By Vivienne Clarke
The Fianna Fáil Mayor of Clare is to boycott the forthcoming commemoration service for the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), describing the event as "historical revisionism gone too far".
“I’m not going to attend, it is a personal position,” he told Newstalk Breakfast.
“Members of Clare County Council can go, but I will not have any hand, act or part in it.”
Cllr Crowe, who is a history teacher and also a Fianna Fáil general election candidate, said the topic should be looked at clearly and that in this case revisionism had gone too far.
The RIC had been “the strong arm of the British government in Ireland.”
They (the RIC) had taken part in raids, had murdered two teenagers in Clare whose families still lived locally, he added.
Cllr Crowe acknowledged that there were “great individuals” in the RIC who had shown “great valour and civic mindedness”, but the entire organisation should not be “white washed,” he said.
The British government had decided not to commemorate the RIC, he said, so why would the Irish Government.
Sometimes you just have to say that some things have to be consigned to history.
