Sir, - I have two English dictionaries, but the word "decommissioning" does not appear in either. I assume it is intended as a euphemism for "surrendering". I suppose I am one of the few members of the IRA still around who were involved in a previous "decommissioning". Early in 1923, the army council, headed by de Valera, realised that the armed struggle was over. The Republican forces had been defeated and they knew that victory was impossible and ordered arms to be dumped and hostilities to cease.
Very sensibly the Free State authorities made no attempt to collect the weapons before accepting the end of struggle. They knew enough about the way these weapons were held to realise that any attempt to collect them would be impossible. They were "decommissioned". I can tell about two of them. My cousin had been interned and was released when hostilities ceased. Some time later he met a fellow prisoner with whom he had been friendly. The conversation came around to weapons. "Would you like a Peter as a souvenir," said he friend. "I would indeed", said my cousin. The Mauser automatic hand gun was known as a "Peter the Painter".
It was brought to his house and he hid it away carefully. Ten years later he was moving house and he could not remember where he had hidden it. Wherever it was, it is still there.
The boy who had soldiered with me (we were both about 18 years of age) ended the war carrying a Thompson sub-machine gun. We both went back to UCD. He became a doctor and I became an engineer. He was well known as an ex IRA man and did not trust his former enemies. In his consulting rooms, he had installed a couch for examining patients. This was an unusual couch. When you pressed a hidden button out popped a Thompson sub-machine gun.
Even if the present IRA command decided to order the surrender of their weapons they are well aware such an order could not be enforced. We should be grateful for the ceasefire. The politicians demanding a surrender of weapons know very well they might as well ask for a slice of the next new moon. - Yours, etc., Aodogan O'Rahilly,
Clondalkin, Co Dublin.