Aspects of British Propaganda

national | rights, freedoms and repression | event notice Saturday September 04, 2004 21:15 by Jack Lane - Athol Books jacklaneaubane at hotmail dot com C/O Shandon Street Post Office, Cork

during the War of Independence

A talk by Dr Brian Murphy OSB

Author of Patrick Pearse & the Lost Republican Ideal

A critique off the misuse of source material and reliance on British propaganda output by certain revisionist historians

Meeting on aspects of British Propaganda 1919-21

ASPECTS OF BRITISH PROPOGANDA
DURING THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE

Dr Murphy speaks on the relationship between the writings of Peter Hart and propaganda published by British forces during the War of Independence. This talk will complement recent work by Tom Barry biographer Meda Ryan.

Ryan demonstrated that Hart’s findings relating to the IRA during the War of Independence are suspect. In the past Dr Murphy published on the misuse of original source material by leading revisionist historian Professor Roy Foster. Dr Murphy’s latest research demonstrates how the acolytes of Professor Foster continue to ignore inconvenient facts and to draw instead unwarranted conclusions that support British rule.

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RECORD OF A CORRESPONDENCE IN THE IRISH TIMES in 1998
(Note: this correspondence was eventually closed by the Editor when Peter Hart was in full retreat and on the ropes. Any matters left unresolved were comprehensively dealt with by Meda Ryan in her recent biography of Tom Barry)

The Irish Times
May 29, 1998, AN IRISHMAN'S DIARY
By KEVIN MYERS

So maybe these troubles are, bar a few more stupid, purposeless killings, finally over. Yet already I can sense the events of the past 30 years being rewritten and a thick layer of historical cosmetic paste being smeared over the butcheries, the torture, the ethnic cleansings and the disappeared.

We have seen much similar vileness dressed over before, and transformed into congenial and heroic myth. It has taken nearly 80 years for a written account, free of legendising and propaganda, to give details of the IRA's most celebrated theatre in the "Anglo-Irish" war, Cork.

The historian responsible is Peter Hart, whose work, The IRA and its enemies - Violence and Community in Cork, 1916- 23 (Oxford) must be the most masterly study of what became a truly legendary IRA campaign. It is the product of many years' work - Peter began his investigations just as the last of the veterans of the time were coming to the end of their lives. He spoke to all he could, and most of those he met, he liked, as decent men, with a fine sense of humour and a deep sense of commitment to the cause for which they were fighting.

The fevers of war

Of course, the personal merits of the individuals concerned are barely relevant. Once men are seized by the fevers of war, they generally abandon their own personal principles, because normally they are not fighting for any personal gain. Is it surprising so few IRA veterans seem ever to have expressed remorse at what they had done? Did the availability of the Catholic confessional relieve men of their guilt? Or did the hagiographical culture which settled on this period allow old men forget the reality of their deeds? Of course they were terrible times, far more terrible than history or popular folklore generally record. It was a time of personalised murder.

Peter's close analysis of the time indicates that less than half of the Crown casualties of the time, and only a third of shootings by IRA men, occurred in combat, with Crown force shootings following a similar pattern. The rest of the killings were of the helpless, the unarmed, as underlined by another statistic which Peter reveals: only one in ten of Crown losses, and less than one in five of the IRA's losses occurred in engagements in which the other side suffered casualties.

In other words, the famed fights at Crossbarry and Kilmichael were atypical, not least because the flying-column format responsible for them was extremely vulnerable to counter-attack by the British. Kilmichael is, alas, celebrated in song and folklore, though Peter's minute examinations reveal that, in 1920, Tom Barry systematically slaughtered disarmed RIC Auxiliaries after they had surrendered. Barry's story that they had resumed firing under a false flag of surrender is a fiction concocted by Barry himself.

Unnecessary death

There is a large memorial at Kilmichael, ostensibly to the three volunteers who were killed in the engagement; but in reality it honours the extermination of a column of Auxiliaries, who Barry later was to say had been terrorising the innocent people of the area. In fact, that Auxiliary unit had killed one local civilian, an event "which depressed us," wrote one Auxiliary at the time, "especially as it was a stupid and unnecessary death and it had, so to speak, opened war, which we had not wanted."

The revenge for that was soon coming. Two Auxiliaries travelling from Macroom vanished. They had been kidnapped, "interrogated" (whatever that means) and murdered, their bodies buried secretly. The ambush of 18 Auxiliaries at Kilmichael occurred shortly afterwards, and ended in the butchery, with bayonet, revolver and shotgun, of those who had surrendered. "Barry made us," recollected one volunteer. "He shot one, then we shot one." Some volunteers refused, and several were hysterical.

Two Auxiliaries survived. One, Cadet H. Forde, clubbed and shot in the head and left for dead, was paralysed and brain-damaged for the rest of his life. Another, Cecil Guthrie, was shot and wounded but escaped. Hours later he accidentally stumbled into two unarmed volunteers, was kept for two days, and was then murdered and buried secretly in Annahala Bog - a truly shaming business which Barry, of course, glossed over in Geurilla Days in Ireland. And finally, the commanding officer of the Auxiliaries, ex-Colonel Buxton Smith, who was not on the patrol, never recovered from the annihilation of his men, and shortly afterwards killed himself.

No public mention

Yes indeed, there is a memorial at Kilmichael: but it doesn't mention any of that, just as in the decades which followed, no public mention was made of the pogrom of Protestants in West Cork, in which one veteran of Kilmichael was probably involved, nor of IRA "conscription" of unwilling youths, nor of the campaign of murder of ex-servicemen, nor of the numerous "disappeared" - Peter alone has evidence of 12 secret killings which since, unproven, remain outside his statistical analysis of events of the time.

And yes of course, Crown atrocities at the time were numerous; but they have been repeatedly testified to, then and ever since. Let us hope that the selective amnesia which settled over this period does not again descend on more recent events in the North. Not merely do the dead deserve better, more important still, so do the living. To understand how mythology has concealed the truth in Irish history, it is obligatory to read Peter Hart's The IRA and its Enemies. It is a masterpiece.
The Irish Times

The Irish Times June 5, 1998

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
The Kilmichael Ambush

A chara, - Kevin Myers (May 29th) laments the fate of 18 members of the Auxiliary division killed in the Kilmichael Ambush during the war of Independence.

Must I stress once again, that this war was forced on Ireland by the British Government who refused to accept the authority of a lawfully elected government of the Irish people and their declaration of independence. Worse still, in the war that followed, the British Government refused to implement the terms of the Geneva convention and captured IRA members (and the IRA was the lawful government of the Irish people) were executed by hanging or firing squad, or were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. In many cases, they were executed unofficially after capture.

Kevin Myers must surely be joking if he suggests that the IRA, underarmed and undertrained and facing tremendous odds should treat the enemy, that behaved in such a manner, with kid gloves and most certainly not the Auxiliary Division, who were guilty of the most appalling atrocities, including the murders of two priests - Fr Griffin in Galway, and Canon Magner in Dunmanway.

The Auxiliary company stationed in Macroom Castle, as Kevin Myers admits, were guilty of the murder in Baile Mhuirne, of an unarmed civilian. The Auxiliaries who were present were all guilty of a capital crime, since they participated in the murder or refused to arrest and charge those responsible. The Auxiliaries at Kilmichael had no special reason to expect that they would be treated as soldiers, given their record of refusing to accept the conventions of war.

However, having known General Tom Barry very well, I am quite prepared to accept his version of the ambush - that the Auxiliaries surrendered, threw down their rifles, but then opened fire with their revolvers at close range when the volunteers broke cover to accept surrender. This version is supported by the fact that the IRA casualties were three dead and another wounded. These would be unlikely if the ambush party remained in their concealed and covered positions.

Incidentally, Captain Godfrey, for whom Kevin Myers sheds tears, was generally believed in Baile Mhuirne to be the man who murdered the civilian there.

I wonder if this habit of revising history will spread to other countries? Are we likely to find some German journalists in the new millennium favourably reviewing a book that laments the hard times suffered by the Gestapo or the SS in occupied Europe during the last war?

Dia idir sin agus an tolc!
Yours, etc., Padraig O Cuanachain,
Sean Bothar Eochaille, Corcaigh.

The Irish Times June 23, 1998, CITY EDITION
The Kilmichael Ambush
Sir, - With reference to letters from Padraig O Cuanachain (June 5th) and John Paul McCarthy (June 15th) regarding Kevin Myers's discussion of my book, The IRA and Its Enemies, several points require a response. First of these is Mr O Cuanachain's appeal to the rights of the Dail, as a "lawfully elected government," and the agreed laws of war to defend the actions of the IRA at the Kilmichael ambush and elsewhere. In fact, whatever its moral or democratic legitimacy, the Dail had no legal standing and was never recognised by any foreign government. Nor did the IRA, as a guerrilla force acting without uniforms and depending on their civilian status for secrecy, meet the requirements of international law. The British government was therefore within its rights to give courts-martial the power to order executions. This, of course, did not empower policemen or soldiers to commit murder - as they certainly did - but this had nothing to do with international law.

Mr O Cuanachain also declares that he is willing to accept Tom Barry's version of Kilmichael, but one of the points my book makes is that Barry's story has changed considerably over time. Does Mr O Cuanachain believe Barry's original account, written in 1920, which makes no mention of a "false surrender" and blames the dead men for exposing themselves? And why shouldn't he believe the many other IRA veterans who were there, who disagreed with Barry's later version published in his memoirs? Surely Mr O Cuanachain would agree that history is a matter of fact, not blind faith in comfortable myths? - Yours, etc., Peter Hart,

School of Politics, Queen's University, Belfast BT7.

The Irish Times July 7, 1998, CITY EDITION
The Kilmichael Ambush
Sir, - I am certainly surprised at Peter Hart's contention (June 23rd) that Dail Eireann, which I claim was the lawfully elected government of the Irish people, had no legal standing and was never recognised by any foreign government. He states further that the IRA acting without uniform and depending on their civilian status, did not meet the requirements of international law (whatever that may be) and the British government was therefore within its rights to give courts martial the power to order executions.

Older readers will remember that after the last war, scores - if not hundreds - of German army officers were executed in formerly occupied territories for doing precisely what Mr Hart claims was legal. If Irish guerillas fighting without uniform deserved execution, surely also did the French Resistance fighting in the same manner. And it must be remembered that the French Resistance was also fighting in open defiance of their own government, which had concluded a peace treaty with Germany in 1940. Your readers will also recall that at Nuremberg, German leaders were held responsible, and rightly so for atrocities against civilians, although they themselves never actually "pulled the trigger". Many were executed. I never read any writer advocate that Lloyd George or Sir Hammer Greenwood or Lord French (Commander of the British occupation forces), should have been tried for their lives on account of atrocities committed against the civilian population in Ireland and most especially, for the horrific murders of Canon Magner in Dunmanway and Fr Brown in Galway that I referred to in a previous letter. The revision of history works in a very selective manner indeed.

It seems to me that in international law, the poor, the underprivileged, the third world, Irish patriots fighting for independence are in one category, and the rich and powerful nations and the victors are in another.

On the matter of the Kilmichael Ambush, Peter Hart refers to an account written General Tom Barry in 1920, I knew the General very well indeed. Is it seriously contended that in the middle of the War of Independence, he was guilty of an extraordinary breach of security, by committing to paper details which would incriminate himself and others and even attached his signature to the document? And then it was conveniently captured by the British army. This sounds very much like fiction to me or the British black propaganda. Where is the letter now? In the British war museum? Can Peter Hart produce even a photocopy? I am sure you, sir, would be delighted to reproduce it. It would be of great interest to readers. - Yours, etc., Padraig O Cuanachain,

Corcaigh.

The Irish Times July 22, 1998, CITY EDITION
The Kilmichael Ambush
Sir, - In reply to Padraig O Cuanachain (July 7th), members of the British army and the Irish police committed murder on a massive scale in Ireland in 1920 and 1921 - and typically got away with it. My book, The IRA and Its Enemies, discusses many such instances, their causes and consequences. These men should have been tried and convicted - but under British laws, not international ones.

Nor were members of the IRA protected by the Hague Convention, the basis for the law of war on land. The British government and its forces were not at war in this sense. To be recognised as belligerent soldiers, the guerillas would have had to be fighting for a responsible established state, wear a recognisable uniform or emblem, carry their arms openly, and not disguise themselves as civilians. None of these conditions applied. It is of course true that international law favours established states, but if any group can claim belligerent status when using political violence, then so can the INLA or the LVF. The Oklahoma bombers would also conceivably have a right to POW status. The analogy Mr O Cuanachain makes with occupied France in the second world war is an interesting one, but - at least under the Nuremberg principles - German criminals were convicted for war crimes because they violated the Hague rules by plundering, killing prisoners of war and hostages, etc. They were an illegally occupying power, and the Free French forces were fighting for a recognised government (in Allied eyes), despite not having a 1918 style mandate. Of course, resistance fighters did many of the things the IRA had done, and thus violated the laws of war, but they did for the most part qualify as combatants.

To return to the specifics of the Kilmichael ambush, I can answer Mr O Cuanachain's queries as to Tom Barry's first report of the action. It is reprinted in a classified divisional history written in 1922, now to be found in the Imperial War Museum in London. I have quoted almost all of it in The IRA and Its Enemies. Is it genuine? Clearly so, on a number of grounds.

First, IRA units habitually wrote weekly, monthly, and after-action reports, and many of these were captured. Many survive in Irish archives, but others are sprinkled through internal British documents and files, or were released to newspapers. Any historian of the period will know this to be true. Incidentally, there are no known cases of forged IRA documents.

Second, the report contains details of the column and the ambush which only a participant could have known.

Third, the report does not support the official British version of the ambush, which wrongly accused the IRA of mutilating the Auxiliaries with axes, among other things. Why forge a document if it won't do you any good or make your opponent look bad?

Fourth, why forge a document and then only reprint it secretly in an internal, unpublished, history after the conflict is over? It simply makes no sense.

Finally, my account of what happened depends largely on the memories of other IRA men who were there. Were not they also "Irish patriots fighting for independence"? Should we "revise" their words out of the story to keep Barry's lies intact?

As I write from Belfast, the terrible cost of hypocrisy and double standards is clear. Surely murder was murder in 1920, no matter who committed it, and surely it is time we can say so, and be governed simply by what the facts - and simple morality - tell us. - Yours, etc., Peter Hart,

School of Politics, Queen's University, Belfast

The Irish Times August 10, 1998
The Kilmichael Ambush
Sir, - I write in relation to the recent correspondence about the ambush at Kilmichael on November 28th, 1920, which was initiated by Kevin Myers on May 29th when he praised Peter Hart's book The IRA and its Enemies and accepted its conclusions. In his book Hart concluded that "British information seems to have been remarkably accurate. Barry's history of Kilmichael, on the other hand, is riddled with lies and evasions. There was no false surrender as he described it." Hart has defended this view on two subsequent occasions in your columns.

This opinion of Hart is largely based on what he calls Barry's "original after-action report written for his superiors", which was captured by the British. Hart accepts this as "an authentic captured document" and states that it "was only printed in an unpublished and confidential history." Several observations may be made about this document, which is so central to the charge that Barry was lying. Firstly, the report as it appears in the General Strickland Papers is not the original handwritten account by Barry. It is typed into the official record of the Irish Rebellion (1916-1921) in the 6th Divisional Area. Secondly, the report is not dated. Thirdly, contrary to Hart's assertion, the report did appear in published form, although with a limited circulation, in The Irish Republican Army from Captured Documents Only (June 1921).

The internal content of the report also raises many questions. While it does describe the column as being divided into three sections for the ambush, as indeed happened, there are many anomalies. The most serious discrepancies, as Hart admits, are the statements that that the column left its position to return home "as the enemy searches were completed", and that the decision to attack the Auxiliaries was taken some five minutes into their homeward journey. In other words the document suggests that, contrary to all other existing evidence, the column did not remain in their ambush positions until the Auxiliaries arrived.

These considerations alone place a major question mark on the authenticity of the document. These errors, moreover, are compounded by other issues over detail: for example the time of the column's arrival at Kilmichael and the time of the ambush do not accord with other accounts. The report is also brief. It does not, it is true, contain a mention of a false surrender, but neither does it mention other features central to the incident such as Barry standing in the road in military uniform to confront the first lorry, or the division of the three sections into smaller sub-sections.

The context in which the report was written is also significant. Barry had retreated with the column to Granure, some 10 miles south of Kilmichael, by the late evening of November 28th. In the early hours of next morning he was contacted by Charlie Hurley, Brigade Commandant, and made a verbal report to him. Liam Deasy received what he described as "a full report of the ambush" from Hurley on November 30th. A few days later, on December 3rd, Barry was taken to hospital in Cork with heart trouble, and was confined there until December 28th. In this context questions arise as to the need to make a report, and the opportunity to do so.

It should be noted that all Barry's detailed accounts of the ambush since the early 1940s mention a false surrender, and that he referred to others who did the same. One of the most significant was General F. P. Crozier, who was responsible for the Auxiliary Division of the RIC from 1920 to 1921, when he resigned owing to their lack of discipline. He wrote in Ireland For Ever (1932) that at Kilmichael "it was perfectly true that the wounded had been put to death after the ambush, but the reason for this barbarous inhumanity became understandable although inexcusable" because "arms were supposed to have been surrendered, but a wounded Auxiliary whipped out a revolver while lying on the ground and shot a 'Shinner', with the result that all his comrades were put to death."

Hart accepts that this story was to be heard as early as 1921, and he acknowledges Crozier "as the first writer" to acknowledge the false surrender story. In fact Crozier was not the first to write of such a surrender. Piaras Beaslai, for one, wrote in his life of Michael Collins (1926) that "what really happened on the occasion was that, after the fight had continued for some time, some of the Auxiliaries offered to surrender. When Volunteers advanced to take the surrender they were fired on."

Despite this significant evidence, which explicitly affirms the false surrender story, Hart chooses to reject it in favour of a document, surrounded with question marks, which merely fails to mention a false surrender. One cannot but feel that far more evidence is required before Barry's account may be dismissed as "lies and evasion". - Yours, etc., Brian P. Murphy,

Glenstal Abbey, Co Limerick.

The Irish Times September 1, 1998
The Kilmichael Ambush
Sir, - Brian P. Murphy (August 10th) raises some interesting points regarding Tom Barry's first report of the Kilmichael ambush. However, he is wrong to state that my reconstruction in The IRA and its Enemies is "largely based" on this document. In fact, my primary sources were interviews with participants and statements made by them, conducted and collected by myself and others.

The details are given in my book. It is these men's eyewitness accounts which contradict Barry's memoirs, and which provide the main body of evidence about what really happened on November 28th, 1920. The document in question is, however, significant in that it is the first written account of the ambush and it (and Barry's first published account in 1932) is remarkably different from the later, now familiar, story. It was only later that Barry claimed the Auxiliaries were wiped out because their "false surrender" lured three Volunteers to their deaths.

But is this report authentic? Murphy first notes that we do not have the original and that, as well as appearing in the unprinted, unpublished 6th Division history, it appears in a confidential printed (but not published) pamphlet issued to units by the Irish Command in 1921. This was not a piece of propaganda. In fact, it used dozens of captured documents to illustrate IRA methods and tactics. The pamphlet's British author even comments that the Kilmichael report does not support the official version of the ambush, which claimed the IRA mutilated the Auxiliaries' bodies.

We must therefore ask the following questions: why would the British army forge a document which does not agree with its version of events, and then keep it secret except to mislead its own officers as to IRA methods? Presumably Murphy does not question the provenance of the other reprinted documents (many can be found in Irish archives), so why suspect this one only? It seems to me that its inclusion among so many other authentic documents actually reinforces its believability.

Murphy also points to the report's omissions of detail and to inconsistencies with later versions, although he does note the reference to the column being split into sections as accurate. Other details which only participants could have known include the times given, the casualties and the fact that one Auxiliary escaped. The omissions can be attributed to the report's brevity, which also explains how Barry could write it so fast. The fact that he felt the need to write it all (which Murphy questions) could be held against any of the numerous similar reports he wrote about later actions, which can be found in the Richard Mulcahy Papers in the UCD Archives.

The inconsistencies arise from Barry's explanation of why the ambush happened. In the report - unlike his latter accounts - he suggests the ambush was accidental and unavoidable. Why? Possibly because it was unauthorised and outside brigade boundaries. This ensured Barry could stay in charge, but required explanation. And why would British forgers make up this otherwise insignificant detail anyway?

Finally, Murphy argues that other writers' mention of a "false surrender" supports Barry's later claims. I agree that F. P. Crozier's "findings" must be taken into account, but neither he nor Piaras Beaslai were there. Their references must be put alongside equally serious endorsements of the equally false British version by such writers as General Macready and W. A. Phillips. Repetition doesn't make either any truer. Kilmichael was the subject of a propaganda battle from the outset: it's hardly surprising that the truth lay in neither camp.

Why is the "false surrender" so important? Because from Barry's point of view it justified the "extermination" of unarmed and wounded prisoners. We know this happened: Barry and his biographer admit it, and many witnesses have described it in detail. These same witnesses deny Barry's claims - as do, implicitly, his earliest accounts. I would invite readers to ignore Barry's self-constructed reputation, weigh these facts and draw their own conclusions. - Yours, etc.,

Peter Hart,
School of Politics, Queen's University, Belfast 7.

The Irish Times September 7, 1998
The Kilmichael Ambush
Sir, - In his letter on Tom Barry and the Kilmichael ambush (September 1st) in which he replies to my earlier letter and attempts to substantiate his claim that Barry's account of the ambush "was riddled with lies and evasions".

In regard to the documentary evidence, Hart is prepared to accept the captured report of the Commander of the Flying Column as that of Barry, although, as I have pointed out, it is not handwritten by Barry and it is not dated.

Hart asks why this particular report, which he takes to be Barry's initial report, should be questioned. The answer is simple: the details of the ambush that it records do not, despite Hart's assertions to the contrary, match the accepted version of the encounter in many important matters. Hart himself accepts that "it is clear that, contrary to Barry's initial report, the ambush was planned." This is the most striking difference: the captured report talks of the Flying Column retiring from its position before the ambush, while all other accounts maintain that the column remained in waiting until the Auxiliaries arrived.

Hart states in his letter that the time of the ambush in the captured report is the same as in other recorded versions. This is not correct. Most versions state that the ambush began soon after 4 p.m. and Barry gives 4.05 p.m. as the start of the engagement. The captured report states that at 4.15 p.m. "we started the return journey" home, and then saw two lorries of Auxiliaries at about 4.20 p.m. The ambush began soon afterwards. In other words, the captured report has the ambush beginning when the action, which lasted about 20 minutes, was finishing.

The fundamental question is not whether or not the document was a forgery by the British, but why Peter Hart should reject part of the account as inaccurate, and then accept the failure to mention a false surrender as accurate. On what grounds does he base his selection? The source is either of value in its entirety or not at all. Questions as to why the British should forge such a document become irrelevant.

In regard to interviews with participants, the names of those interviewed by Hart, and by others, are given only as initials in his book, and much of their testimony centres on the killing of the Auxiliaries rather than on the false surrender. The published account of Stephen O'Neill, commander of section three at the ambush (Kerryman, December 1937), which accepts Barry's version of a false surrender is rejected by Hart. Also rejected is the evidence of eye-witnesses to be found in Meda Ryan's book on Tom Barry (1982), who accepted that there was a false surrender. I agree with Peter Hart that readers may weigh these facts and draw their own conclusions.

I would also add that in the quest for veracity over this particular issue, and in other historical matters of the period, it would be of great benefit if the statements and documents deposited in the Bureau of Military History were made available for research purposes. - Yours, etc., Dr Brian P. Murphy,

Glenstal Abbey, Co Limerick.

The Irish Times September 14, 1998
The Kilmichael Ambush
Sir, - Brian P Murphy's latest letter on Kilmichael (September 7th) abandons the argument he made previously that Tom Barry's original report of the ambush is not genuine. He now asserts that the "fundamental question" is not forgery but rather my explanation for why it differs from later accounts.

Yet surely there are only two logical possibilities: either Tom Barry wrote it or he did not. If he didn't, someone else did. Assuming that no one in the IRA would have reason to, then only someone on the government side could have. But, as I hope I have already demonstrated, British intelligence officers had no reason to concoct such a version of events and, in fact, believed the document to be real. It follows, therefore, that Barry must have written it. How, then, do we account for its omissions and discrepancies? The report lacks Barry's signature and handwriting, but this is entirely consistent with those he wrote in 1921, which can be found in the Richard Mulcahy Papers. Dr Murphy points again to the timing of the ambush, which Barry's report puts at 4.15, although he later stated it was 4.05. A similarly small difference exists with later versions of when the column began its march to the ambush site. In other words, the report is within a few minutes of other accounts, but not identical. This is certainly an acceptable level of accuracy given that people wrote from memory - and given the much wider gap between it and the British "official" version (which presumably a forger would wish to support).

So if the timing issue is not very significant, and if most of the other stated details are accurate - and Dr Murphy does not dispute them - we are left with the question of why Barry would lie about whether or not the ambush was planned. Dr Murphy believes that "the source is either of value in its entirely or not at all".

In fact, most documents are neither. Surely the correct historical approach to an apparently genuine document is to ask why the author wrote as he or she did?

In this case, I believe Barry's omissions and lies form a coherent pattern in that they eliminate the controversial aspects of the event. He didn't have authority to launch a risky ambush outside brigade boundaries, and he hadn't told his superiors, so he claimed it was an accident. Remember, at this point Barry was more or less on probation and had yet to make his name as a commander. Indeed, this was his first ever report. He also failed to mention the killing of wounded and surrendered men because that too might well cause trouble. It was unprecedented and went against the often chivalrous standards in combat set by such commanders as Sean Moylan and Sean MacEoin.

My own reconstruction in The IRA and Its Enemies is, as Dr Murphy points out, based primarily on the testimony of witnesses whose identities I was asked to keep confidential. This was true of interviews I conducted, and also those held by other people, who kindly allowed me to use the tapes and statements they collected (the details are in the book). Nowhere, however, does my book depend on the uncorroborated evidence of my interviews - they are always backed up by other sources, as is the case here. It is worth noting that Meda Ryan's excellent biography of Barry also quotes unnamed sources. In fact, we clearly interviewed the same person in at least one instance, although she does believe there was a "false surrender" (as I do note in my book).

Finally, let me end on a note of agreement and echo Dr Murphy's call for the Bureau of Military History to be opened to researchers. If this debate helps bring new evidence to light, it will represent a victory for everyone. - Yours, etc., Peter Hart,

School of Politics, Queen's University, Belfast.

The Irish Times September 26, 1998,
An Irishman's Diary By KEVIN MYERS
The wind is shifting, and unrepentant and unapologetic nationalism feels able to raise its head, before a gun is surrendered or a body uncovered. Prisoners are released to triumphant cheers while their victims moulder underground or stump around rehabilitation wards, trying to work out how to live without arms or eyes or bowels.

I know, I know, that is the deal, the people have voted on it and we must live with all its terms; but I truly detest it.

If I thought that was the end of it all - that the McAdams policy of removing not just the violence, but the causes of violence, was going to bring about a decent and harmonious society - I would force back the bile that rises to my throat as killers walk free. But one of the main causes of violence in Ireland has been a vigorous cultural acceptance of the morality of political violence. And those who have the power over that cause of violence cannot remove it, because the music and the culture of violence is part of their identity. If they denounce that part of their identity, they renounce the power which would enable them to remove a "cause of violence." Bloodthirsty ballads

The most common form of this vigorous cultural expression has been the ballad, with its historical simplifications and its simultaneous sanitisation of and exultation in bloodshed. History lessons were learnt at the knees of balladeers and that history was bogus, forming wildly inaccurate perceptions of the past. But in recent years, most people found bloodthirsty balladeering too distasteful, and outside IRA pubs and clubs one heard few of the anthems to patriotic homicide which were once a standard part of the evening out.

History is already being rewritten about the recent troubles. A "good" IRA is emerging in myth; a fictional "reasonable" and "democratic" IRA which merely wanted justice for all. In the hearths of ordinary nationalism old embers are beginning to glow - and facts cannot quench that glow, as we have repeatedly seen in the past. So I was not really surprised to see that The Boys of Kilmichael, with new words, is on Jimmy Crowley's new CD, Uncorked.

There has been much controversy about the truth of what happened at Kilmichael since Peter Hart's brilliant account of the war in Cork 1916-23, The IRA and its Enemies. It is not necessary to go over the controversial ground again. Let us agree on the shared and undisputed fact: that most of the RIC Auxiliaries killed in the ambush there were shot or bayonetted after they surrendered.

One man was left for dead, paralysed for life and permanently brain-damaged. Another wounded RIC Auxiliary managed to get away, but was found, held for two days, shot and secretly buried.

Killing prisoners

For the purposes of argument, I will concede that there is a certain understandable logical reason why guerillas will not take prisoners. Guerillas are not alone in such ruthlessness. During the Normandy landings, for example, both British and US soldiers with inconvenient prisoners of war sometimes killed them. But it is neither civilised nor decent to then make up celebratory songs about the affair. Turning what might have been a pragmatic and ruthless necessity into something singably laudable is deeply wrong, no matter if the victims of the killings had been concentration guards or SS.

Jimmy Crowley - whom I have greatly admired for his self-mockery and his brilliant evocations of Cork and its dialects - writes on the CD sleeve: "Songs from the War of Independence have become so frowned upon in post-modern Ireland that young people are being denied any recourse to national pride, landscape (sic: I presume he means landscape) legends or any form of heroism, all very necessary components of the Irish psyche." He has added a verse saying "history's new scribes in derision/ The pages of valour deny." I wonder who he means. And he concludes his rendition with a rousing "Up the Republic". Why? Only a saloon-bar wetbrain - and he is not one - would think there was something especially brave in making such a declaration.

Physical bravery

I don't know what Jimmy Crowley - or come to that, anyone - means by "post-modern," but I do know that a "national pride" which would wish to glorify the butchery of a dozen or so unarmed men is disturbed; and a psyche which would find reassurance in such musical celebration is perverse and disturbing. For such tribal triumphalism is not only deeply unhealthy, but is also laying the moral seedbed for another generation of war.

Only a fool would deny the bravery of Tom Barry and his men, but physical bravery is one of mankind's more dubious qualities, and we should rejoice in expressions of it at our peril. The bravest soldiers this century have been the Waffen SS, the Soviet Army, the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Irishness draws on greater and richer virtues; yet, though we can look with pride at our absurdly rich treasury of culture, it would be a sad day if some of the great and unashamedly martial ballads of Ireland, such as Men of the West, Follow me up to Carlow and The West's Awake were to be lost to a new and anti-republican form of political correctness.

But over the grievous murders of Kilmichael, we should draw a discreet veil of musical silence.

The Irish Times November 10, 1998
The Kilmichael Ambush
Sir, - I refer to correspondence regarding the Kilmichael Ambush and the "false surrender" aspect. For my book The Tom Barry Story (1982) I interviewed the ambush participants who were alive back to the early 1970s. All, including the last survivor, Ned Young (d.1989) and Paddy O'Brien (d.1979) spoke of the "surrender call' by the Auxiliaries and their resumption of shooting. Unlike Peter Hart, none of the participants of the ambush to whom I spoke asked me to keep their names confidential, and I have no problem with giving reference names, dates, etc. I would stress that I spoke to and questioned them while their memory was vivid, and this is important.

I grew up in the area and I listened to people get very angry that "The Auxies" picked up their guns after their surrender cries. My uncle, Pat O'Donovan, was in Section 2, where the three volunteers who were fatally shot were positioned. He, like others, said that he heard "the surrender call' in that evening atmosphere of the Kilmichael countryside. The suggestion made by Peter Hart that there was no false surrender is based to an extent on a report that allegedly was written by Tom Barry and was later captured. Peter Hart chooses the absence of the mention of a false surrender in this report as a proof that there was no false surrender. As Brian Murphy has pointed out (August 10th), this report is not an original hand-written account, nor is it dated; nor indeed has it any of the characteristics to show it is authentic. It is typed into an official record with quotation marks. Furthermore, it was typed after the Truce because it mentions Barry as being "afterwards appointed Liaison Officer." It has all the hallmarks of a propaganda work. Basic elements point to a forgery. Most of the sentences contain elements that are at variance with written versions and also with that of participants' information.

To begin with: If Tom Barry wrote this report for his superiors, he would surely have got the number of men under his command correct. The first sentence has the time incorrect (important to Barry); the second has 32 men, instead of the correct 36 men. That sentence also mentions 100 rounds of ammunition per man. With that amount Barry could have stormed Macroom Castle!

This report (allegedly Barry's) states that the column left its Kilmichael position at 4.15 p.m. and "about five minutes after the start we sighted two enemy lorries . . . I decided to attack the lorries." Peter Hart agrees that this is incorrect, that the column remained in position; however, he suggests that Barry wrote this because "he hadn't told his superiors, so he claimed it was an accident" (September 14th) as the ambush "was unauthorised and outside brigade boundaries" (September 1st).

The facts are: The ambush was sanctioned by Liam Deasy and Charlie Hurley who both visited the training camp the previous week, and who were in consultation with Cork No. 1 brigade personnel. I have Deasy's word for this. Deasy also mentions the "maturing" of ambush plans in Towards Ireland Free. The exact location and ambush plans were left to Barry. The ambush was outside brigade boundaries because of the terrain. The Macroom-based Auxiliaries who had been raiding the Third West Cork Brigade area had to be apprehended in the stretch of road before Gleann crossroads.

This report has Barry saying he hurriedly divided his column into three sections when they "sighted" two lorries. There is no mention of the sub-sections that were an extremely important device by Barry.

Peter Hart (September 1st) suggests that by claiming the ambush was "an accident" Barry "ensured" that he "could stay in charge." If Barry was trying to impress fellow officers, then from a guerilla tactical viewpoint of preparedness, they would be fools to leave him in charge.

Just to refer to some of the terminology in this report that has all the aspects of one written, from a barrack viewpoint:

(a) "We camped in that position." They didn't camp, they got into ambush positions, which is what Barry would have said.

(b) ". . .and then decided that as the enemy searches were completed." Barry would have used the words "raids" or "rampages", the barrack would have used "searches".

(c) "One wounded and escaped, and is now missing." Barry knew that one escaped, how did he know whether he was "now missing"? In Macroom Castle they knew he was "now missing".

(d) In a short report on an ambush, would Barry write, "the action was carried out successfully" against "the Auxiliary Police from Macroom Castle" (giving them their full title)?

As pointed out by Brian Murphy (August 10th), Piaras Beaslai mentioned the false surrender at Kilmichael. This is significant, as Beaslai wrote his book in 1923/24. Also significant is the first full account and mention of the false surrender, written by Kilmichael Section Commander, Stephen O'Neill (1937) - all prior to Barry's full account.

Barry himself accepted full responsibility for the order to shoot outright "soldiers who had cheated in war." Because of the death of his comrades, he regretted for the rest of his life that he had not thought to warn his men "of the old war trick of a false surrender." Tom Barry placed great emphasis on exactness; he was upright and direct. I believe that to record for history that Tom Barry told lies regarding the Kilmichael ambush, and that he evaded responsibility, does not do justice to history nor to Tom Barry. - Yours, etc., Meda Ryan,

Cusack Road, Ennis, Co Clare.

The Irish Times December 10, 1998
The Kilmichael Ambush
Sir, - Meda Ryan (November 11th) repeats many of the arguments I have already answered. Thus, she returns to Tom Barry's first report and once again suggests that it "has all the hallmarks of a propaganda work". No historian I know has ever found a forged IRA document from this period, so I'm not sure how she would recognise one. If it was a forgery, why was it kept secret? Why wasn't it written to support the British version of events?

Ryan also points to the report's "barracks" terminology, but a wider reading of IRA documents would show that their authors often assumed as "official" a style as possible; British officers noticed the same thing. Barry, of course, had spent four years in the army and would presumably have known it well. In any case, as I point out in The IRA and Its Enemies, Barry also failed to mention any "false surrender" in his first published account, in the Irish Press in 1932. In this version (very different from later ones), he declares that the three column casualties "had already fallen" when he advanced to the second lorry and that the Auxiliaries "like the IRA had fought to a finish." Was it forged as well? What reason would he have for concealing British treachery? Here is an account, indisputably by Barry, that agrees with the earlier report.

Ms Ryan again mentions my use of anonymous interviews, and contrasts it with her own. I have great respect for her research - as my footnotes show - but her biography of Barry does use the phrase "one Volunteer told me" about the killing of prisoners without saying who it was. Most of the interviews I used were not my own, but were conducted by others, as detailed in my book. In each case, the holders of the recordings asked me not to use names, as a matter of courtesy to the families involved. These sources can be checked, however.

Nor am I the first person to question Barry's later accounts. Liam Deasy's memoirs, Towards Ireland Free, quoting Paddy O'Brien, do not mention any "false surrender". When Barry attacked them in print, Deasy stood by his book and specifically denied Barry's "refutations", with the public support of most of the surviving officers and column men. Why believe Barry and not his former comrades?

There is an alternative, as my book suggests: legitimately different accounts exist of what happened at Kilmichael which can never be entirely reconciled. It was getting dark when the ambush started, some observers were far away, others saw only part of the action. Most of the participants were scared or enraged at the death of their comrades. And things happened very fast. So it is possible that one or more Auxiliaries surrendered while others kept firing. Or that a wounded policeman ignored the surrender and shot an IRA man when he approached. And it is certainly possible that some of the column did believe that they had been tricked.

However, what is clear is that there was no "false surrender" as Barry depicted it. There was no trick being played, and at most only one guerrilla died after the surrenders began. Most interviewees say that no one died in this way. Wounded and unwounded prisoners were beaten and killed in revenge for the grievous IRA losses around the second lorry - but this also happened at the first lorry where no column men were killed. One Auxiliary escaped only because he was believed to have been shot in the back as he ran away - only to be captured and executed a few hours later (although not by the column). Why were these men "finished off" if they were not guilty of treachery?

There were two forces at work at Kilmichael: the rage felt by the survivors at the death of their friends, and Tom Barry's determination that no Auxiliary would be left alive. Before the ambush began, he declared it was to be a fight to the finish, ordered bayonets be fixed, and posted men to prevent anyone escaping. Afterwards, he ordered the execution of wounded, helpless men. The result was a daring ambush which turned into a massacre: a combination of hot-blooded reprisal and cold-blooded murder, justified by the labelling of the victims as "terrorists". Sound familiar? The same recipe produced the same kind of violence in the British army and police - and later the Free State army. The real secret of Kilmichael is that the IRA inhabited the same culture of violence as their enemies, in which heroes and villains were indistinguishable. - Yours, etc., Peter Hart,

School of Modern History, Queen's University, Belfast.

This correspondence is now closed. - Ed, I.T.

The Irish Times March 10, 1999
Ewart-Biggs prize awarded to historian
The Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize has been awarded to the historian Peter Hart for his book about the War of Independence, writes Gerry Moriarty. The (pounds) 5,000 prize was presented at Belfast City Hall last night by the former British governor of Hong Kong and current chairman of the Policing Commission, Mr Chris Patten. This was the 15th Ewart-Biggs prize to be awarded. The prize was instituted in memory of the British ambassador to Ireland, Christopher Ewart-Biggs, who was murdered by the IRA in 1976.

Mr Hart was unable to attend the ceremony. The prize was accepted on his behalf by Ms Robin Whitaker. The objectives of the prize are to promote and encourage peace and reconciliation in Ireland, a greater understanding between the peoples of Britain and Ireland, and closer co-operation between EU member-states.

The Irish Times

November 28, 2000
Correction Appended
AN IRISHMAN'S DIARY
"On the 28th day of November, the Tans left the town of Macroom . . ."

In fact, they were not Black 'n Tans, but Auxiliaries - part of the 1,500 battle-hardened British ex-army officers despatched in 1920 to the areas giving the Empire the most trouble.

The record of the Auxiliary Division in Ireland was truly appalling. In disregard of the Geneva Convention, prisoners were routinely tortured and murdered after capture, as happened to six IRA prisoners in Ballycannon near Cork. The burning of Cork, the murders of Canon Magner and Father O' Callaghan in Co Cork and of Father Griffin in Galway, were all at the hands of this force who incredibly, were described as "auxiliary policemen". In many areas, such as Trim, they double-jobbed, augmenting their pay by robbing local shops and post offices. Not even unionists were safe. In Fermoy a group of Auxiliaries, after a late night drinking session in the Grand Hotel, seized upon a former British army officer, a wounded veteran of the first World War, and threw him to his death into the Blackwater River. The robbing and murder of a unionist resident magistrate, Robert Dixon, in Co Wicklow, led to the one and only case of an Auxiliary being brought to justice and executed.

Terrorised

Macroom had the honour of getting one company, whose members immediately set about living up to their reputation. Villages were terrorised, all occupants being paraded for interrogation and humiliation. They engaged in a curious sport - opening fire on innocent labourers at work in the fields, sometimes with fatal results. In Baile Mhuirne an innocent civilian, Seamas O Liathain, with no connection whatever to the IRA, was murdered in cold blood.

When on the cold wet evening, of November 28th, 18 Auxiliaries went on patrol in two trucks, they were surely aware that they could not expect kid-glove treatment from the IRA. General Tom Barry, OC of the flying column, had decided that in the interest of the morale of the IRA and the terrified locals, an Auxiliary patrol had to be attacked and destroyed. However, against these well armed professionals, he had only 30 men, only one of whom had previous battle experience. The others had just one week's training before being moved into an ambush position that had been carefully selected by Barry and his officers. Barry was a former British soldier who had seen service in Mesopotamia during the first World War. A highly intelligent man, he understood the weaknesses of the British military structure and, even more so, the incompetence of most British officers.

The action that followed was a classic example of a guerilla engagement where the weakness of the rebels was offset by the element of surprise and the courage inspired by the justice of their cause. The Auxiliaries, caught at a disadvantage, found themselves exposed to heavy fire and suffered grievous casualties. One group under one of the trucks shouted, "We surrender"; and it is a well-known story that when the IRA stood up to accept the surrender, the Auxiliaries opened fire with their revolvers at close quarters and killed three of the IRA members including a young boy of only 16 - Pat Deasy of Bandon.

Fire was resumed and this continued until all resistance ceased. Of the 18 Auxiliaries, 16 were killed outright. One who appeared to be dead survived his wounds, although crippled for the rest of his life. One escaped, but was subsequently, captured and executed by the IRA.

This action marked a turning point in the War of Independence. The fact that professional fighters had been wiped out by a handful of semi-trained West-Cork farmers was a massive blow to the morale of the British Army. So serious was the matter that the British Cabinet called for a special report on the entire affair, and this, no doubt, was another factor in forcing the British to seek a truce with Dail Eireann, the lawfully elected government of the Irish people.

The commander of the Auxiliaries, Gen Crozier, a decent and chivalrous man, was appalled at the conduct of the force he commanded. He desperately sought to bring about discipline and to prosecute those guilty of crimes. He failed; the final straws that impelled him to resign his command were when a party of 11 Auxiliaries dismissed for various robberies were re-instated and when Dr Rogers, Bishop of Killaloe, luckily escaped death when the Auxiliaries raided his residence while he was absent. In later years, Gen Crozier documented the atrocities committed by Crown Forces in Ireland, the plot by his erstwhile comrades to murder him, and the appalling political, military, and moral shambles that existed in Ireland during the War of Independence under Prime Minister David Lloyd George.

Amazed

If alive today, he would be more than amazed that many of the ruffians and murderers who got their just deserts, are now soberly recorded in a book, Po- lice Casualties in Ireland, as "policemen". And he would be more surprised that the Irish State never bothered to exhume and bury with respect the bodies of patriots executed in Mountjoy Jail, or to show the same honour for those who fought for Irish freedom as the British show on "Poppy Day" for those who died in the service of empire. He must also have felt aggrieved that never did an Irish Government acknowledge the stand that he and men such as Major Fletcher Vane took for justice in Ireland, suffering greatly as a result.

He must often have wondered if Ireland was worth the sacrifice of his career and if he, like his colleague Major Montgomery, stationed in Cork, had remained silent, would he too have ended up as a Field Marshal?

Is ait an saol e, agus is ait an tir e Eire.

CORRECTION-DATE: November 30, 2000
CORRECTION: "An Irishman's Diary" in the editions of Tuesday, November 28th, on the subject of the Auxiliaries in Ireland, stated that Dr Rogers, Bishop of Killaloe, escaped death when the Auxiliaries raided his home in his absence. In fact, the bishop in question was Dr Fogarty.


The Irish Times December 2, 2000
An Irishman's Diary By KEVIN MYERS
Dear me, one of my days off, and I find this space dedicated to an encomium to the events at Kilmichael 80 years ago. Yet despite the passage of all this time, Padraig O Cuanachain is warbling ecstatically in this space about the splendours of Tom Barry's flying column and its noble deeds in Cork.

Now what happened in Kilmichael - whatever it was - should not be the subject of pride, or boastfulness, or vainglorious satisfaction, and least of all song. For though there are many different accounts of events there, they all agree on several salient points. Sixteen Auxiliary RIC were killed. The last killings occurred after a surrender had occurred. One Auxiliary survived, was captured by the IRA, held for two days, and then killed. The only RIC survivor was left an epileptic quadriplegic for life. Now it takes a truly heathen interpretation of Irish nationalism to find satisfaction in these events. They were an utter abomination, and it doesn't matter if these men were Gestapo torturers, or that it was a military necessity to kill them, it is an obscenity to carol joyfully at such things, as does the song with which the diary in question began. More violence

Admittedly, given the terror the Auxiliaries inspired almost everywhere, and their often atrocious and even murderous behaviour, there were profoundly extenuating circumstances for such triumphalist celebrations at the time. There are none whatever now. We know, 80 years later, about half of which have endured IRA campaigns of one kind or another, that violence does not achieve Irish unity. Celebrations of it are merely the seedbed for more violence in the future.

What was truly bizarre about the O Cuanachain diary was that it read rather like an Inter cert essay from 1966 rather than now. Peter Hart's outstanding study into the IRA in Cork has cast extraordinary light on the usual justification for the killings of the Auxiliaries after they had surrendered: that three IRA men had been killed under an earlier flag of surrender.

But as Peter reveals, this version of events only materialised late in Tom Barry's life. Barry's earlier accounts make no such mention of a false surrender, and his explanation for the IRA loss of three men dead was simple: "I attribute our casualties to the fact that those three men were too anxious to get into close quarters with the enemy . . . they were our best men and did not know danger in this or any previous actions. They discarded cover, and it was not until the finish of the action that P. Deasy was killed by a revolver bullet from one of the enemy he thought dead".

In all truth, either way, the false-surrender story is irrelevant. It would have been madness for Barry's men to kill some Auxiliaries but allow survivors to return to their base. In the absence of an IRA POW camp, there is only one solution for geurillas/terrorists - murder, and Barry, a murderous young man, chose it, to the immense distress of his volunteers, who were clearly decent young men doing their duty, as they saw it, for their country in appalling times.

Not unique

Such conduct isn't unique to the IRA. Conventional soldiers have always dismissed surrenders which were made after great loss or were militarily inconvenient. "Sorry, mate, too late," could be the last words a surrendering German of the Great War might ever hear.

No, what is most objectionable about the O Cuanachain diary - and all such texts exulting in particular feats of homicide - is the selectivity of deed, language and moral indignation which it contains. Peter Hart quotes Liam Deasy, a senior IRA officer, remembering Lt Colonel Crake, who was killed at Kilmichael, for his "soldierly humanity". A contemporary newspaper report said: "(the Auxiliaries) made diligent efforts to make a good impression . . . and took pains to let it be known they did not come for trouble and did not want it".

As for the death of Seamus O Liathain, the only person killed by the Macroom Auxiliaries before Kilmichael, one of their number, Bill Munro, wrote: "This incident depressed us, especially as it was a stupid and unnecessary death and had, so to speak, opened war, which we had not wanted".

Murdered

Needless to say, O Cuanachain makes no mention of the two Macroom Auxiliaries who shortly before Kilmichael were abducted from the Cork train, interrogated - how? I wonder - murdered and secretly buried. Their bodies were never discovered. And equally needless to say, our temporary diarist - oh tell me he is, isn't he? - is wonderful in his use of words. O Liathain, he declares, was "murdered in cold blood". The Auxiliary RIC man Cecil Guthrie, whose wife lived locally and who survived the ambush almost unscathed, was later found by the IRA: he was merely "executed", says O Cuanachain, without telling us that the murder happened after two - no doubt - rather interesting days' captivity.

You can trawl through the disgusting events of the time looking for proof of the intrinsic iniquity of men of the IRA or the RIC Auxiliaries. It is a futile quest. Many good men on both sides did evil things they would never have done had they not been caught up in war. It is war which was the evil - was, and is - and it is contemptible and diseased that 80 years later these revolting events are being celebrated as if they are something to be proud of.

The Irish Times December 27, 2000
HEADLINE: The Kilmichael ambush
Sir, - In his review of the Leargas documentary on the Kilmichael ambush (Weekend, December 2nd) Eamon Delaney charges that Tom Barry derisively said of the dead Auxiliaries: "We threw them their money and their brandy hip flasks". Lest such an attributed quotation should now enter the history books and leave Barry damned for gratuitously abusing the corpses of his enemies, it is necessary to set the record straight.

Barry in fact took active measures to safeguard the corpses for subsequent identification and Christian burial. His actual words recorded in the documentary were: "We took their arms, took their ammunition, took their notes, notebooks. We left them their money and their brandy flasks and we pulled them away from the lorries - the dead bodies - and we set fire to their two lorries". In the same issue, Kevin Myers objects to Padraig O Cuanachain's use of words in saying (An Irishman's Diary, November 28th) that the totally uninvolved civilian Seamus O Liathain was "murdered in cold blood" but that the Auxie storm-trooper Cecil Guthrie was "executed". Yet in what Mr Myers refers to as " Peter Hart's outstanding study" Guthrie is also described as "executed". What Hart nonetheless fails to mention is that in one of the reference works which he himself cites, Father Pat Twohig's Green Tears for Hecuba, Guthrie was identified as the actual Auxie who had murdered O Liat