The game plan for Jack Lynch

Sir — Reading Eoghan

Harris’s piece last Sunday was instructive of his interpretation of the complicated events of the 1970 Arms Crisis. It seems obvious that Harris is in the category of those who credit Jack Lynch with steering the State away from a hypothetically disastrous incursion into Northern Ireland.

That narrative is very popular, but the facts are that the trial jury came back, fairly quickly, with a verdict of acquittal, having asked a final question of the judge as to whether Col Hefferon had said that the February 6 directive to the Defence Forces “ordered the provision of arms against the contingency of possibly distributing them to civilians in Northern Ireland”, to which the judge’s answer was “yes”.

There has been much debate of the phrase “for the use of the Defence Forces”, but it seems the jury felt that if there was generic approval at departmental level then the defendants were within their rights to act as they did.

It seems to me that when Cosgrave came to Lynch with the anonymous note on May 5, the latter was forced to portray a renouncement of any scintilla of illegality, but crucially, at the same time, saving the Fianna

Fail government. At the time of the ministerial sackings, Lynch would have had the support of (1) his party supporters (2) Cosgrave and Corish (3) the British and, most probably “middle Ireland”.

He prevailed, at a price, and then, in Heney’s words, “Lynch felt obliged to dissimulate, and ultimately he engaged in a cover up of the directive’s full contents”.

It appears Lynch was playing “ground” hurling, a game he was familiar with.

Sean Seartan,

Shanakiel, Cork city