Speaking Truth to Power: The Donal De Roiste Affair

On 27 June 1969 Donal de Roiste was ‘retired’ from the Irish Defence Forces ‘in the interests of the service’. He has consistently claimed that he was never given a reason for his retirement and was never allowed to face his accusers. Six weeks before his ‘retirement’ he was interrogated over several days during which, he claims, he was harassed and threatened. Don Mullan explores the hypothesis that Donal de Roiste was framed because he unwittingly held within his grasp the power to destroy the career of a senior officer on whose behalf he was not prepared to lie. De Roiste had been one of three passengers travelling with the senior officer, Cmdt Sean T. O'Kelly, on 17 November 1967, when O'Kelly crashed into an oncoming car, very seriously injuring a young woman. O'Kelly was drunk at the time of the collision. The young woman and her family suspected the involvement of alcohol but the police investigation and the handling of the case by her lawyer (who was also a local politician and senator), was deeply flawed. The case never went to court and none of the commandant’s passengers were asked to make statements by An Garda Siochana. On 9 April 1969 the young woman’s solicitor issued a plenary summons against Cmdt O'Kelly in the High Court. The likelihood of de Roiste being subpoenaed under oath was looming. He knew that de Roiste would not lie to save him. On 25 April de Roiste’s mysterious problems began in the army with his arrest, without warning or prior caution, at Custume Barracks, Athlone. There are huge implications for the Irish government in the de Roiste case, including the possibility that senior officers conspired to subvert the State in an effort to salvage the career of one of their own by callously plotting the destruction of a junior officer who refused to lie.