Sir, – It is with some weariness that I read yet another letter from Niall Meehan attempting to discredit a well-sourced account of an attack on Protestants during the period 1920-23 (January 13th). This has been a consistent theme in Mr Meehan’s polemics in various publications. To date he has challenged Peter Hart’s accounts of the Dunmanway murders and Alan Stanley’s account of the Coolacrease killings. The charge common to all his apologias is that the murdered Protestants were either informers or too friendly with the British forces.
Mr Meehan’s preposterous letter paints a picture of the boys of Ballyconree orphanage that would be perfectly at home in a James Bond novel. However, as more and more of these stories of crimes against Protestants between 1920-23 come out, Mr Meehan seems to be caught in a difficult place. Either a vast amount of ordinary Protestants (among them shopkeepers, ministers, farmers and even members of pacifist religious sects) were spies and informers, or the murders and crimes were driven by something else. As the only common factor is religion, it would seem sensible that this was the more likely motivation. — Yours, etc,
Sir, – To further correct “An Irishman’s Diary” of January 9th, the Free State was established in December 1922. For most of 1922 the Provisional Government of Southern Ireland was responsible for the 26 counties.
The details of the burning are less important than the effect that such events had on Ireland’s future. The main financial hope for the South in 1922 was that the former landed gentry would stay at home and spend their income from their compensations for selling land under the Land Acts. The amounts came to over €50 billion in modern values. The annuities that supported the capital were still being paid and were a drain on rural incomes. Under the Treaty, the South also had to pay its share of the British public debt, an overhang that had not even been quantified.
To facilitate this, a large number of the senators nominated to the Free State Senate were Protestants, either former landowners or professionals that they admired, such as Lord Glenavy and Henry Guinness. It was said that this reflected WT Cosgrave’s liberalism towards Protestants, but the covert reason was to keep them involved in the new state, living and spending their money here. This was made known to my great-grandfather Walter Guinness when he was appointed secretary to the treasury in 1924.
Unfortunately the ongoing civil war and events such as Ballyconree and the burnings of hundreds of country houses alienated most of the wealthier former gentry and they left Ireland. Arguably the results of the weaker financial position included emigration and the hastily conceived Boundary Commission deal in 1925. – Yours, etc,