlar, Co Down, with other internees.
There, in his cloth cap and wearing hobnailed boots because he was treated as an ordinary prisoner, he became chaplain to the 600 republicans imprisoned there. One of his closest friends was a man called Sean T. O Ceallaigh, who was to become president of Ireland.
He had a long friendship with the republican leaders and was in communication with de Valera who used visit him on special occasions in Mountmellick where he was parish priest.
In 1942 he wrote to The Chief, who was then Taoiseach, posing a question on the moral obligation to pay income tax because it was a penal measure.
In a letter dated July 29th, 1942, de Valera wrote:
"Dear Fr Burbage, Sean T. showed me your letter of the 17th instant. It raises a big question, to which I am afraid I have not hitherto given sufficient thought. It makes clear to me something which had always caused me some wonder when I heard people say that there was no moral obligation to pay income tax because it was `a penal measure'.
"Your inquiry makes quite clear to me what is involved. I have always taken it for granted that just laws passed by a legitimate government in the interest of the community, i.e. for the common good, had behind them, quite irrespective of any intention of the legislator in that regard, a moral sanction.
"Your inquiry suggests that it might be otherwise, but as that view is new to me I must have the matter carefully examined.
"Personally I dislike the idea of the human legislator being able to add by express intent, and possibly, arbitrarily, a moral sanction over and above whatever sanction follows implicitly from the natural or the Divine law.
"That is, however, only my own personal reaction, and as I am by no means a theologian I will have to have the whole question looked into.
"Thanks to your letter, I see for the first time what is involved.
"Do chara, Eamon de Valera."
In a follow-up letter later in the year, de Valera wrote to Father Burbage, but this time he had done all his homework. He wrote:
"Dear Fr Burbage, I have received your letter. I mentioned your question to a certain theologian, but as he was leaving the country he simply gave me the four volumes of Davis's Moral and Pastoral Theology.
"I have read Davis's treatment and I am afraid he has not dealt specifically with the point which you raise, namely, the extent to which moral obligation is affected by the intention of the legislator.
"After reading him and some reflection of my own on the matter I see no reason to change the general view which I expressed in my letter to you on the 29th July.
"I have, however, referred your specific point to a couple of eminent theologians, and will let you know what their view is.
"Meantime, can you take it for certain that the Government had no intention or desire to add any further moral obligation to that which flows naturally from the fact that the laws to which you refer, against blackmarketing etc, were made for the express purpose of safeguarding the community and that they were in the judgment of the Government and Legislature regarded as necessary to that end.
"Sincerely yours, Eamon de Valera.
The two letters were uncovered recently in the Mountmellick parish archives by the current parish priest, the Very Rev Frank McNamara, who said they were historically interesting.
He said Mr de Valera had close contact with Father Burbage and had come to Mountmellick for the reopening of the church which Father Burbage had built.