A more controversial figure in Irish history would be hard to find. Now, a full 74 years after his death, Michael Collins is still the subject of debate as a forthcoming film promises to portray him as a heroic fighter for Irish independence, a prospect which horrifies the British establishment. Similarly many in Ireland are angry that his role as one of the traitors responsible for accepting the partition of Ireland with the British might be forgotten. That one man could evoke such contrary images is in part due to the mist that is often allowed to obscure the events that followed the Treaty settlement with Britain in 1921. The civil war that ensued claimed more Irish lives than the war for independence that had preceded it. The struggle for independence encompassed armed ambushes, spectacular jailbreaks, general strikes and even some fledgling workers' soviets.
Collins, known as `the Bit Fellow', was a charismatic and popular nationalist who was known throughout Ireland as the dashing soldier audacious in his defiance of British rule. He set up underground newspapers, arms smuggling routes, a national loan to fund the activities and an elite hit squad of men who carried out ambushes and assassinations. Becoming one of the most wanted men in Ireland did not stop him cycling around Dublin under full view of the British forces who falsely believed that someone who looked smartly dressed and travelled around so confidently could not ever be the highly dangerous terrorist Michael Collins. Such was the respect for his courage and reputation that he was never betrayed. His famous network of spies and contacts reached right to the heart of the British administration, sometimes enabling him to see confidential government documents within hours of them having been issued. He was eventually assasinated by anti-Treaty forces during the civil war in 1922.
Collins had first taken up arms against British imperialism in the Easter Rising of 1916 and threw himself into the continuing struggle after the war. Ireland was radicalised after years of unrest and mass protest against conscription and British rule. The nationalist organisation, Sinn Fein, became the focus for this anger although it was far from being a radical group under the leadership of right wing nationalist Arthur Griffiths. It sided with the employers in the Dublin Lockout of 1913 and condemned the Rising itself. But in 1917 the membership grew from 11,000 to 250,000 while over the same period the Transport and General Union grew from 5,000 to 100,000 as the population became politicised.
The general election which followed the war in December 1918 demonstrated this swing of opinion, with 73 out 105 seats being won by Sinn Fein candidates, half of whom were in prison. The beneficiaries of the mood were the Catholic middle class, for the Sinn Fein candidates had all been handpicked by Collins and were predominantly business and professional men who had become convinced that complete separation from Britain was in their interests.
Abstaining from Westminster they set up their own, illegal, parliament in Dublin, the first Dail. On the one hand, the British government was still nominally in control of Ireland. On the other hand the Dail set up a government with the full paraphernalia of parliamentary rule Collins was the minister for finance, though he had his fingers in many pies while the country was in the process of huge social upheaval. Belfast had erupted in strikes as the engineers fought for a shorter working week which inspired workers across Ireland. Over 14,000 in Limerick downed tools to protest at British military repression nothing moved. Strikes and similar protests took place in cities and towns across the country, while in many rural areas small farmers and labourers began to take over land owned by hated Unionist landlords. Ireland was in a ferment and the nationalist landlords and bosses began to demand that the Dail assert its authority as a government and `restore order'.
And so it did. Collins and his fellow rebels were not in the business of fomenting revolution but of establishing Ireland as a stable nation state where they and the men of their class could prosper. Land arbitration courts were set up to decide land disputes, which Sinn Fein labelled as `agrarian crime'. Most of the judgements came down on the side of the landlords, with the IRA enforcing decisions and the handing back of land. The Dail's view was clear, that the strikers and landless were `out to create a state of anarchy which ought to be put a stop to'. Griffiths assured bosses that they had `nothing to fear in the way of confiscation nor unjust discrimination'.
The British were not going to give Ireland up without a bitter struggle, the ferocity of which can be gauged from police policy as expounded by one of its officers Lieutenant Colonel Bruce Smyth `Sinn Fein has had all the sport up till the present and we are going to have it now... You may make mistakes occasionally, and innocent persons may be shot, but that cannot be helped, and you are bound to get the right person sometime. The more you shoot the better I will like you and I assure you that no policeman will get into trouble for shooting a man.' A month later he himself was shot but the murderous policy outlived him.
The notorious Black and Tans (because of their motley uniforms) along with the ever expanding military presence of the Auxiliaries and police, carried out some of the worst atrocities of the war. One of Collins's most spectacular feats of retaliation was masterminding of the murder of 19 underground British intelligence officers in one morning. Later that day the military retaliated by opening fire on a crowd at a football match at Croke Park, killing one player and 13 supporters, but Collins's ability to infiltrate the British forces and carry out an attack on that scale clearly unnerved the regime.
The military war was not the only front. The Irish TUC organised a three day general strike which succeeded in winning the unconditional release of hunger striking Republicans from Mountjoy prison. In the north Unionist leaders declared `holy war' on Catholics and the shipyards were cleared of all Catholic workers and `rotten Prods' socialists or pro-Catholic sympathisers while hundreds of Catholic families were burnt out of their homes.
It was against this background that the British government called for talks and a truce was finally called in July 1921. In the light of the current negotiations it is significant that the IRA were still allowed to keep their weapons and continue training and drilling. The coming of the truce created an atmosphere of relief and in some places jubilation as wanted men came out of hiding, families were reunited and there was a feeling that the suffering had not been in vain and that independence was finally going to be conceded. Initially Eamon de Valera, as the president of the Dail, went to London for the first talks, meeting the British prime minister Lloyd George alone. Lloyd George made it clear that he would not concede an Irish republic but proposed some sort of nominal independence still under the crown.
Later de Valera was to insist that he would in future stay behind in Dublin while Collins should lead a team with Arthur Griffiths and others to negotiate with the British. Much is made of Collins, the simple soldier, being put into a situation in which he was out of his depth. It is claimed that he fell into a trap carefully laid by de Valera so that he was seen as the person responsible for a shoddy deal.
De Valera had undoubtedly set Collins up, but details of the Treaty negotiations show that Collins was confident enough in his tactics to negotiate with the British behind the backs of the rest of his fellow delegates when it suited him.
His weakness was that he allowed the British to blackmail him into signing under threat of a renewed and more bloody war. Collins's willingness to accept this view led one of the delegation to say with exasperation that when they were discussing proposals in private it was as if the British were still in the room, since Collins continually tried to push their point of view. The compromises accepted by Griffiths and Collins were paraded in the House of Commons to placate the Unionists and their Tory supporters. Much was made of British promises that the Northern Ireland state which resulted could be challenged by a boundary commission and plebiscites in border areas but partition was established and remains to this day.
The agreement reached in effect accepted partition, British control of naval ports, payment of debts to Britain and the obligation on all Dail representatives to take an oath to the king. When this treaty was brought back to Ireland the country was split. De Valera swung into action, denouncing Collins as a traitor for failing to win a republic. In January 1922 the Dail finally agreed to ratify the Treaty, flinging the country into civil war between the pro-Treaty government and anti-Treaty forces.
This was the most contradictory phase of Collins's life. He continued to negotiate with the British and accepted their offers of tanks to fight his erstwhile comrades, most memorably when they took over the historic Four Courts building in central Dublin (Churchill even offered to give British tanks a quick paint job in Irish colours so that their source would remain secret). He also secretly carried on organising guerrilla war in the North, while all the time being in control of several government departments.
Most accounts explain the split over the Treaty as between hardline Republicans who rejected it and the moderates who wanted to settle. Though to some extent this explains the basis for the civil war, the element that is often ignored is the class division of the war. The Catholic middle class of Ireland were solidly for the Treaty. All they had ever wanted was the chance to develop and expand their businesses and trade. The domination of Britain had acted as a brake on their ability to make profits. On the other hand the support for the anti-Treaty forces was overwhelmingly based among the poor and working class who had suffered the most and felt they still had much to gain.
In his biography of Collins, Tim Pat Coogan is disparaging about what he called this `land hungry and predatory element which emerges from any revolution [who] tried to take advantage of the times to seize what did not belong to it'. But it was precisely in opposition to the `land hungry and predatory' elements of British imperialism and the Catholic middle classes that so many men and women took up a courageous struggle.
The civil war ended in May 1923, eight months after Collins's assassination, with the Republicans laying down their arms. The pro-Treaty forces became what is now known as Fine Gael and after a four year boycott of the Dail the anti-Treaty forces, Fianna Fail, took up parliamentary seats in 1927. De Valera, having made his peace with the establishment, went on to lead Ireland as prime minister and then as president from 1927 right through until the 1970s. As a result of the credibility won during the civil war Fianna Fail has been able to dominate the Irish political scene for decades.
Reviving memories of Collins cannot help but remind people of the creation of partitioned Ireland born in blood, treachery and compromise. The modern political leaders today, both North and South, would prefer that this awkward history was forgotten, but the roots of the present conflict lie in these turbulent years, so it is timely to recall them.