Kilmichael: The Life and Afterlife of an Ambush by Eve Morrison

Author:Eve Morrison
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781788551472
Publisher: Irish Academic Press
Published: 2022-04-12T23:00:00+00:00

THE CHISHOLM INTERVIEWS

Approaches were also made to Fr Chisholm in relation to his interviews which he found rather strange and, as time went on, increasingly intimidating. Chisholm had remained on very good terms with the Deasy family. In November 2007, he and two of Liam Deasy’s daughters (Kathleen and Ena) met and collectively decided to give the tapes to Liam Deasy, their cousin.38 Maureen, another sister, was invited to this meeting but refused to attend. She wrote several letters to Chisholm independently, in hopes of securing access to the tapes so that Hart’s conclusions could be challenged. These varied markedly in style. It transpired, as Chisholm suspected, that although Maureen had signed the letters, several had been drafted by someone else. That person was Criostóir de Baróid.39 In December 2007, although he no longer had the tapes, Chisholm received a five-page typed letter entitled ‘Vindication of the Heroic Dead’ acknowledging de Baróid’s involvement: ‘Many people, some of exalted status … availed of … skilled secretarial assistance … I owe no explanation, apology or preliminary confession to you or anyone … to avail of a more facile pen … to express in writing my deeply felt sentiments … how dare you talk down to me, from your celestial eminence.’40

The missive railed against ‘neo-colonial (aka “revisionist”) detractors and their equally guilty collaborators’ and was accompanied by seven appendices of material relating to de Baróid, including correspondence concerning an approach he had made to the Deasy family in 2006, offering to help them draft a letter to Chisholm asking about his interviews. The Deasys met him, but in the end decided to approach Chisholm themselves.41 This seems to be what upset Maureen, who had been in favour of working with de Baróid.

A further communication in March 2008 (also entitled ‘Vindication of the Heroic Dead’) warned Chisholm that his attitude would ‘arouse suspicions that he was in collusion with Hart’s vilification of the noblest dead of our race’.42 A ‘sworn affidavit’, it said, would soon become available to say that Hart could not have carried out ‘at least two of his interviews’. This, presumably, was a reference to an affidavit by John Young (one of Ned Young’s four children), which was published a several months later (discussed below). In April, Chisholm received a short note from Maureen to say that, as he had not replied, she would ‘pass the baton to others’.43

Within a few days, he received a letter from John Young asking if he had had an interview with his father. Chisholm told him he may well have interviewed him but did not have a recording of it.44 This turned out not to be true. Chisholm had misplaced it. In June 2011, he rang me out of the blue to say that he had found another tape in his attic, insisting that I come at once to listen to it. On it were his interviews with Ned Young and another OIRA veteran.

Hart had put me in touch with Chisholm in February 2010, just a few months before the former’s death.

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