"After the executions, the families of the dead men were sent a typed pro forma notification. The note for the Cassidy family read as follows: 'I am to inform you that Peter Cassidy was tried by a military court on 8 November 1922. That he was found guilty of possession of a firearm without lawful authority and that he was sentenced to death. This sentence was executed on the morning of 17th November 1922. This practice was challenged in the Dáil but continued throughout the civil war and it became common for parents to learn that their son had been executed through a press release or a typed memo shoved through the letterbox. In Dublin, the public and the Dáil learned of the first executions in the afternoon papers. Later that day there was an emergency debate in the Dáil and the decision to execute was hotly challenged by the Labour opposition and other deputies. Mulcahy justified what was done by what he called the need ti 'stem the tide' of lawlessness. 'These men,' he told the Dáil, 'were found on the streets of Dublin at night carrying revolvers and waiting to take the lives of other men.' They had certainly been tried and convicted of possessing loaded revolvers. It is a reasonable inference that they were not charged with the attack on Oriel House because it could not be proved against them. To be tried for one reason and executed for another would become a common scenario during the war."