Colonel Gerald Smyth was brave, while Jeremiah Mee was treacherous

(Gordon Lucy’s article can be read here: ‘The one-armed Irish warrior who was a determined opponent of IRA’)

Prior to Mr Curry’s letter (‘Article’s affection for Colonel Gerald Smyth blocked out facts about the Listowel mutiny,’ August 12),

I had encountered only one criticism: my failure to highlight the disrespect shown to Gerald Smyth’s earthly remains by railway workers.

I trust I made it perfectly clear that I regard Gerald Smyth as both an exemplary officer and a very brave one too. He started the war as a captain and rose to become a brevet brigadier-general.

His courage is testified to by the fact that he was mentioned in despatches seven times and awarded the DSO twice (and was also awarded both the French and Belgian Croix de Guerre).

Wounded six times, he lost his left arm below the elbow as early as October 1914 (during the Battle of Aisne) while rescuing a wounded soldier under heavy shellfire.

Jeremiah Mee’s career does not inspire similar admiration.

Scrutiny of Jeremiah Mee’s statement to the Bureau of Military History (Witness Statement 379) suggests a leadership role which goes beyond simply acting as spokesman. It also establishes beyond doubt his treachery. Part 2 of the witness statement details ‘His activities at Republican HQ 1921 -1922’.

Father J Anthony Gaughan produced a book entitled ‘Memoirs of Constable Jeremiah Mee’ in 1975 and is also the author of Irish Dictionary of Biography entry on Mee whom he describes as ‘leader of the Listowel RIC mutiny’. (The IDB is produced by the Royal Irish Academy and published by Cambridge University Press.)

An organisation called ‘Jeremiah Mee Commemoration’ was established on 15 January 2020 and is currently raising funds to commemorate Mee and describes Mee as risking ‘life and liberty to lead a Mutiny’. The prime mover in this venture is a Luke Mee.

Discussion of his leadership role is essentially a red herring.

Kevin Myers has done a great deal to illuminate our understanding of overlooked and neglected area of the past. Having learned so much from his work, I have no wish to comment on his alleged ‘ill-informed presumption’.

Whether Mee’s account was a fabrication or an exaggeration, the point remains that Mee singled Smyth out for murder. Expressing regret at Smyth’s murder 30 years later in his witness statement to the Bureau of Military History does not alter the fact.

Mee was a republican sympathiser who had no interest in defeating the IRA and who subsequently greatly assisted it (without actually joining the organisation). He had meetings with both Michael Collins and Countess Markievicz and undertook to persuade members of the RIC and the DMP to resign from their respective forces. He also assisted with the implementation of the Belfast boycott.

At the very least, these considerations go a long way in seriously undermining his credibility. Therefore it is appropriate that his account be treated with the utmost caution.

Much of it reads like IRA propaganda, not least his accusation that Smyth told the RIC constables at Listowel, ‘The more you shoot the better I will like you’.

Was there a distinction to be drawn between Sinn Fein and the IRA in 1920? That might prove a more interesting line of enquiry.

Gordon Lucy, Belfast

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