*Cathal Crowe TD (FF). Photograph: John O’Neill
CLARE TD, Cathal Crowe (FF) said “a jumble of words” caused him to make offensive and inaccurate comments in the Dáil claiming the British Army never shot or bombed anyone in Ireland.
Deputy Crowe criticised Israel’s “eye-for-an-eye approach” in the aftermath of the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel, and added that the British Army never retaliated against civilians in Ireland. “The British Army was a bad actor on this island for many centuries but even in the worst of days, when its cities were being bombed by the terror organisations of the IRA, it never retaliated by bombing and shooting the civilian population of Ireland,” he claimed.
However in a personal statement in the Dáil, he said he wished to “correct the Dáil record and apologise profusely to anyone who may have been offended by my comments”.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, the former primary teacher stated that he was working from bullet notes as opposed to a “scripted speech”. The TD also said he was frustrated by his short speaking time of two minutes.
“The point that I wanted to convey was that even in the darkest days of The Troubles in Ireland, as bad and all as the British forces have been across many years but they never resorted to the carpet bombing or blanket bombing of our cities. My words came out jumbled and what I said was they never bombed our civilian population or shot at them and that is absolutely wrong”, he said
“It was later in the evening when I saw the transcript of my speech that I realised how woeful it all sounded. Entirely of my own volition I contacted the Taoiseach, the party, the government chief whip and the Ceann Comhairle and said I want speaking time in the morning to clarify this and to apologise profusely to people and that’s what I did”, the Meelick native continued.
“If I make a small error talking about education or transport, the ramifications of that are insignificant. You can correct the record fairly easily”.
The former Mayor of Clare said that his intention was to say that while the actions of the British forces in Ireland were irreprehensible, no comparisons could be drawn between that and the actions of Israel in Gaza.
Crowe, who recently voted against a bill by Sinn Féin blocking the sale of Israeli “war bonds”, told The Clare Echo that Israel had “a right to retaliate” against Hamas following the October 7th 2023 attacks but “nothing by any stretch of the imagination has given them the authority to attack the civilian population. He also referred to the ongoing war as “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide”.
The Fianna Fáil TD further apologised for any hurt his comments had caused to the victims of British violence. “I’m very much a Republican. I’m very much someone orientated around those who have been victims of British state terror. My family was central to the War of Independence as well and even further back to the Land League period and Fenian movement. My family suffered greatly at the hands of Britain historically”.
“What I really aspire to see as a politician is, and I think most people in Clare would know this about me, I want to see a United Ireland. I want to see it done in a constitutional way, in line with the Good Friday Agreement. I look forward to the day when there aren’t British military personnel and garrisons on the island of Ireland”, he continued.
“It’s a jumble of words, I got it all wrong, I wanted to convey how heinous the acts we’re seeing are. The worst thing I’ve seen over the years with politicians when they get something wrong is that they double down on it and they become self-righteous and defensive. Thankfully, I have my own moral compass and I didn’t need any other politicians to tell me what to do”, Crowe added.
Sinn Féin led the call for the Clare TD to apologise and correct the record. Dublin South-Central TD, Aengus Ó Snodaigh (SF) described the initial remarks as “appalling” and “untrue”. He stated, “In his attempt to rewrite history, Teachta Crowe is erasing the countless victims of British state violence in Ireland, north and south, victims and families who continue to fight for justice to this day”. He said the “Government is historically ignorant to the point of being offensive”.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin (FF) said he did not instruct the Clare TD to apologise for his remarks and that he felt there was an “over-reaction” to the comments. “I think Cathal’s views on the north are well-known. Cathal’s views – he studied history himself – are well-known. He doesn’t been to be correcting things, as far as I’m concerned”.
