History Ireland and the Truth Recovery Process

Ireland’s leading popular History Magazine has published two editorials supporting the need for a Truth Recover Process:

The first was in the July-August 2021 edition and the second was in the September-October 2021 edition which has just appeared:

History Ireland, Vol 29. No 4 July-August 2021

FROM THE EDITOR 

The Civil War and amnesty

As we move into the ‘difficult’ bit of the ongoing ‘decade of centenaries’—the Treaty split and the Civil War—Joe Coy (Letters, p.14) reminds us that ‘the Irish Civil War was a very restrained event by international standards’. There was little retaliation against the losing side, who by late 1924 could avail of an amnesty; the Free State had previously indemnified itself against its own extrajudicial killings.

            Is there a lesson here in relation to another set of (50th) anniversaries, for example the introduction of internment in August 1971 and the consequent Ballymurphy massacre? While the recent coroner’s report, which found that the killings of nine civilians by the 1st Battalion of the British Army’s Parachute Regiment (deployed six months later in Derry on Bloody Sunday) ‘were without justification’, is to be welcomed, the sad fact is that this is an outlier; the vast majority of the victims of the conflict and their families will get no such satisfaction.

            Surely it is time, therefore, to give serious consideration to a ‘truth for amnesty’ scheme, as advocated in these pages by Padraig Yeates (HI 28.6, Nov./Dec. ’20, Platform, https://www.truthrecoveryprocess.ie/). However, its terms of reference would need close scrutiny to avoid the legal pitfalls of similar previous projects like the Boston College tapes or the recent Mother and Baby Home report debacle. Where would the British state and its actors feature in this process? Its record on ‘transparency’ is hardly exemplary. Even in relation to the events of a century ago, the British state has not yet put all its archival cards on the table.

And finally, in relation to Joe’s challenge to historians in respect of the Civil War, he should keep an eye out from October for History Ireland’s stand-alone special supplement—The Split—from Truce to Treaty to Civil War 1921-23—our fourth tracking the ‘decade of centenaries’.

editor@historyireland.com

History Ireland, Vol 29. No5 September-October 2021

FROM THE EDITOR

Brexit and amnesty

Needless to say, the ongoing kite-flying by the British government of a de facto amnesty in the form of a statute of limitation for crimes committed by members of the British security forces during the Northern Ireland Troubles 1968-98, is not what I had in mind in my last editorial (‘The Civil War and amnesty’). I suggested it was time to consider a ‘truth for amnesty’ scheme, as advocated by the Truth Recovery Process (TRP), https://www.truthrecoveryprocess.ie/ As the TRP makes clear, its proposal is not an easy ‘get out of jail free card’. Yet this is precisely what we have here, to be issued by one of the parties to the conflict—the British government—to itself!

            Nor is it motivated by any concern for the victims of the Troubles. It is pandering to the same ‘Little Englander’ chauvinism that brought us Brexit and all its complications, particularly for the people of Northern Ireland, and which shows no sign of being ‘done’. Rather than ironing out the undoubted difficulties created by the Protocol (part of a binding international agreement signed by the British government itself), and enhancing its positive economic possibilities (‘the best of both worlds’, according to the DUP’s Arlene Foster), the British government (and the DUP) have sought to politicize the issue, with potentially disastrous consequences for community relations in the North.

            This has echoes of the Home Rule crisis of over a century ago, when the concerns of Ulster unionists were shamelessly exploited by the British Tory establishment. Judging by the recent musical chairs in the leadership of the DUP (who scuppered Teresa May’s earlier proposals for a ‘soft’ Brexit), if that was tragedy, this is farce.

editor@historyireland.com