“History will record the greatness of Michael Collins, and it will be recorded at my expense.”
-Eamon de Valera
Michael Collins, the father of Irish independence, whose life and death symbolized the glory and tragedy of Ireland.
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.
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.”
May the Big Fella’s reputation continue to rise at the expense of de Valera’s–it is simple justice, after all.
The Irish Civl War was the dumbest thing the Irish ever did to themselves in modern times. It had echoes in this country among a segment of the emigre population by encouraging an obscenely positive vision of the IRA, whereby US donations to “the cause” funded vicious terrorists (as an Irish nun frankly identified Adams and his bunch to me in the 1990s).
The Irish relationship to Britain was far more complicated than the “Clancy Brothers” mythology. As an old fellow told me: far more Irishmen died fighting for the Crown than fighting against it. Better wisdom on both sides after the 1916 attack on the General Post Office in Dublin would have saved lot of sorrow.
I attended predominantly Irish Catholic elementary and high schools and the Irish civil war was never mentioned. The film staring Liam Neeson was most informative.
Churchill’s private meeting with Collins broke the ice:
“One night in late November with the negotiations stalemated Churchill invited Collins, Arthur Griffith, Lloyd George and Lord Birkinhead back to his townhouse for drinks. Griffith went upstairs with the prime minister while Collins, Churchill and Birkinhead remained on the ground floor.
And they started to drink. Cognac. Collins, always with a sweet tooth, wanted his spiked with curaçao. And they drank more. Soon the conversation turned ugly. The question of the loyalty oath to the king piqued Collins’s inner-Fenian. He suddenly turned on Churchill in such a threatening manner that Churchill, years later, wrote that “He was in his most difficult mood, full of reproaches and defiances, and it was very easy for everyone to lose his temper.”
‘You put a £5,000 bounty on my head,’ Collins bellowed at Churchill. Birkinhead was sure blows were about to be struck. But Churchill quietly took Collins by the hand and brought him to the other end of the room. There, on the wall, was a wanted poster from the Boer War for one Winston Spencer Churchill—for £25!
‘At least I put a good amount on your head!’ said Churchill.
Collins laughed and the tension was broken.”
https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/how-michael-collins-helped-save-winston-churchills-career
Both Collins and Churchill were men comfortable in their own skins and that helped also. They were also both military men, and thought of themselves as such, who realized that there was no military solution in Ireland. Both sides had to receive enough so that peace, however shaky, became the preferred option. It was a masterful agreement which went a long way to resolving a conflict that went back to Strongbow.
Better wisdom on both sides after the 1916 attack on the General Post Office in Dublin would have saved lot of sorrow.
Most Irish Catholics thought initially the Easter Uprising was foolish at best, treason in time of war against a foreign foe at worst. It was the executions that followed that turned public opinion, that and the courage displayed by the executed, courage usually being a virtue the Irish have in abundance. If the British had merely exiled them, with amnesty after the War, Irish history might have been quite different.
Was it Chesterton? The high Gaels the men God made mad. All their wars are merry and all their songs are sad.
Each year I meet St. Patrick’s Day with bittersweet emotions.
Yes. From the Ballad of the White Horse:
“The great Gaels of Ireland are the men that God made mad, For all their wars are merry, and all their songs are sad.”
I cannot write what I want. Many of my Irish friends will not buy anything made in England. God made man free.
It would appear that the Irish civil war continues; now with the radical secularists against traditional religious believers, both Catholics and Church of Ireland.
Winston Churchill loses his swim trunks going down a water slide.
https://twitter.com/historyinmemes/status/1563005564610703363?s=21&t=KBFrhzr-z4VEiD9Ugj9NVg