Confidential report from Frederick H. Boland to Seán Murphy (Dublin)
(Confidential)

The severity of the sentences imposed on the three men arrested in connection with the Arborfield raid has occasioned more sympathetic criticism among people here than one would gather from reading the British newspapers.² The Right Hon. Alfred Robens, MP, Minister for Labour in the last Labour Government, spoke very critically about the sentences in conversation with the Tánaiste and a surprisingly large number of purely English people have told me that they were astonished that the sentences were so harsh.

It is regrettably true, I am afraid, that the conduct and the result of the trial have played directly into the hands of the IRA. Assuming that the current activities of the IRA have a primarily propagandist aim, the judge and the prosecutor at the trial could hardly have done better if they had been in IRA pay! I wonder whether I could not take a suitable opportunity of pointing this out to the authorities here. In principle, of course, they have no control over what their judges say in banco; but they can influence the preparation of the briefs for prosecuting counsel and I can’t help feeling that if Mr. Baker, QC,³ who prosecuted in the recent trial, had had a more intelligent brief, the terms of the judge’s charge to the jury, and the sentences finally imposed, would not have been so stupid!