Let’s deal with our historical figures as humans — not gods or devils

Dev’s papers have been transferred to UCD, which plans to digitalise them and make them available on the internet.

That will be an invaluable asset to those interested in history and a magnificent tribute to Dev himself. Hopefully, it could set a trend that would open up history to more people

FOR years there was a tendency to depict Eamon de Valera as responsible for the development of Ireland into the backward episcopal bog that it became in the 1950s. That changed dramatically in the 1960s. We enjoyed an economic boom, but it was lost again amid rising oil prices, political plunder and industrial lunacy like the demarcation disputes witnessed again this week.

There is an old adage that those who are ignorant of their history are doomed to repeat it. Will Tralee General Hospital need to employ designated, trained light bulb-changers, and will children have to be sacrificed in the Mid-Western Hospital in Limerick on the altar of industrial greed?

It is important that young people should be encouraged to study our history if we are going to learn from the mistakes of the past. There have been efforts in recent years to interest Leaving Certificate students by getting them to submit historical research projects.

Facts are the building blocks of history, but a dangerous trend has developed in RTÉ’s recent interest in de Valera. We are getting a lot of opinion in the guise of facts. That people expressed those opinions may be a fact, but they are still opinions.

It was interesting to watch the somewhat heated exchanges this week between Diarmaid Ferriter and Tim Pat Coogan, who claimed that he had access to Dev’s papers long before they were released to the public.

There is evidence among the State papers of the 1960s of documents being sent to Áras an Uachtaráin, where selected individuals were allowed to consult them.

It was one thing for de Valera to open up his own personal papers to anyone he wished, but it was a different matter to give selected access to State papers to writers, while those papers were being denied to the public.

The late Thomas P O’Neill worked for many years on an authorised biography of the Long Fellow and eventually cooperated with the late Lord Longford to complete a quasi-authorised version.

Later Maurice Moynihan, long-time secretary of the Department of the Taoiseach, had special access to closed files for his posthumous collection of Dev’s speeches and statements.

Nobody should therefore be in the least surprised that Tim Pat Coogan, the editor of the Irish Press, had similar access to his papers. But if the aim was to ensure that only admirers got a free run first, that little plan backfired because Tim Pat has been belching fire ever since. The first newspaper articles I ever wrote were a series on the personal papers of David Gray, the American minister to this country during the war. I figured the Irish Press would be most interested, so I wrote to the editor, Tim Pat Coogan, from Texas where I had just finishing my doctorate in history.

Tim Pat apparently did not realise I was reared in Ireland, so he informed me that his boss was de Valera’s son. He underlined Vivion de Valera’s name on the letterhead, which I assumed was a subtle suggestion that my views should be favourable to Dev. I had written to the Irish Press because I thought Dev’s handling of Irish neutrality was masterful.

Of course, that was when Tim Pat was busy protecting Dev’s reputation. But for the past 20 years he has hardly had a good word to say about him. Why the change? Tim Pat and I have crossed swords on a few occasions over those years. The first time was during a 1990 radio programme chaired by Joe Duffy. The programme included Tim Pat, Mary Banotti and the late Brendan O’Reilly. It was like a Michael Collins love-in.

It became so obsequious that I complained the programme sounded like a case for his canonisation, but he was no saint. Joe Duffy joked that Mary Banotti, the Big Fellow’s grandniece, had just fallen off her stool. Some weeks later I received a letter from Liam Collins, a nephew of Michael Collins.

He mentioned that he had heard the radio programme. “I was very taken aback at the time by your contribution,” he wrote. “Since then I have decided to read your publication The Man Who Won the War. And quite frankly I am very glad I did so. As I see your book, it recognises in quite a fair and honest way the pluses and minuses of the man.”

We have had enough distortion on all sides, and it is time to stop the polemics and deal with our historical figures as humans, not gods or devils. The de Valera papers have been transferred to the archives at UCD, which plans to digitalise them and make them available on the internet.

That will be an invaluable asset to people interested in history and a magnificent tribute to Dev himself. Hopefully, it could set a trend that would open up Irish history to more people.

Dev made an invaluable contribution to history with the promotion of the Bureau of Military History, which conducted interviews in the 1940s and 1950s with hundreds of survivors of the War of Independence. It seemed the men spent most of their time waiting. One man gave details of waiting to ambush a Crown convoy for days on end in south Kerry. Each day they would call off the ambush and come back the next day. When the convoy did show, it was too big, so they called off the ambush again. After any war those who killed people in military engagements usually do not like to talk about it. Those most involved in the War of Independence seemed to talk least, with very few exceptions. Some shot their mouths off over the years, but that was usually about all they ever shot. Having remained silent while the soapbox patriots were sounding off, many of those who had been really active did not speak.

POSSIBLY they were turned off by the others. But they did talk to the Bureau of Military History, as this would not be seen as bragging. Those statements would only be released after their deaths. The beauty is that much information can be cross-checked against other accounts of the same incidents. Those witness statements are particularly popular among Leaving Cert students as they afford the most comprehensive accounts of the War of Independence in various parts of the country. The statements have become so popular that anybody who wishes to see the material at the military archives usually had to book a place well in advance. The system currently favours students living in Dublin.

What about the rest of the country? Surely the bureau’s files should be digitalised and put on the internet, or copies should be made so that the submissions from each county could be deposited in that county library. It would be much easier for students then to view the material in their local library.

At present, access to the witness statements is effectively restricted to those living in Dublin, or those who can afford to spend time there. This is an affront to real republicanism. Providing digitalised CDs would be an invaluable resource, especially for Leaving Cert students. It would also be a fitting tribute not only to those who went to the trouble of facilitating the bureau with their reminiscences, but also to the men and women who made their contribution in the struggle for a realrepublic and never got the chance to tell their stories.