IRELAND’S JUSTICE COMMITTEE DID MORE THAN SAY “RECEIVED”

A week ago, I told you Ireland’s Justice Committee had mail.

Well, they answered.

My request for parliamentary scrutiny of the Government’s 2026 pre-1922 policy now has an Oireachtas reference: R2026 0184.

And this wasn’t just another generic acknowledgment.

I received a formal signed letter from the Joint Committee on Justice, Home Affairs and Migration that actually identifies what I asked them to scrutinise:

“the Government’s 2026 policy on pre-1922 convictions, with specific regard for the Lough Mask trial of 1882.”

Separately, the Committee confirmed that my correspondence “will be formally considered by the Committee in the Autumn session, and an appropriate response will issue.”

Now, I’m not declaring victory. The Committee hasn’t agreed with me. They haven’t decided the policy is wrong. They haven’t even formally considered my submission yet.

But they understood what I was asking.

And after everything that has happened with this, that matters.

My original request to the Department of Justice concerned an independent expert examination of the surviving evidence surrounding the convictions of Michael Flynn, Thomas Higgins and Patrick Higgins (Long).

I did not ask Ireland to simply declare these three men innocent or automatically hand them pardons.

I asked for the evidence to be examined.

The Department’s own refusal acknowledged that I had requested an “independent historical review.”

Yet that independent review was refused by applying the Government’s new policy governing pre-1922 Presidential pardons.

And that’s the part my professional pain-in-the-arse side still can’t leave alone.

A pardon is an outcome. Examining evidence is a process.

How do you decide what the evidence deserves if you refuse to examine it in the first place?

So I asked why.

Then I asked again.

Then I started digging into 1922 itself, because apparently giving me a cutoff date was a fantastic way to make sure I investigated the hell out of the cutoff.

And I’m still asking the same basic question:

What law prevents the Irish Government from independently examining the surviving evidence?

I still don’t have that answer.

But I also believe in giving credit where it’s due.

The Joint Committee identified what I was actually asking them to scrutinise. They gave the matter a parliamentary reference. I received a formal signed acknowledgment. And they told me exactly what happens next.

That doesn’t guarantee the answer I want.

It means the question is going to be formally considered.

And there’s something about seeing the words “Lough Mask trial of 1882” sitting on a Houses of the Oireachtas letter in 2026 that I’m still trying to take in.

These convictions are 143 years old.

Michael Flynn died maintaining his innocence. Thomas Higgins and Patrick Higgins (Long) were executed alongside him. Whatever ultimately comes from this process, their case is no longer sitting quietly in 1883.

It has a new paper trail in 2026.

So yes, I’ll keep questioning the policy. But I’ll also give the Joint Committee on Justice, Home Affairs and Migration their props for how they’ve handled this so far.

Now we wait for the Autumn session.

Well, they wait for Autumn.

My professional pain-in-the-arse side apparently doesn’t understand the concept of recess.

And wouldn’t you know it, I’ve already found something else.

I haven’t dropped that one on them yet.

R2026 0184.

To be continued.

#DontSilenceTheEvidence #Pre1922JusticeProject #IrishHistory #HistoricalJustice #LoughMask