THE repatriation of republican bones rattled the Rev Ian Paisley 30 years ago. The State Papers released this year document the re interment of Reginald Dunne and Joseph O'Sullivan. They were hanged in England for shooting Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson MP in 1922 - on the orders of Michael Collins.
Sir Henry Wilson had been an influential unionist and when Dunne and O'Sullivan were reburied in Dublin in 1967, more than 2,000 people attended a protest rally in Belfast, at which Paisley said: "These insults will never be forgotten by loyal Ulstermen."
Wilson's assassination can be understood only against the backdrop of the tragic events which consolidated partition and led to civil war in the South. A Collins confidant wrote: "When Mick saw the pogroms he grew very angry and said - `We'll kill a member of that bunch'."
On June 22nd, 1922, Wilson was shot on his doorstep in London by two ex servicemen, Reggie Dunne and Joe O'Sullivan, who had lost a leg at Ypres. Dunne was second in command in the London IRA, a friend of Collins and Rory O'Connor whose anti Treaty forces had occupied the Four Courts. He talked to both on a visit to Dublin shortly beforehand, and one of the reasons for the shooting was the hope that it would bring the two sides together.
In the event it intensified British pressure on Collins to attack the Four Courts. The B Specials killed three unarmed youths in Cushendall as a reprisal. The mission shows the disjointed state of the IRA as the republican movement split. Collins was operating, under immense strain, at two levels: as chairman of the Free State Provisional Government and of the IRB Supreme Council.
For a few days after Wilson's death it appeared that the Anglo Irish war might be resumed. Gen Sir Nevil Macready was instructed to draw up a plan to dislodge the Four Courts garrison using the British forces still in Dublin. (He managed to delay matters until Lloyd George's cabinet cooled down and Collins was forced to do the job.)
After the shooting of Wilson, Dunne could have escaped, but chose to stay with the one legged O'Sullivan, who had fired the shots. They were captured by policemen and an angry crowd. Collins admitted to Gen Joseph Sweeney: "It was two of ours that did it." He sent Tom Cullen to attempt a rescue but it was hopeless, and did everything he could to secure a reprieve. But the two men were executed in Wandsworth Prison on August 10th, 1922.
In a statement disallowed during the trial - they asserted: `We took our part in supporting the aspirations of our fellow countrymen in the same way as we took our part in supporting the nations of the world who fought for the rights of small nationalities ... The same principle for which we shed our blood on the battlefield of Europe led us to commit the act we are charged with Sir Henry Wilson was not so much the great British field marshal as the man behind the Orange Terror. As military adviser he raised and organised a body known as the Ulster Special Constables, who are the principal agents in his campaign of terrorism."
Cordial relations
Four decades later, relations between the Irish State and a British Labour government were relatively cordial. The repatriation application was made by Patrick O'Sullivan, a brother of one of the executed men, to the then Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins. O'Sullivan was encouraged "by the generous and courageous action shown by your government in a similar case of the return of the remains of Roger Casement" in 1965.
The secretary of the Department of External Affairs, Hugh McCann, had misgivings. He pointed out in a secret memorandum on November 1st, 1966: "Needless to say we would not suggest that the British should refuse the present application. Nevertheless, we recognised that the possibility did exist that the repatriation might reawaken interest and, possibly, controversy within one or other parts of Ireland in a matter which might better be regarded as an event of history not to be highlighted at the present time."
His Minister, Frank Aiken, regarded "the repatriation of Casement's body not as a precedent for a series to follow, but rather as a symbolic act representing the return of the bodies of all who died abroad in the cause of Irish freedom and the identification and repatriation of which it would be impossible to complete".
In a confidential aide memoire the British embassy expressed the view that "refusal might well be likely to create as much public controversy, both for the Irish as well as the British authorities, as the grant of the application".
Nervous about Paisley
McCann was able to quote from a report of the Northern Ireland Division of the Home Office to the Commonwealth Relations Office. Members of division was nervous about Paisley, who had been jailed for three months for provoking a riot in the Markets area of Belfast.
However, they did "not object to these proposals in principle, particularly having regard to the Casement precedent. They have, however, pointed out that Sir Henry Wilson was a figure much more closely identified with the Ulster question than Casement and there is, therefore, a risk that these exhumations may inflame opinion in Ulster, particularly in view of the present imprisonment of the Rev Paisley. They hope therefore that the authorities in the Republic will not lay too much stress on the reinterment, since the present delicate state of affairs in Northern Ireland might produce unwelcome reactions to undue celebrations. From our end this means in practical terms that we shall hope to avoid the exhumation and re-interment coinciding with the release of Paisley."
Hugh Delargy MP informed the Irish ambassador, J.G. Molloy, that the Home Office had agreed to the repatriation of the remains of Commandant Reginald Dunne and Volunteer Joe O'Sullivan".
The Home Office told the Commonwealth Office: "Stormont were none to happy about the proposal but they were unable to advance a sufficiently good reason to justify the departure from our current policy that would have been involved by refusing to grant this application".
In Dublin, on July 7th, 1967, the Government secretary, Dr N.S. O Nuallain, "suggested to the Taoiseach [Jack Lynch] that the flag on the GPO should be half masted tomorrow until noon - the funeral Mass will be at 10 a.m. - and he agreed". In Dean's Grange cemetery next day, three men with revolvers fired a volley over the fresh graves.