Memorandum by Sheila Murphy
'Case of André Geoffroy'

André Geoffroy, a member of the Breton Nationalist party, was condemned to death by the Paris Military Tribunal on the 13th November, 1951, on a charge of betraying to the German occupying forces in 1942 two British agents who sought shelter in his home. The agents were arrested in his house and held in a prison camp until the end of the war.

The charge was based on a copy of a document alleged to have been written by Geoffroy, which was found in the house of a former Belgian SS agent and was handed over to the French authorities in 1947 by the Belgian Government. During the trial Geoffroy denied that he had any part in the arrest of the agents.

A petition for reprieve has been lodged with the President of the French Republic. There appears to be every likelihood that the petition will be granted. (See last paragraph).

Geoffroy has been in prison since 1945 when he was sentenced to hard labour for life – later reduced to 15 years – for ‘intelligence with the enemy’.

2. Irish interest in the case.

A certain amount of public interest in the case has been aroused in Ireland, mainly through the activities of Mr. Eoin O’Mahony, who is in touch with Geoffroy’s Counsel and with Breton Nationalists, friends of Geoffroy, living in this country. When the verdict was made known Mr. O’Mahony appealed to both the Taoiseach and the Minister to intercede with the French President and Government to grant a pardon. Deputies Dan Breen,¹ P. Cowan² and O. Flanagan³ have also approached the Minister or the Department.

The ‘Irish Committee for André Geoffroy’ (of which Senator Corkery⁴ and, of course, Eoin O’Mahony, are members) has been collecting signatures to an appeal for Geoffroy’s liberation and has been urging public bodies to petition the President of the French Republic.

We know of only three public bodies that have taken action. In January, Galway Corporation sent a telegram to the French President appealing for a reprieve. In February, copies of resolutions adopted by the Co. Councils of Limerick and Waterford were received by the Minister with, in the case of Waterford Co. Council, a request that he should forward it to the French Government.

In a letter dated 12th March the Cork City Manager requested the Department to furnish information about the case in order that the Corporation might be able to decide whether to adopt a resolution. We replied that the present position was that a petition for reprieve had been lodged with the President of the French Republic and suggested that, if the Corporation should decide to adopt a resolution in the matter, a copy should be communicated to the French Embassy in Dublin. (It had previously been ascertained that the French Ambassador had no objection to this suggestion). No action, however, appears to have been taken by the Corporation.

The various communications received by the Minister, which include a few from individual members of the public, have merely been formally acknowledged with, in the case of the Deputies and Mr. O’Mahony, an indication that the matter was receiving careful consideration. Mr. O’Mahony was told, in addition, that he would be informed as soon as a decision had been reached. This has not yet been done nor has he received other than a formal acknowledgment of a letter stating that the actual writer of the incriminating document referred to above is a Breton living in Ireland who would be prepared to go to France to testify in the matter if the Irish Government would arrange a safe conduct.

3. Action taken by the Department.

It would not, of course, have been proper for us to make official representations in this case to the French Government which would naturally regard it as a purely internal matter affecting one of their own citizens. Having obtained as much information as possible about the case from the Ambassador in Paris and satisfied ourselves that an unofficial approach would not be taken amiss, we instructed Mr. Cremin to call informally at the French Foreign Office for the purpose of letting them know that the case had aroused a certain amount of interest in this country and that representations on behalf of the condemned man had been received by the Government from various quarters.⁵ This the Ambassador did on the 18th January.⁶ The official with whom Mr. Cremin spoke (himself a Breton) took note of his remarks and said that he fully appreciated the spirit in which they were made. He later informed Mr. Cremin that the Foreign Office had received reports from the French Embassy in Dublin about the public comment here and that he had thought it proper to send these, as well as some from London, to the Office of the President of the Republic and to the Ministries of Justice and of the Interior on the ground that these Offices should be aware of the interest aroused by the case abroad.

We duly asked Mr. Cremin to let this official know of the resolutions adopted by the Limerick and Waterford Co. Councils.

A report in the ‘Irish Independent’ of the 8th December that the Department of External Affairs was ‘taking the matter up through diplomatic channels’ was followed by a number of press inquiries at the Department, but we were able to convince the inquirers that further publicity of that kind would do more harm than good.

Mr. Cremin has been informed confidentially that Geoffroy’s Counsel is extremely optimistic that the death sentence will be commuted. The fact that the prosecuting Counsel did not ask for the extreme penalty, but for a sentence of 20 years, is a factor that is likely to weigh with the President and his advisers. Moreover, it appears that both the President of the Military Tribunal and the prosecuting Counsel have made favourable recommendations and that M. Pleven,⁷ who is a Breton, is also working for a reprieve.