I often think that it was of great fortune for Michael Collins the idea, as opposed to Michael Collins the man, that he met his end when he did. Had he lived, we may hope that he would have gone on to live a long and happy life, and produced children and grand-children and great-grandchildren who would today happily be trading on the fact that Michael Collins was their great-grand-father. Yet had he lived, he would have been a man instead of a mere idea: The pristine revolutionary tarnished, inevitably, by years in Government raising taxes here and cutting pensions there and maybe even losing an election or two. Dying young and before your potential has been fulfilled is a personal and human tragedy but it does work wonders for your posthumous reputation.
In any case, it’s a fact of Irish political life that Beal na Bláth is now a site for political pilgrimage, to where political actors of all stripes are drawn in order to “commemorate” Collins, but in reality to try and associate themselves with his legacy. We have had two examples of that in the past week, of contrasting styles.
The first to give it a go was Justin Barrett, the one time undisputed and now disputed leader of the National Party, who arrived for the occasion in full home-made military garb that appeared to be a cross between the uniforms of a Gestapo man and that of a London bus conductor, and cast himself in the shadow of Collins the military leader: Collins freed Ireland from occupation, in this interpretation of the great man’s legacy, and that’s what Barrett was trying to echo with a speech that cast doubt on whether there would even be an Irish race in a few decades if the country does not listen to Justin Barrett. Bua no Bás, he entitled his speech – victory or death. It should be noted that in the long history of that particular phrase, death has followed more reliably than victory.
That speech at Beal na Bláth was followed, a few days later, by the Taoiseach, who was also eager to follow in the footsteps of Michael Collins. Standing in the same place that Mr. Barrett had stood just a few days earlier, he declared a war of his own:
Around the world democratic values are being assailed and attacked by disinformation, polarisation, and the erosion of trust in institutions.
Around the world, and much closer to home.
But while these threats are real, they also present us with an opportunity: the chance to reaffirm and strengthen our commitment to the democratic values that define us.
We unite in defiance of those who try to silence elected politicians, who try to thwart the will of the people by violence and intimidation.
In the 102 years since Michael Collins’ assassination, the methods of silencing voices may have evolved, but the intent, the implied violence, and insidious effects on our society have not changed.
Like Collins’ generation, we will fight those forces, and we will win.
For Justin Barrett, the migrants are the new Brits. For Simon Harris, online misinformation is the new Brits. Both fancy themselves, in their own way, as heirs to Michael Collins fighting a war of similar significance. That’s why both travelled to the location of his assassination to bathe themselves in his shadow.
The worship of Collins as some kind of founding father for the modern Irish state is not a phenomenon that’s unique to Ireland: The Americans place their “founding fathers” on a kind of pedestal equivalent to the Roman pantheon of Gods, while maintaining the pretence that Thomas Jefferson or George Washington would recognise or approve of that country as it is today. Those two, like Collins, tend to be used by politicians to cast their ideas in a patriotic light, and it’s just as nonsensical there as it is here at home.
There’s a temptation, of course, to fall into the same trap in return: To say things like “Simon Harris isn’t fit to lick Michael Collins’ boots”. But that’s just the same dishonesty inverted upon someone we don’t like: For all we know, Collins might be a staunch Fine Gaeler if he was alive today.
The bigger problem, I’d argue, is being tied to the idea that the challenges of today should be met through the prism of yesterday, especially when that prism is one of relative failure. For all his undoubted qualities and accomplishments, Collins did not ultimately succeed in delivering the independent republic that was the goal of his war, and he lost his life at the age of 31 having pursued that goal with the use of bloodshed and violence against his enemies foreign and domestic. These are the very facts that got him killed, in the first place. Had he accomplished what he set out to do, there wouldn’t have been a civil war to begin with.
Both speakers at Beal na Bláth – Barrett and Harris – were in their own ways embracing a civil war spirit. Barrett would like the people to rise up – under his own leadership, naturally – and wage a war on the “occupier”. Harris would like us to rise up and wage war on the likes of Barrett, though his preferred methods would be less direct and likely involve more lawyers. Neither man has much of any interest in persuading or reconciling with the other. Both were twisting Collins’ legacy to their own ends.
Yet the country is not, in fact, engaged in any kind of heroic struggle – just the pretence of one. The problems Ireland faces are administrative, not military or spiritual. Were Michael Collins alive today he would not have to fight a war: He would have to figure out how to supply 250,000 homes over the next few years, or how to reduce waiting lists for children with scoliosis, or how to hire more teachers, or how to manage the national budget at a time of massive spending increases and coming fiscal pressure, or how to reduce immigration without people thinking you’re some sort of nazi.
One of the problems Ireland and Irish leaders have is that if our problems could be solved by a few speeches at Beal na Bláth and some flowery rhetoric about our glorious republican dead, then this would be the wealthiest nation on earth. We’re good at the performing arts bit of politics. It’s actually running a country that we’re bad at. That’s probably why we’ve outsourced so much of it to Brussels: So that they can make the hard decisions, and our lads can make the speeches.
Just like Collins dreamed of.