The things you can find on YouTube. Go here to watch an Irish television movie, The Treaty (1991), starring Brendan Gleeson, as Michael Collins. Later in his career he would play Winston Churchill in the movie Into the Storm (2009).
Collins was the most talented Irish statesman and soldier of the last century. He was also a man of exceptional courage as he demonstrated when he signed the Anglo-Irish treaty, realizing that this was the best deal that could be gotten from the British. “I have signed my own death warrant” was his prophetic utterance when he signed the treaty. Collins was killed in the subsequent utterly futile Irish civil war that erupted, dying at 31 on August 22, 1922, proving once again that the worst enemy of the Irish often tend to be the Irish.
President of the rebel Irish Republic, de Valera, at the end of the Irish fight for independence, realizing that the only terms that the British would grant which would lead to an independent Ireland would be unacceptable to many hard core Irish Republicans, refused to engage in the negotiations with the British himself, sending Collins instead, over the protests of Collins. When Collins came back with the best treaty terms possible that would be granted by the British, de Valera denounced him and the treaty and the Irish Civil War was the result. De Valera therefore got the benefit of the treaty terms, an Irish Free State, while still able to pose as an uncompromising champion of complete independence, something which benefited him politically to no end, for over half a century after Collins died in the Civil War de Valera started after he rejected the treaty. Very shrewd of de Valera. The morality I will leave for the reader to judge.
In the negotiations with the British Michael Collins and Winston Churchill became acquainted and found, probably to their mutual surprise, that they respected each other.
Just before his death Collins sent this message, “Tell Winston we could never have done it without him.”
In 1929 Churchill wrote of Collins, “Successor to a sinister inheritance, reared among fierce conditions and moving through ferocious times, he supplied those qualities of action and personality without which the foundation of Irish nationhood would not have been re-established.”
This is a great movie. While the production values aren’t quite up to the standard of the Neal Jordan Collins biopic, I actually prefer “The Treaty”. Brendan Gleeson was a better Collins than Liam Neeson. I also think that any of Gleeson’s sons, Brian, Domhnall, or Rory would all make an outstanding Collins should another movie be made about The Big Fellow’s all-too-short life.
Finally, it is my intent to be in Ireland next August (2022) for the centennial commemoration of Michael Collins’ death. (Also Arthur Griffith, who died of a brain hemorrhage a little over a week before Collins was killed.) God willing, I’m going to be there.
As for Dev, my favorite description of him came from Dale Price commenting on my blog several years ago on the 85th anniversary of Collins’ death:
“… that morally withered descendent of Armada boat trash.”
http://proecclesia.blogspot.com/2007/08/85th-anniversary-of-death-of-big-fella.html
So very true: ” proving once again that the worst enemy of the Irish often tend to be the Irish”. They have way too much pride in their own judgements. So much brilliance gone to waste. Maybe inbreeding accounts for some of it. Alcohol, too.
As I wrote eleven years ago about Irish music:
I would merely add that any true Irish ballad must be certain to contain at least two of the following elements:
Be maniacally happy.
Be maniacally sad.
Blame the English for everything bad that has happened to the Irish.
Celebrate an Irishman who left Ireland as soon as he was able.
A saccharine song of the charms of rural Ireland written by someone who would have sooner died than leave Dublin.
Mention the IRA, without mentioning that during the 20’s many Irish said the letters actually stood for I Ran Away.
Be about the death of a beloved pet or child.
Idolize near alcoholism.
Mention Saint Patrick or a leprechaun.
Throw in a few Irish Gaelic phrases for the singer to mispronounce.
About a year ago, I picked up for 25 cents at a garage sale a copy of “Irish Gold” by Andrew Greeley — yep, THE Father Andrew Greeley — a novel in which a contemporary (late 1980s-early 90s) young man of Irish heritage from Chicago meets up with a rather mysterious young woman in Dublin, and together they discover that his grandparents who emigrated to America in the 1920s had a boatload of family secrets, some of which were connected to the Irish Civil War and the death of Michael Collins. There’s a lot of background information in it concerning Collins and the “Troubles” of that era, which Greeley helpfully explains outside of the highly fictionalized story text. The young man and woman in question eventually marry and become the focus of a series of Greeley mystery stories that all have “Irish” in the title (Irish Stew, Irish Lace, etc.) It’s an OK time killer story if you can put up with some typical Greeleyisms, for example, the protagonist’s priest/brother whose theology leans inevitably left but has better investigative skills than anyone in the Chicago PD or FBI.