Comment by Michael Heaney
One good thing to come out of Neil Jordan's movie Michael Collins is a re-examination of the historical Michael Collins. I found the film captivating and inspirational. There are historical inaccuracies in it, but I have to disagree with Sean Healy's article "Michael Collins: Irish patriot of sell-out?" (GLW, January 22) on several points.
Jordan did a very commendable job telling the story of the 1916 Easter uprising, the war of independence, the treaty negotiations and the civil war, all in the space of two hours. This being the case, the film in places rushes through events that are quite complex.
I got the impression from Healy's review that he did not believe Collins's line in the film (referring to the treaty) that it was "the best we could have got". This must be taken with Healy's other quote from the film, when Collins says (in reference to the strength of the Republican army at the time of the signing of the treaty) that "we couldn't last a week".
Even though the Irish delegation signed the treaty in London it had to be ratified by the Dáil (Irish parliament) to come into effect. Collins, as commander in chief of the Republican army knew better than anyone else how strong the army was.
Healy states that it was not "the case that a rejection of the treaty would have meant full scale war with Britain". This is ridiculous. England was still the most powerful imperialist country in the world. England controlled all the ports and maintained a large standing army in Ireland as well as the Auxiliaries (Black and Tans).
By 1920, at the height of the war of independence, the Government of Ireland Act was passed through the British Parliament, setting up the six county state of Northern Ireland. Thus a year before the truce there was already a partitioned Ireland.
England set up a Protestant police force (the Royal Ulster Constabulary) and the Special Constabulary. The Specials, numbering 45,000 and equipped to the level of regular army.
At the time of the truce in mid-1921, the IRA had roughly 4000 men under arms and was low on ammunition. Collins was receiving reports from some divisions that they had ammunition to last only a week; that is were Collins' quote comes from. The economy was on the verge of collapse and starvation had already broken out in parts of the south.
England's threat — sign the treaty or face total war — was not to be taken lightly. It was too big a gamble to take. Collins knew that if England did go for total war, the show would be over in a fortnight.
Healy's assertion that "Collins [by signing the treaty] not only betrayed the Catholic population of the north to unrelenting repression in the decades since, but set back Irish national aspirations for decades" is not true. De Valera (as president of the republic) instructed Collins and the rest of the delegation to concentrate on removing the oath of allegiance to the British crown from the treaty. There was no mention of obtaining a united Ireland.
Throughout the period of the truce and the treaty Collins continued to supply the IRA in the newly partitioned north-east with as many men and supplies as possible. At a meeting of officers of the IRA in the north, Collins stated that although the treaty might appear to be the "outward expression of partition ... partition would never be recognised even though it might mean the smashing of the treaty".
Sean Hales, one of the leading IRA men in Cork, is quoted at this time as explaining why he supported Collins in signing the treaty: "I agree with Mick. He says the British broke the treaty of Limerick [signed in 1690 with William of Orange] and we'll break this treaty too, when it suits us, when we have our own army." Many in the IRA, including from the north, were won over by this tactic.
The day after Collins was assassinated, the Irish cabinet stopped supplying the IRA in the north. There is no doubt in my mind that if Collins had lived he would have negotiated a settlement to the civil war and would have prevented the clerical domination of the 26-county republic. So was Collins a patriot or sell-out? In my opinion he was the former.