Republican Sinn Féin Poblachtach - Cork - Easter Commemoration Report - 18:32 Apr 09 1 comments Easter Rising Walking Tour 17:53 Jul 21 0 comments The War of Independence: Separating fact from folklore 13:52 Mar 27 0 comments Vol Frank Morris 02:24 Sep 24 1 comments Historian Caught in Ambush Row [Kilmichael Ambush - Tom Barry and Peter Hart] 14:03 Aug 27 5 comments more >>Blog Feeds
Anti-EmpireRussia Has 17 Percent More Defense Jobs ... Tue Apr 30, 2024 11:56 | Marko Marjanović That Time Blackwater and US Army Shot Ea... Sun Apr 28, 2024 12:54 | Marko Marjanović Rheinmetall Plans to Make 700,000 Artill... Thu Apr 25, 2024 04:03 | Anti-Empire America’s Shell Production Is Leaping,... Wed Apr 24, 2024 05:29 | Anti-Empire Ukraine Keeps Snapping Up Chinese Drones Tue Apr 23, 2024 03:14 | Anti-Empire
Human Rights in IrelandA Blog About Human RightsUN human rights chief calls for priority action ahead of climate summit Sat Oct 30, 2021 17:18 | Human Rights 5 Year Anniversary Of Kem Ley?s Death Sun Jul 11, 2021 12:34 | Human Rights Poor Living Conditions for Migrants in Southern Italy Mon Jan 18, 2021 10:14 | Human Rights Right to Water Mon Aug 03, 2020 19:13 | Human Rights Human Rights Fri Mar 20, 2020 16:33 | Human Rights
Lockdown Skeptics
Slavery Did Not Make Britain Rich, Report Finds Wed May 01, 2024 19:00 | Will Jones
Government Caught Playing Hardball Over Vaccine Injury Payouts as Victims? Legal Bills Mount Wed May 01, 2024 17:00 | Will Jones
How to Say ?NO!? to Clearly Crazy Policy Ideas Wed May 01, 2024 15:18 | Joanna Gray
EV Battery Timebomb Wed May 01, 2024 13:09 | Sallust
The Historical Significance of Humza Yousaf Wed May 01, 2024 11:00 | James Alexander
Voltaire NetworkVoltaire, international editionParis 2024 and Berlin 1936 in the service of an impossible imperial dream, by Th... Tue Apr 30, 2024 07:07 | en Georgia and the financing of political organizations from abroad Sat Apr 27, 2024 05:37 | en Voltaire, International Newsletter N°84 Sat Apr 27, 2024 05:35 | en Israel's complex relations with Iran, by Thierry Meyssan Wed Apr 24, 2024 05:25 | en Iran's hypersonic missiles generate deterrence through terror, says Scott Ritter... Mon Apr 22, 2024 10:37 | en |
NEW FLAW found in Eoghan Harris / Gerry Gregg RTE TV documentary An Tost Fada (The Long Silence)
national |
history and heritage |
news report
Saturday July 29, 2017 10:02 by Tom Cooper
Documentary re-edited for West Cork History Festival A NEW FLAW has been discovered in the Eoghan Harris / Gerry Gregg TV documentary An Tost Fada (The Long Silence) Re-edited documetnary to be shown at West Cork History Festival. See
|
View Comments Titles Only
save preference
Comments (1 of 1)
Jump To Comment: 1https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/ira-spies-an...77098
IRA, spies and west Cork killing
Irish Times 7 August 2017
Sir, – Barry Roche noted that, following my complaint, the 2012 Gerry Gregg and Eoghan Harris RTÉ documentary An Tost Fada (The Long Silence) was “corrected for some errors since its first screening” (Home News, July 31st). The programme was re-edited for the recent West Cork History Festival, after I alerted RTÉ of the intention to screen it.
RTÉ admitted to two errors. In one, the programme got the date wrong in relation to the killing of two Protestant farmers by a factor of 14 months.
The significance of the date of the killings is crucial. Gregg and Harris claim the killings took place in April 1922, when the War of Independence was over, implying that the killings were sectarian, when in fact they had taken place in February 1921, at the height of the war.
Images were screened from the graveyard in which the two men, Mathew Sweetnam and William Connell, were laid to rest.
It puzzled me as to how the mistake occurred, particularly as the camera lingered over the gravestone surname of one of the victims, Mathew Sweetnam. The puzzle was resolved last week when I examined some West Cork Graveyard Database, Aughadown burial ground, photographs.
The An Tost Fada camera shots were not of Mathew Sweetnam’s grave. They were of a Winnie Sweetnam’s gravestone. She was laid to rest in April 1939.
Barry Roche reported Eoghan Harris stating that Irish Protestants “must feel free to talk about their past’. So they must. And we all must listen.
A good start would be if alleged professional communicators who purport to assist them left their personal agendas at the door. They should check evidence thoroughly. It is time-consuming but rewarding.
I suggested to RTÉ that they should reintroduce historical advisers for such programmes. The value of considered judgments is evident in Barry Roche’s report of Andy Bielenberg’s festival talk.
Bielenberg’s research, as distinct from Mr Harris’s imagination, suggested an absence of republican sectarianism during the course of the War of Independence. – Yours, etc,
TOM COOPER