17 JANUARY 1976, Page 3

Special information

Sir: Richard West states (in his article on Ireland) that eighty-eight executions were carried out by the wartime Irish government.

Professor Lyons (himself citing T. P. Coogan) says in his Ireland since the Famine: "Apart from Russell and Ryan, twenty-six IRA men lost their lives between April 1930 and May 1946. Of these, nine were executed, five killed in gun battles with the police and both sides of the border; six died in prison hospitals; three died on hunger strike; two were killed in explosions and one was shot by military police at the internment camp in the Curragh," It seems that Mr West possesses a spectacular and hitherto unrevealed piece of special information.

Jeffrey Care 21 Parfrey Street, London W6