Debating facts about spies and informers

Sir — Eoghan Harris (Sunday Independent, August 13) misrepresents our findings on suspected spies and informers killed in Cork during the War of Independence. This research was presented in a paper to the recent West Cork History Festival. In this I acknowledged Peter Hart’s contribution to the historiography but challenged a core conclusion in his work that ‘Looking over the whole span of the revolution, we can see that the main themes of the west Cork massacre [in April 1922] conspiracy theories, land and sectarian vengeance were prefigured in the executions of ‘informers’ carried out in the previous two years’.

The results of our work provides a good basis to test Hart’s contentions about 1920-21 (the War of Independence period) in the final chapter of his book on the Cork IRA, which hinge on the killing of suspected spies and informers.

The implications of Hart’s findings in the final chapters of his book was that not only was the Dunmanway massacre a sectarian event, but sectarianism also resonated through the earlier killing of suspects, thus raising the spectre of a systemic sectarian problem within the IRA during the War of Independence.

Our research challenges this formulation as set out by Hart as it reveals that 69pc of the suspected spies and informers killed during the War of Independence in County Cork were Catholics. This makes these killings fundamentally different to those during the Dunmanway massacre in April 1922 (all of whom were Protestant). The sectarian implications of the latter event were widely understood and immediately publicly condemned by both sides of the republican leadership following the Treaty split at both a local and national level. So it is simply incorrect for Harris to state that there was a shameful silence, more particularly since he cites Erskine Childers’s declaration, which contradicts his claim.

Our findings for the War of Independence revealed that by far the largest category of suspects killed in Co Cork were ex-crown forces (56pc of the total), the vast majority of whom were Catholic; in short this was not a story about sectarianism.

The majority of the 71 victims identified came from poorer backgrounds (eg unemployed accounted for 16pc; unskilled or semi-skilled for 37pc; skilled trades for 10pc) and a majority of victims (eg, 61pc) were killed in the Cork One Brigade area (which included the city and all of rural Cork) in between the territory of the West Cork and North Cork Brigades.

This area accounted for 43 of suspects killed compared to 18 in the West Cork Brigade area, which was therefore less important in this particular matter. Our study reveals that the picture regarding the killing of suspected spies and informers for the War of Independence period in Co Cork painted by which implies that either sectarian vengeance or land were centrally important is not factually accurate, and now requires revision.

We never argued for one minute, as Harris implies, that there was not even a ‘relatively minor sectarian aspect to the IRA campaign in Cork’ during the Irish Revolution at large. Concrete proof of this is that we have published our detailed findings on the Dunmanway massacre in the journal Eire Ireland in the autumn of 2014, in which we concurred with Hart’s assessment that this event was most certainly sectarian, but we don’t accept his assessment that this was prefigured in the killing of suspected spies and informers in 1920-21. This is what I argued in the paper in West Cork, contrary to Harris’s falsification of our position. In studying the revolution at large we need to distinguish between its different phases; that’s what historians do.

We are already working on covering deaths during the Truce and the Civil War and this will be published in due course, along with our analysis of those findings.

Our findings do not concur with Harris’s evidence-free version of 1919-23 (basically ‘Irish History in the Shadow of the Troubles’ in which sectarianism seems to be the only factor of consequence for the entire period and Dunmanway is repetitively invoked as proof of this for the entire revolution, which can thus be treated as a mini version of the northern troubles.

When we move away from that inaccurate perspective, using multiple sources (not just one) we will be in a better position to gain a more accurate picture of the Protestant experience of the entire revolution, which certainly needs to be told, including widespread emigration, population decline, forced departures, Protestants within the IRA etc. Andy Bielenberg, School of History, University College Cork

Eoghan Harris writes: As Dr Bielenberg charges me with being “evidence free”, let me use his own figures to prove Peter Hart was correct in seeing a sectarian side to the IRA’s preTruce killings of alleged spies in Cork. Dr Bielenberg says that 69pc of suspected informers killed were Catholic — which means that an astonishing 31pc were Protestant. Astonishing because the Protestants were such a small minority. The 1911 Census for Cork county shows, 91.45pc were Roman Catholic, so only 8.25pc were Protestant; in Cork city 88.84pc were Roman Catholic, so only 11.16pc were Protestant. Excluding the British Army and dependants, the Protestant minority falls to under 10pc. Going on his own figure of 31pc Protestant victims this means the 10pc Cork Protestant community was disproportionately targeted. Peter Hart — and common sense — suggest this was for sectarian reasons.

Not a pogrom

Sir — Successive writers and columnists down the years (including Kevin Myers) have mistakenly described the 1904 Limerick outbreak of harassment and boycott of the Jews as being a pogrom. Latest to use this misnomer is Eoghan Harris in his article on the Bandon Valley massacre (Sunday Independent, August 13).

The outbreak of anti-Semitism in Limerick in 1904 was indeed a disgraceful act, fuelled by Father Creagh, a bigoted Men’s Confraternity Director, but it was not a pogrom. A pogrom, according to the latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, is an “organised massacre of an ethnic group, originally that of Jews in Russia”.

This letter is by no means a defence of the Limerick anti-semitism outbreak, but as we are constantly reminded of this blot on our city’s history, would writers such as Mr Harris, in fuHart, ture, please desist from using the term pogrom in describing the events in Limerick of 1904. Denis O’Shaughnessy, Limerick

Eoghan Harris writes: Although History Ireland and many academic articles use the term “Limerick pogrom”, I accept Denis O Shaughnessy’s point and will not be using the term again.

Life will work out

Sir — Eilis O’Hanlon (Sunday Independent, August 20) urges middle-aged people to “leave the Leaving to the young and stop reliving the past”. She maintains that people talking about their own Leaving Certs many years previously “adds to the pressure on today’s teenagers, who must feel the while country is peering noisily over their shoulders”.

However this couldn’t be further from the truth. When older people speak about their own Leaving Cert results this creates an affinity between the generations and some young people who may have been disappointed may realise that in the overall scheme of things the majority of people find their niche in life irrespective of their Leaving Cert results.

Students have the option of repeating their exams. This may not appeal to many students at this particular time but they can also return to education as mature students after the age of 23. In this instance they may apply for a course by just obtaining the minimum entry qualifications and doing an interview.

To quote the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, “life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards”. Life is long, for most people their are many twists and turns but if you really want something and are prepared to jump through whatever hoops life throws at you, things will work out in the end. Tommy Roddy, Galway