My brother Osgur Breatnach secured a miscarriage of justice certificate in the Court of Appeal in Dublin 10 days ago. In the hushed courtroom, we listened as the three judges unanimously granted the application, which states that he had no hand, act or part in the Sallins mail train robbery. This was an important finding which now, 50 years later, the Director of Public Prosecutions ostensibly agrees with.

My brother was tried over the March 1976 robbery with Nicky Kelly and Brian McNally, who died last month. A sum of IR£200,000 was taken during the robbery, later claimed by the IRA. All three men were convicted by the non-jury Special Criminal Court in 1978.

My brother had served 18 months of his 12-year sentence when his conviction – and McNally’s – were quashed on appeal in 1980 because the Court of Criminal Appeal was not satisfied their statements were made voluntarily. The earlier criminal trial had ruled the injuries Osgur and his co-accused had suffered were either self-inflicted or inflicted by each other after they’d signed their “confessions”. (Conveniently, Kelly and McNally been placed in a cell together after the interrogations; my brother was placed in a cell on his own).

How easy it becomes, after the passage of time, to tut-tut the wrongs of the past, the festering societal wounds, the institutional........

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