A Chara, - As the author of the "fat-headed request" (Kevin Myers, An Irishman's Diary, November 26th) to the Irish Government to support our campaign for pardons for 26 Irish-born servicemen executed during the first World War, may I be given the opportunity to reply?
Many of the cases Mr Myers describes concern criminal acts (Constable Mitchell, for example, murdered a farmer in a robbery at his home). He is not comparing like with like and is making out a rather foolish case - not the reductio ad absurdum that I suspect he was aiming for. The pardons campaign has always been concerned with those shot by firing squad for purely military offences that amount to breaches of contract in most cases and not for, say, armed rebellion in 1916.
Mr Myers states inter alia "that we cannot revisit history with the values of the 21st century" implying that we should not use today's standards of justice to judge the past. This is invalid, primarily because it is predicated on the assumption that public opinion about the execution of soldiers during the first World War endorsed the decision to kill the men or was at odds with today's criticism. This is simply incorrect - a fact that was confidentially acknowledged by the British army. Those who argue that public opinion during the first World War supported decisions to execute soldiers for military offences are advancing an officers' view, a perspective embraced by an unrepresentative minority of the population.
These men were executed under questionable circumstances. It was a futile exercise in military discipline. Some relatives feel a surge of outrage and consider their long lost kin to have been judicially murdered. On the facts of the cases, who can deny them this?
In September 2000 the New Zealand Government pardoned the NZEF soldiers who had been executed during the first World War - a development ill reported by the media. Its pardon Act states: "Their execution was not a fate that they deserved but was one that resulted from the harsh discipline that was believed at the time to be required; and the application of the death penalty for military offences being seen at the time as an essential part of military discipline." The purpose of the act "was to remove, so far as practicable, the dishonour that the executions brought to those soldiers and their families".
Since our campaign started in Ireland over two years ago it has attracted support across political and sectarian divides throughout Ireland and further afield. We welcome the support of the Irish Government and commend the staff in Iveagh House for following the compassionate and humane approach of our New Zealand friends. We hope the British Ministry of Defence will grant the request for pardons made by the Irish Government and finally remove the stigma of dishonour, giving our families the right to remember their dead with dignity. Justice does not have an expiry date. - Is mise,
PETER MULVANY, Co-ordinator, Shot at Dawn Campaign Ireland, Conquer Hill Road, Dublin 3.