THE REQUEST for a pardon for deserters from the Irish Army during the second World War implies a legal acceptance of guilt, but, as Peter Mulvany points out (Letters, June 28th), individuals deserve to be heard. Once during my Army service, when acting as the quaintly titled “Soldier’s Friend” (an officer chosen by a soldier to defend him), I succeeded in reducing a charge of desertion to one of AWOL (absent without leave) by putting the case, with confidential help from the Garda and the Society of St Vincent de Paul, of his family circumstances. However, that was in peacetime.
During the second World War there was a big difference between deserting when we were under imminent threat of a German invasion, and leaving to fight against Nazi tyranny when the war had moved away from us. We had no doubt on which side we were, with British officers observing military exercises.
For those who were punished for fighting with the British army, the sad aspect of it was that the Irish regiments share our military tradition.
As we were informed at a Military History Society lecture, the 38th (Irish) Infantry Brigade of the British army in the battle for Monte Casino in the second World War had as its motto " Ubique et semper fidelis" taken from the Irish Brigade in the service of France.
The Irish soldiers in the British army were recognised as being Irish by friends and enemies. John Devoy in his Recollections of an Irish Rebel recalls “bloody fights between Irish and English regiments”. Kipling on the Irish Guards, in which his son served and died, wrote: “And the Irish move to the sound of the guns, like salmon to the sea”.
Who owns a military tradition? Can it only belong to a separate state or is it owned by a people, regardless of how they are politically organised? Bartlett and Jeffery, in A Military History of Ireland,wrote that "with statehood North and South the Irish military tradition has largely retreated from public view". In fact, we have only one military tradition embellished by Irishmen, Catholics and Protestants, Nationalists and Unionists, down the centuries.
The Irish military tradition includes the honourable record of Irish soldiers in foreign armies like the "Regiment of Ultonia" in Spain. The history of the Irish Brigades in the service of France was well told by JC O'Callaghan in his 1869 book, and in the American Civil War by Capt DP Cunningham in The Irish Brigade and its Campaigns.
After nearly a century of neglect in the wings of Irish historical memory, there is evidence that awareness of the Irish regiments is coming back for the Irish people, as in the Clare County Library, the Athy Heritage Centre and the Tralee Great War Exhibition. The UK branch of the ONE (Organisation of National ex-Servicemen) has participated in the Combined Irish Regiments London Parade. Pupils from the Christian Brothers in West Belfast visit the Somme Exhibition in Newtonards. Danny Morrison, of Sinn Féin, reviewing Myles Dungan's Irish Voices from the Great War,in a Sunday newspaper admitted that "until I read this book I had only the vaguest comprehension of the extent of Irish involvement and the magnitude of the sacrifice".
The Military Heritage of Ireland Trust, under the chairmanship of Maj Gen PF Nowlan, offers help for researchers in this field.
Sadly, until recent years, the “Dubs” and the “Munsters” were as dead in the South as the bodies under the waves of V Beach, at Gallipoli, when it was not possible to see them with the blood in the water.
As David Officer expressed it, in "Re-presenting War, the Somme Heritage Centre", in History Ireland, there is not even so much as a "snow memorial" in any Irish military barracks. Organisations like the Royal Dublin Fusiliers Association now help mutual understanding.
The founding fathers of the Irish Republic accepted that military force should be used only on the orders of the elected representatives of the people. The National Army then became the inheritor of Ireland’s long and honourable military tradition. The Army has maintained its professional integrity ever since. Noel Conway has commented on “The Bloods” (3rd Infantry Battalion), that, during the “Emergency”, they were “neither pro-German nor anti-British”.
We saw history being made by President Mary McAleese and Queen Elizabeth at the Irish War Memorial Garden at Islandbridge earlier this year. In the Island of Ireland Peace Park we can commemorate the heroism of the 16th (Irish) Division of constitutional nationalists side by side with those of the Unionist tradition commemorating those of the 36th (Ulster) Division, just as the two divisions fought side by side to victory on Messines Ridge.
The shared heritage of the Irish military tradition provides an invaluable bridge between the two political traditions, one of the important objectives of Mary McAleese’s presidency and a step on the road to John Hume’s “agreed Ireland”. Kipling’s words sum up the position of the young Irish Army: “We’re not so old in the Army List but we’re not so new in the ring”. In a brighter future, could there be room for an Irish EU battle-group of units from North and South?