Madam, - Over the past few weeks a small group of people have kept up a sustained attack on the recent RTÉ documentary The Killings at Coolacrease.
In last Saturday's Irish Times, Dr Pat Muldowney, a lecturer in mathematics at the University of Ulster, alleges that an RIC investigation concluded that the Pearson brothers were targeted by the IRA because they shot at two members of Sinn Féin. He is quite wrong: in fact, there was no investigation.
The document Dr Muldowney cites as evidence of an RIC investigation is actually British army correspondence (5th Division Curragh Camp) speculating on the reasons for the Pearson killings. It was filed after the Court of Inquiry had deliberated on July 2nd in Birr.
Entitled "The Coolacrease Murders 30.6.21 - Possible Motives", the first part of the document speculates that the Pearsons were targeted for their land. Part two then states: "It is said by the CI [ County Inspector] Queen's County that the two Pearson boys a few days previously had seen two men felling a tree on their land adjoining the road. Had told the men concerned to go away and when they refused had fetched two guns and fired and wounded two Sinn Feiners, one of whom is believed died."
Crucially the very next sentence reads: "It is further rumoured when the farm house was burning two guns fell out of the roof." In other words, the army was simply collating the rumours surrounding the deaths of the Pearsons (in fact nobody died that night). Not only were these rumours never investigated; the "Possible Motives" document did not even form part of the Court of Inquiry.
Dr Muldowney also argues that the Pearson women did not witness the executions of their brothers Richard and Abraham. He reaches this conclusion despite the fact that Ethel Pearson, in a sworn statement to the Court of Inquiry, said: "I saw the raiders search my brothers, and place them against the wall of the barn and shoot them."
Dr Muldowney seems to have arrived at his conclusions in spite of, rather than because of, the evidence at hand. - Yours, etc,
NIAMH SAMMON, (Director, The Killings at Coolacrease), Captain's Road, Crumlin, Dublin 12.