Fergus Finlay: Collins was never my hero — but he had potential for greatness

In his speech at the commemoration, Micheál Martin said that Ireland had been saved by our history since Collins from the extremes of left and right that have done so much damage elsewhere and described any use of the term “civil war politics” as lazy. That’s exactly where I beg to part company with the mythology.

The political practice of my lifetime has been dominated by the enmity between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. That enmity has never been based on any ideological difference, any deep issues of personality, or any conflicting analyses of how to deal with economic or social issues.

Both parties they founded (sorry, Fine Gael claims Collins as its founder, though he was ten or so years dead when the party came into being), have built mythologies around themselves based on where they stood around the Treaty. Both have canonised the leader from whom they claim inheritance — the Long Fellow and the Big Fellow.

Fine Gael saw itself as a state-building party, Fianna Fáil as a national movement. Fine Gael are the party of enterprise and “progressive ideas”, Fianna Fáil the party of the “man with no property”.

Lack of progression

But throughout the twentieth century, after two terrible world wars, social democracy was built in Europe, while it fought against the odds in Ireland. For as long as they could, the civil war parties turned their backs on anything progressive, anything that might have made things better for the men (and especially the women) of no property.

There’s little doubt, I guess, that Collins had the potential for genuine greatness and that he was robbed of that potential in an ambush a century ago. But it could also be true that Michael Collins’ early and tragic death was (as they used to say about Elvis) a great career move. If he’d lived longer, we’d have known him better. Would we have admired him more?

Here’s what I think I’ve learned about Michael Collins over the years  — feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. He was charismatic, handsome, a real presence in a room. He believed in duty and he was a determined nationalist. He was boyish when he could be, and adult when he needed to be. 

He was supremely well-organised and efficient in a lot of what he did. He had considerable self-belief and was also riddled by doubt. And he was utterly ruthless

I was a child in school when I was told about the atrocity of  Bloody Sunday in Croke Park, when British troops opened fire on a crowd at a football match. A fundraiser it was, between Dublin and Tipp, to raise money for the families of republicans imprisoned in English jails. Fourteen people were murdered.

I can still remember the Presentation Brother who told us that story in Pres Bray — I’m guessing in about 4th or 5th class. His voice broke and there were tears in his eyes as he recounted the horrors of the day.

What I don’t remember — because he didn’t tell us — was that those atrocities were in reprisal for a series of assassinations that had taken place earlier that day. Fourteen people died in those individual shootings also, most (though not all) British intelligence personnel. The assassinations were coordinated and ordered by Michael Collins and were carried out in just as cold-blooded a fashion as the later murder in Croke Park.

The War of Independence was at its height then, and it’s always hard to be certain about the judgement we pass on decisions made in a time of war. It’s possible — we can’t be sure — that the terrible events of that day brought the end of the War of Independence nearer.

Questions that can never be fully answered

I was born many years after the Civil War, and I can still remember rows and arguments about who was right and who was wrong. I have known people who went to their graves in great old age revering Collins and hating Dev — and vice versa.

I was a young adult before I learned that Dev probably didn’t set out to murder Collins in Béal na Bláth, though I’ve always accepted that Collins was betrayed by a duplicitous de Valera during and after the treaty negotiations.

I do accept — and believe it to be his great achievement — that the Treaty Collins signed made a major contribution to Ireland’s freedom and ultimately our place in the world. But even then there are questions that can never be fully answered.

Was it the best that could be done? Probably, but we’ll never know. If he hadn’t signed it, would Britain have resorted to the “immediate and terrible war” it threatened? Maybe, maybe not. If he had lived, would he have become a great democratic leader? Would he and de Valera have ever reconciled?