Mick Clifford: Collins and Griffith legacies inadequately commemorated

The President of the State that Collins was instrumental in founding will not be at Béal na Bláth for his centenary commemoration. The ceremony is not commensurate with what he had achieved in life, writes Mick Clifford

In the years after his death, there were small commemorations for Collins at Béal na Bláth. During the 1930s, the occasion was marred by the appearance of Eoin O’Duffy’s Blueshirts and clashes with those who opposed the fascist outfit. Photo: Independent News And Media/Getty Images

HOW differently would Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith now be remembered if they had both died nine months earlier? How different would their respective legacies be today? 

Last Sunday, as the heatwave shimmered and shone, Griffith was remembered in Glasnevin Cemetery. The Collins/Griffith commemoration is an annual event now, but this one marked the centenary of their respective deaths. In reality, it was more focused on Griffith as Collins will be remembered at the much larger event in Béal na Bláth tomorrow.

Just three members of Dáil Éireann, the model of which was conceived by Griffith, were at the event. All, including principal speaker Leo Varadkar, are members of Fine Gael. There was also a smattering of Fine Gael senators and the lone Fianna Fáil representative, senator Mark Daly. 

There was nobody there from Sinn Féin, or the Labour party, the Greens, the Social Democrats, or People Before Profit. The President, Michael D Higgins, did not attend. If you didn’t know better, you might think that Griffith had been some Fine Gael grandee way back in the mists of time rather than the man described by Collins as “the father of us all”.

Tomorrow, at Béal na Bláth, a multiple of last Sunday’s attendance is expected to attend. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will both be represented by their respective leaders. But the President of the State that Collins was instrumental in founding will not be there. Neither will the leader of the third force in politics today, Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald.

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Collins and Griffith were more successful in their fight for Ireland than anybody in the preceding 800 years, yet over the last century neither arguably received due recognition. They were in that respect caught between the winning of the war and the bedding down of the peace to create a State that persisted, against the odds, as a continuous democracy since 1922.

One reason for the suppression of their respective stocks in the public imagination was the survival and prospering of the other big beast of the day, Éamon de Valera. He emerged from the rubble to found a party which he cast as the spirit of the nation. In such a mythical nation there was no room to remember in a proper manner Dev’s great rivals, particularly Collins.

In the years after his death, there were small commemorations for Collins at Béal na Bláth. During the 1930s, the occasion was marred by the appearance of Eoin O’Duffy’s Blueshirts and clashes with those who opposed the fascist outfit.

By then, de Valera was in power and the government ordered the army not to partake in the annual event, despite Collins having been its first commander-in-chief. It wasn’t until 1939 that Dev’s government granted permission for a headstone to be erected over Collins’ grave in Glasnevin and even then the monument had to comply with strict design criteria.

When the inter-party government came to power in the 1950s, the army once again had a role in the annual Béal na Bláth event. And when Fianna Fáil returned to office in 1957, the army was once again told to stay away. It wasn’t until 1972, on the 50th anniversary of his death, that the Defence Forces were finally allowed to unconditionally honour its first commander-in-chief.

Four-year-old Levi Byrne from Blessington, Co. Wicklow, at the Irish Costume Archive Project’s launch of the ‘Art of Costume’ exhibition in front of Liam Neeson’s famous costume from Neil Jordan’s 1996 film ‘Michael Collins’. Collins’ elevated standing was achieved with biographies such as the one authored by Tim Pat Coogan, and then got the Hollywood treatment through Neil Jordan and Neeson. Photo: Mark Stedman

The decades following Dev’s death in 1975 have been kinder to Collins’ memory at least. His elevated standing was achieved with biographies such as the one authored by Tim Pat Coogan, and then got the Hollywood treatment through Neil Jordan and Liam Neeson.

However, the century following both men’s deaths would have been kinder to their respective memories if they had died before putting their names to the Treaty. Fianna Fáil could have claimed that neither would have signed away the Republic. Dev would have fed off the legend of the man who won the war at his right-hand side.

For Sinn Féin, Griffith, the founder of the party of that name, would in all likelihood have been remembered as the font of their long self-styled struggle. Sinn Féin would in all likelihood have cast Collins as the man who would never have, as they saw it, sold out the Republic.

So much for that alternative history. As it was, it was left to Fine Gael to claim both men as theirs despite the fact that precious little in either of their backgrounds, and particularly Collins’, suggested they would have felt at home in the party that was founded a decade after their respective deaths.

But if they would have been remembered by a wider catchment, so also would their legacies have been much reduced. The Anglo-Irish Treaty remains for many a flawed deal but surely the long lens must cast it as the best that was available for a small country breaking new ground in the shadow of the world’s biggest empire of the day.

Collins knew that a failure to sign would have meant a resumption of war, but crucially he also knew that he or some successor would be back at the table faced with the same unpalatable choices when the guns fell silent once again.

By signing, he avoided pointless further bloodshed and destruction which could have dragged the island towards the abyss. Instead, he managed to get what he prophetically characterised as “the freedom to achieve freedom”.

FOR Fianna Fail, which grew out of the anti-treaty side, he was wrong to sign but sure, the Soldiers of Destiny told themselves, let’s just get on with it now that we have the votes. The Shinner narrative has it that the fight should have continued until a 32-county Republic was achieved.

Seventy years later, the Provisional IRA plumbed depths of depravity over two-and-a-half decades in attempting to bring about such an entity, yet still failed. What chance would there have ever been at a time when Britain was a powerful global force that could have turned to the rest of the world and claimed they had tried to come to an arrangement but the Irish wouldn’t listen?

So it was that the two men signed and took the consequences, which ultimately was premature death for both of them before the freedoms began to crystallise. As a result, their respective commemorations were not commensurate with what they had achieved in life.

Remembering the patriot dead is nearly always about the present and how those from the past can be cast to the advantage of prevailing politics. What really matters is not the breadth of the catchment in being remembered fondly or with vigour. The main thing is their actual legacies.

And in that respect, both men selflessly, efficiently, and with vision were genuine patriots who made massive, if not unparalleled, contributions to their nation.