Dying For Peace: Yitchok Rabin, Yasser Arafat, and Michael Collins

Prime Minister Yitchok Rabin & President Yasser Arafat shake hands as US President Clinton looks on, 1993

This blog’s theme of Michael Collins’ assassination, as well as his life and times, has occasionally made space for more recent history, which resonates with and elucidates his.

Most historians now recognize the role of peace talks in Collins’ last journey; although in some quarters it was denied for decades. A peace negotiator’s mission can be a hazardous one; as observed throughout history, into the present day.

Israel since Rabin and Arafat demonstrates the horrific cost of political killings.  Two great statesmen, with rare levels of credibility and political will needed to end what seems hopelessly endless conflict, determined to find solutions, at a central flashpoint of global military powers… were suspiciously removed.

Is it not their loss which has thrown the shadow of the Doomsday Clock across our world?  Does planetary survival totter, at this writing, because assassination derailed that peace process?

Yet, in the concurrent deluge of discussion on the Middle East, it’s shocking how little mention is heard of Rabin’s and Arafat’s respective suspicious deaths; or of the great hopes for a workable peace, which seem to have died with them.

(Quotations below are from The Assassination of Michael Collins: What Happened at Beal na mBlath unless otherwise noted.)

What has all this to do with Michael Collins?

“…a look at Béal na mBláth in the larger context of similar cases: involving similar types of leaders, at a similar moment in a similar struggle with a similar if not the very same foe … And Collins’ death will look very different; with a lot more to say …about who we are, where we’ve been, and where we could go from here. Because a story like his is for all people, everywhere, in all times.”

Not long before the Good Friday Agreement inaugurated lasting peace in Northern Ireland, the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize was shared between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchok Rabin, Palestinian National Authority President Yasser Arafat (Chairman of the Executive Committe, Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres; for their instrumental roles in bringing about the landmark Oslo Accords , which sought to create lasting political remedies to military conflict in Israel / Palestine.

But not everyone wanted peace. While the world applauded this epoch-making achievement, political opponents published death threats against Prime Minister Rabin. On 4 November 1995, he fell to bullets fired by a self-avowed Zionist fanatic, as he was leaving a rally, enthusiastic cheers of Israeli peace supporters ringing in his ears.

In 2004 Arafat, whom Rabin had called “the only Palestinian leader who can deliver peace” and whom the The Arab League designated “the only legitimate representative of the Palestinian people” also died suddenly, under suspicious circumstances; which resonate remarkably with Arthur Griffith’s end . Definitive studies have raised serious questions that this, also, was political murder. “What Killed Arafat?” Al Jazeera Investigates

One of those who threatened Rabin is, at this writing, Israel’s Minister of National Security.  The right-wing government he represents, effectively placed in power by the murder of Rabin, has dominated Israeli politics ever since. It’s pursued the demolition of the Oslo Accords, continual military escalation, and genocidal policies against its Palestinian citizens. Many have died of these policies; yet that regime survives. Indeed, its longevity seems altogether extraordinary.

Clearly, continual war, with no other option in sight, is what someone wants. But who could possibly desire that? People on the ground in a war zone…?

Who gains? 
What few remember is that the British Empire was in no uncertain terms the architect of modern Israel; and of the festering permanent conflict which was built into its foundations. “Britain in Palestine 1917-1948”

“Britain has not made a declaration of war upon Egypt, neither has she made a declaration of war upon India. But is the war there less terrible for being undeclared?“
– Michael Collins 1922

For centuries, Palestine’s Muslims, Jews, and Christians co-existed in relative harmony; until the British Empire took over, following World War I’s regime change.

London’s prominent representative in that process was Lord Balfour: who played a key role in the design of Northern Ireland’s sectarian regime of apartheid terror against Catholics.

In Palestine, Balfour pursued a strategy of contradictory promises; which brought “both [zionist & Palestinian] communities [to believe] that they had been promised the land.” Meanwhile decisive support from Western powers’ heavily weighted the outcome in favor of an apartheid theocracy, dominated by Jews of white European extraction.

Balfour’s manouevering achieved the effective exclusion of Palestinians from the new state’s government. Even as he’d worked hard to exclude Catholics from government in the new statelet of Northern Ireland. (It has been postulated that Michael Collins was assassinated largely to make way for that British plan in the North.)

Thus in both Belfast and Jerusalem, colonialist regimes were established, by British power brokers, on a basis of cynical racial / religious persecution, displacement, and progressively increasing violent, genocidal aggression against a civilian population.

All of this led, predictably enough, in both Ireland and Israel, to what Michael Collins deemed the worst possible outcome of civil conflict: not only that their old Imperial masters might come back, “but that they would be welcomed back.”

It seems clear enough that, in some regions, endless war may be more than a regrettable side effect of departing colonialists.

But such murders never stand alone. They form part of a context of slaughter, which enable other deaths. In both cases, the elimination of one man, who represented millions of voters, enabled the mass murder of virtually an entire movement, along with him. This was no less true of Chile in 1973 than of Ireland in 1922.

In the case of Rabin (who was born in 1922, the year of Collins’ death) & Arafat, it’s evident enough just what kind of killing their assassins had in mind: what pogrom these two statesmen were removed expressly in order to unleash.

If there is an agenda in powerful quarters to keep the Middle East a permanent war zone… was that not originally a British agenda? More importantly, does it continue to be so today?

Read more:

The Balfour Project
balfourproject.org

***

Quotations in this blog post,
except where otherwise noted, are from: 

“The Assassination of Michael Collins:
What Happened At Béal na mBláth?”

by S M Sigerson
Paperback or Kindle edition here:
www.amazon.com/dp/1493784714

All other e-reader formats:
www.smashwords.com/books/view/433954

Read reviews:
http://www.rabidreaders.com/2014/12/03/assassination-michael-collins-s-m-sigerson-2/

Or ask at your local book shop

 

Did Michael Collins have to go to West Cork? Diplomacy and provisional governments

Michael Collins with Arthur Griffith outside 10 Downing Street, London negotiations 1921

If Commander-in-Chief Collins were negotiating peace when he was shot, that is directly connected with the fact that he didn’t have a nice, quiet 10 Downing Street at which to hold his conference with anti-Treaty leaders in the Irish Civil War. Nor could his conferees have come there: as men on the run, at war with government.

In  The Lost Leader, M Forester intelligently observed that “A Commander-in-Chief does not fling himself on his stomach behind a ditch with a rifle to take pot shots at the enemy. Nor, for that matter, do heads of [state].”

However, she erred in comparing Collins to British leaders: secure in the enjoyment of a firm and wealthy dynasty, backed by centuries of relative stability, with the happiness to be free from armed conflict, on the steps of their own offices. A young provisional government, guerrillas only yesterday, faced very different obligations and challenges. Struggling to emerge from a violent military occupation, their society was turned upside down, their civil institutions in flux or non-existent, fraught by enemies within and without.

In such contexts, a Salvador Allende might find that the Presidential Palace (where certain death awaited) was perhaps precisely the place he had to be. It can likewise be seen that Collins, both in his role as C-in-C, and as erstwhile head of the Provisional Government, was fulfilling his appropriate role: pursuing diplomacy and negotiating peace.

Collins rode in a Leyland straight 8 touring car

Maybe the only way to make that happen, the only way to prevent imminent national disaster, was to take his life in his hands, into the wild back roads of West Cork; now. As it happened, perhaps that very place, at that moment, was where he was obliged to appear: because no one else had the authority, as well as the credibility, in addition to the will, and the power, to negotiate this peace, with these forces.

And, lest we forget, assassination en route to peace parlays, has historically been an occupational hazard for Gaelic leaders, who venture to negotiate with London.

R E A D    M O R E
on Irish History / Irish Civil War:
“The Assassination of Michael Collins:
What Happened At Béal na mBláth?”

by S M Sigerson
Paperback or Kindle edition here:
www.amazon.com/dp/1493784714

All other e-reader formats:
www.smashwords.com/books/view/433954

Read reviews:
http://www.rabidreaders.com/2014/12/03/assassination-michael-collins-s-m-sigerson-2/

OR ASK AT YOUR LOCAL BOOK SHOP

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Will the Real Revolution Please Stand Up? Reconciliation and the Irish Civil War – Part II

1921 Battle of Dublin

(Also see linked posts:
“Reconciliation and the Irish Civil War” Pt I & Pt III  on this blog site.)

It’s been seen how even the most seemingly reasonable outlook, (such as “..there were wrongs on both sides,”) can be twisted into travesty, where unjustly applied.  Yet it must be said now that reconciliation over the Irish Civil War requires circumspection, and willingness to admit errors, in the proponents of both Free State (FS) and anti-Treaty (AT, ATI (/ AT IRA) views.

Among those who continue to support AT views, often the most frequent complaint is, “They (FS) turned the guns on comrades!” Yet the anti-Treaty faction was itself unquestionably the first to “turn guns on comrades“: away from British targets, toward fellow Irish. By the same token, the partition of the North remains a big issue on that table, and justly so. Yet with willful blindness to the fact that the joint pro- & anti-Treaty 1922 Northern Campaign, to reclaim the six counties on all fronts: diplomatic, political, and military, was ended expressly because of Civil War between comrades. Lest we forget, IRA units in the partitioned six counties did not take up arms against the Dublin government. It was crystal clear to them that such a policy, or any split in nationalist forces, would leave them at the mercy of the new, murderous, unionist regime at Stormont. And that’s precisely what happened.

In the Free State’s Civil War campaign “the rate of executions and imprisonment superseded that of the earlier struggle for independence.” (Prof Siobhra Aiken, Queen’s University Belfast) Spiritual Wounds: Trauma, Testimony, and the Irish Civil War   post on this site] That is to say, exceeded British violence in Ireland over a comparable time span. Dublin’s summary executions without trial violated international conventions on war and human rights, then and now. Yet the inheritors of the FS establishment applaud their founders without exception as saviours of the country from bloody anarchy. Or was the FS government itself a form of bloody anarchy?

All of this was avoidable. By June 1922, Ireland, contrary to the conventional wisdom of hindsight, was bidding fair to avoid civil war entirely; much to the displeasure of the London regime, particularly Churchill. (May 1922: Leaders Strive to Prevent Civil War  post this site]

Pro- and anti-Treaty representatives at 1922 Pact Elections meeting. Michael Collins, Arthur Griffith, Eamonn DeValera front row

The June 1922 “Pact Elections” proved a majority of the Irish public war-weary, and more than willing to accept, for now, the measure of independence won at the 1921 London negotiations. This result was freely admitted on all sides.

Just days after the poll was decided, two events overturned all laudable peace efforts, and hurled the country into full-scale civil conflict: the assassination of Sir Henry Wilson (post, this site) and the resulting shelling of the anti-Treaty garrison at Four Courts. ( Four Courts Bombardment – Who Gave the Order? post this site)

According to the [Four Courts garrison], they were loading their arms onto lorries and would have evacuated the Four Courts by 8AM in the morning. Had the shelling not started at 4AM, they say, there would have been no Civil War.
– John M Feehan

Four Courts siege 1922

Michael Collins has unjustly been scapegoated as having ordered both disastrous actions; despite marked lack of substantial evidence that he did so. ( Sir Henry Wilson Assassination 1922 post, this site) Both may be said to have led directly to his own killing, just weeks later. Hazy, contradictory details in the chain of command in those actions echo the mystery surrounding Collins’ suspicious death; as well as that of Arthur Griffith, Harry Boland, and Liam Lynch.

Certainly blaming the victim is ever an all too convenient cop out. But Collins did not survive years on the most wanted list, captain Ireland’s most successful assault on foreign occupation yet, all the way to the negotiating table, winning unprecedented liberties which voided the nefarious Treaty of Limerick and Act of Union… by being known for such monumentally suicidal blunders.

…There is as yet no adequate study available dealing with the role of the British secret service in the Civil War. No one really knows how far their promptings were responsible for starting the Civil War or indeed for the subsequent shooting without trial of so many republican prisoners.
– Feehan

Who was a traitor?
It’s necessary for commentators of all persuations to acknowledge that many well-meaning patriots supported FS and AT alike. Even as well-intentioned voters in Ireland today might vote for Sinn Fein, Fine Gael, Fianna Fail, the Labour Party, the Green Party, People Before Profit… as it may seem to them might best serve the country’s needs.

I disagreed with MIchael Collins about the Treaty. But he was no traitor.
– Kathleen Clarke

Kathleen Clarke

 

At the same time, Feehan’s call (above) for greater scrutiny of the role of clandestine British operations in the Civil War has remained a voice crying in the wilderness. While spies and “moles” (those who joined nationalist forces as operatives for the British) are freely discussed in histories of the Anglo-Irish War 1919-1921 (aka War of Independence / Tan War,) the topic with regard to the Civil War seems almost taboo. No one wants to admit that such operatives could have been active on their side.

Even as sincerity was in plentiful supply on both sides, it’s necessary to recognize that neither was either free from opportunists, even in the leadership of both sides: willing enough to exacerbate the situation, without regard to Ireland’s welfare; but rather with a view to their own subsequent post-war career. As history shows, some did very well for themselves by it.

Soul-searching among leaders of today would not be remiss: is there not reluctance to critique one’s own political forebears / founders of one’s own party? Certainly, in practical terms, every politician’s number one job is to raise a cheering section: to drum up support for their party. Whatever their programs, their sole means of pursuing them, is to gain power; which is to say, to gain popularity.

Who can blame them, if history may often be with them largely a tool for realizing such goals? How can they see a too-unsparing moral inventory of their founders as in any way related to that job?

Yet surely, any party which advertises itself as offering government for all, must move past a partisan position on the Civil War; and ought to do better than commemorating 1922 with a statement that “the shelling of the Four Courts started the Civil War.” As if no events preceded and led up to that turning point; as if members of the ATI garrison at Four Courts had no part in picking up the gun against their own countrymen, but were merely sitting on the quay, smelling a flower! As if both pro-and anti-Treaty leaders did not first carry on months of painstaking negotiations to avoid conflict.

“When choosing someone for a mission in which courage and judgement are equally required, I’d rather send a clever coward than a stupid hero.”
– Michael Collins

Michael Collins speaking in favor of the Treaty Clonakilty 1922

Perhaps the greatest service to Ireland possible, with regard to Civil War commemoration, might be for today’s prominent political representatives to cop on, and be an example of the good old democratic principle of criticism/self-criticism. To admit that, for all their sincere patriotic intentions, it was the ATI who first “turned guns on comrades“; and that their doing so never won a single further millimeter of Irish soil from British control. That however politically correct anyone might esteem them, their military strategy was a failure.

Let’s see the present Fianna Fail / Fine Gael (FF/FG) establishment issue a condemnation of the wanton executions, imprisonment, and torture practiced against the ATI under their successive governments; as well as their like failure to address or improve upon Ireland’s most imperfect independence, for the past 100 years.

Let’s be revolutionary. Let’s revolutionize the way we think of the Civil War; the way we deal with each other, and with that past.

R E A D    M O R E
on Irish History / Irish Civil War:
“The Assassination of Michael Collins:
What Happened At Béal na mBláth?”

by S M Sigerson
Paperback or Kindle edition here:
www.amazon.com/dp/1493784714

All other e-reader formats:
www.smashwords.com/books/view/433954

Read reviews:
http://www.rabidreaders.com/2014/12/03/assassination-michael-collins-s-m-sigerson-2/

OR ASK AT YOUR LOCAL BOOK SHOP

 

 

 

 

Spiritual Wounds – Trauma, Testimony, and the Irish Civil War – Book review

“The deepest wounds of
the Civil War were spiritual wounds.”
– Desmond Ryan

Spiritual Wounds is a milestone in the study of Ireland’s Civil War 1922-23, by Siobhra Aiken, Lecturer in Irish and Celtic Studies at Queen’s University Belfast. A worthy offering indeed for the  Centenary of that national tragedy: not merely a chronicle of battles fought, or body counts, or political manoeuvres by the great and good; but a new perspective. “Spiritual Wounds” at Irish Academic Press website

(Excerpts below are from “Spiritual Wounds”, except where otherwise noted.)

This in-depth study of first-hand experiences & human cost, as told by those who fought it, re-opens for readers an astonishingly vast library of first-class literature, written by veterans of the Anglo-Irish War (1919-1921 aka War of Independence / Tan War) as well as the Civil War. Over the decades, remarkably numerous literary soldiers, both women and men, produced a surprisingly prodigious stream of reminescences, both non-fiction and fictionalized: memoirs, biographies, novels, articles, plays.

They had come from prisons and camps; some even from the condemned cell; from mountain haunts, from hay-lofts and ditches, from cellars and caves, to be placed in power: they were hysterical with reaction.

Dr Aiken has mined this priceless vein of lost gems; many of which are now largely forgotten, having gone out of print, or only ever appeared in periodicals and other ephemera. Some, like Patrick Mulloy’s “Jackets Green” (quoted above) were even banned in Ireland; but only after appearing on the Irish Times bestseller list!

The wealth of this body of testimony suggests that the silence of the Irish Civil War was not necessarily a result of revolutionaries’ reluctance to speak, but rather due to the unwillingness of the architects of official memory – journalists, historians, politicians – to listen to the testimony of civil war veterans. …However, studies of civil wars internationally suggest that these calls to forget often paradoxically produce a commitment to remember.

The science of historical research has come a long way since 1923.  The Irish Civil War Centenary trains the searchlight of an entire new body of knowledge on its paradoxes, tragedies, & mysteries.

No less important is this work’s exploration of the role played by the post-Collins-Griffith Free State & successive Fianna Fail-Finn Gael establishment’s neglect, even stifling of public discussion on the period; particularly affecting anti-Treaty testimony.

…the study of trauma in the context of the Irish revolution is fruitful given that the conflict coincided with the opening up of ideas about the psychological legacies of war across Europe.

Until the 1900s, such intimate personal voices of those who fought wars have tended to be culturally silenced, not only for centuries, but for millennia. Military societies generally have depended on carefully constructed cultures which cultivate myths of loudly trumpeted glory; while covering up the horrors of war, its devastating damage to those affected by it.  Thus the scrutiny of war’s dirty underside is itself “dangerous” to the structural underpinnings of such militarist culture.

…The beliefs of a lifetime swayed and crashed and reeled to death. Friendship had gone as the volleys of firing parties crashed and spades clanked to open gaping graves.
 – Desmond Ryan: The Invisible Army

Aiken sets in bold relief how the study of this side of war, its trauma and recovery, is a new field. It was only by World War I that Freud’s nascent science of psychology was on a firm enough footing to address such psycho-emotional damage on a mass scale; common enough in wars of the past, but suffered in silence, even in shame, without access to remedies, by uncounted legions, throughout humanity’s bloody martial history.

The gendered subtext of trauma also meant that female revolutionaries were perhaps more likely to admit to ‘nervous breakdowns’ given that the vocabulary was more readily at their disposal. Mental injuries among men, however, could be deemed as a failure in masculinity.

As the foregoing quotation highlights, this was another field in which the raising of women’s voices ultimately won more freedom for men: to discuss issues formerly tabooed by conventions of manliness.

It came as a thunderclap – hardly could they believe their ears. Never, for one moment, had they anticipated this. They might be shot dead, the building might be set on fire, but that they should be ordered to leave it – to go away just because they were women…– it was beyond belief.
– Annie M. P. Smithson (1873–1948)

As to the numerous women who gave distinguished service in the Civil War and Anglo-Irish War, Spiritual Wounds laudably does much to restore them to the record. Readers can hear these real-life heroines speak for themselves, in profuse excerpts from best-selling authors (like Smithson, quoted above) who were veterans. Both their non-fiction and:

…fictionalised testimonies of female revolutionaries directly challenged efforts to forget the civil war and the sidelining of women’s activism during this period.

Aiken offers a fascinating, detailed critique of the air-brush culture which erased such women from history. At the same time, her chapter on sexual violence in these conflicts is no simplistic rant. Rather, it outlines the complexity of this issue; and its prevalence wherever women live and work in times and places fraught by violence. Once again, the author relies on the voices of the women themselves, offering plentiful examples from their writings on the period (many published in the 1930s and 40s.)

This chapter does not seek to grapple with the complexities of quantifying sexual violence as either ‘rare’, ‘widespread’ or ‘relatively scarce’. Rather, it complicates the belief that such violence ‘disappeared from public discourse for decades after the Civil War.’

This book would be invaluable for its Bibliography alone. The works Aiken discusses and quotes at length make up a bookshelf of must-reads for every Irish history enthusiast.

This book is also the story of the readers who bought, shared and often carefully scrutinised the testimony of revolutionary veterans. These interactions shed light on the public validation of private stories on which ‘testimonial resolution’ relies. The reading, sharing and discussion of these testimonies is essential to understanding how they facilitated a countermemory which contested the ‘amnesia’ promoted in official discourse.

While Aiken’s work is certainly scholarly, general readers need not be daunted. So much of the book is made up of lengthy quotations from page-turner first-hand accounts of that heroic, harrowing era, which are not to be missed. Readers are sure to come away with a book list of these Civil War authors, whose works they’ll be keen to obtain in full.

‘We’ve had enough of this camp.’
‘Let’s burn it.’
‘Yes, burn the bloody kipp to the ground.’
‘We’ll be mowed down.’
‘Let them mow us down – we’ll be shot one by one, anyhow.’
‘Three have been shot already.’
‘Seven have died because they couldn’t stick it.’
‘One went mad.’
                                 – P Mulloy “Jackets Green”

Spiritual Wounds is a cautionary tale for revolutionaries and would-be revolutionaries everywhere. Read it and weep. Read it and marvel at these forgotten heroes’/ heroines’ courage, resilience, despair, determination, humanity. Read it and smile, even laugh with their wry wit & irony. Consider their unsparing insights into society; the wreck & salvation of their lives.

At what price freedom?

R E A D    M O R E
on Irish History / Irish Civil War:

“The Assassination of Michael Collins:
What Happened At Béal na mBláth?” by S M Sigerson
Paperback or Kindle edition here:
www.amazon.com/dp/1493784714

All other e-reader formats:
www.smashwords.com/books/view/433954

Read reviews:
http://www.rabidreaders.com/2014/12/03/assassination-michael-collins-s-m-sigerson-2/

OR ASK AT YOUR LOCAL BOOK SHOP

Sir Henry Wilson Assassination 1922: A Great Black Op?

Ronan McGreevy’s book draws attention to a most important case: to which an entire chapter is devoted in The Assassination of Michael Collins: What Happened at Béal na mBláth? by S M Sigerson. But in  McGreevy’s excellent research, is there a glaring omission of the most shocking theory of all? Or could his editors be to blame?

It’s most welcome to see a writer of McGreevy’s calibre take by the horns this long-neglected mystery of history: so deeply entwined in the tragedy of Ireland’s Civil War (1922-23). It’s quite debatable whether that fratricidal conflict might have been averted, but for the shooting of Sir Henry Wilson on 22 June 1922. Despite critical unanswered questions, the case has been shamefully neglected by historians. The Assassination of Sir Henry Wilson (2014 post – this blog)

This writer’s first instinct, on learning details of the Wilson case was, “…Did the British have a motive?” Having found that a first instinct in these things often proves the right one… Just scratching the surface, Wilson’s British enemies with motive, means, & opportunity become evident.

The principle of Cui Bono? / Who Gains? thoroughly supports the possibility that the British elements may have been behind Wilson’s killing: It was a disaster for Ireland. It got the (unionist) British everything they wanted. Ultimately, it achieved the removal of Michael Collins, and put DeValera over the Irish indefinitely.

Wilson had unquestionably come to be seen by some as a political liability. Is it possible that Lloyd George, Churchill and their cabal came to the conclusion that, in realizing their scheme for Ireland, Wilson would be worth a great deal more to them dead than alive?          
                            – S M Sigerson

The hypothesis known to readers of The Assassination of Michael Collins is as follows: if DeValera were the real turncoat serving British interest (as history seems to support,) a slight shuffling/confusion of official IRA orders could easily have been arranged. Resulting in an assassination plan, slated before the Truce, suddenly being re-activated; with devastating consequences.

Reggie Dunne

This would entirely account for Collins’ reported fury and confusion on hearing that the shooting of Wilson had been carried out by his own men in the London IRA.

No war ever begins for just one reason. All the factors [at work in Ireland in 1922] may be seen as a powder keg: the explosive elements which placed the country in danger of war breaking out. In that sense, the siege of the Four Courts was the fuse, and the assassination of Sir Henry Wilson the spark, which together set off the conflagration; which cost so many lives, and broke out afresh in the northern Troubles of the 1970s -1990s.

McGreevy eschews any mention of Sigerson’s investigation into the Wilson case, which he certainly has drawn upon; even borrowing its very language (quoted above): “Without a fuse and a spark, there can be no conflagration.”

It’s difficult to understand how the author can make so much of the theory that somehow the IRB (Irish Republican Brotherhood) shot Wilson; despite the IRB’s unequivocal denial of responsibility, on behalf of both the organization and Collins personally, by Sean McGarry of the Supreme Council at the time:

“I reject any suggestion that the IRB or Michael Collins, as Head Centre of our organization, had anything to do with Wilson’s death.”

This important book thus wanders into danger of becoming a long elaborate exercise in pinning Wilson’s death on Michael Collins (again,) on no more than hearsay.  Yet, in fairness, McGreevy does air evidence to the contrary as well.

Nor does he omit mention of fierce enmity between Wilson & Lloyd George’s government. But all evidently on the presumption that of course proper British authorities could never do anything like that. At the same time laudably chronicling London’s loyalist darlings’ contemporaneous daily indiscriminate slaughter of the Irish of the northeast.  Of whom Sir Henry Wilson was one.

Still, despite any flaws, A Great Hatred: The Assassination of Field Marshall Sir Henry Wilson MP by Ronan McGreevy remains a most worthwhile study of this critical-yet-long-neglected case. It will definitely inspire more inquiry & debate; which is one of the best things that any book about it can do.

Methodical, disinterested study of this period has really only begun. While the Bureau of Military History’s ongoing publication of thousands of detailed first-hand personal narratives by the revolutionaries themselves, long held secret and confidential during the testators’ lifetimes, opens up new vistas for research. Their full ramifications for what we think we know about that largely secret war can hardly be fully explored in one lifetime.

In his book, McGreevy makes full use of these narratives to great effect. This means that much testimony about Wilson’s shooting is now available with definite verifiable provenance as to precisely who said what, who they were, what was their exact role in the Volunteers, and how their evidence was recorded, for the first time.

R E A D    M O R E:
“The Assassination of Michael Collins:
What Happened At Béal na mBláth?” by S M Sigerson
Paperback or Kindle edition here:
www.amazon.com/dp/1493784714

All other e-reader formats:
www.smashwords.com/books/view/433954

Read reviews:
http://www.rabidreaders.com/2014/12/03/assassination-michael-collins-s-m-sigerson-2/

OR ASK AT YOUR LOCAL BOOK SHOP

 

 

 

 

 

RECONCILIATION and The Irish Civil War Centenary 1922-2022

 

We will never tell anyone who we are until we know who we are.
We will never get anywhere until we know where we are.
– Malcolm X

The Civil War Centenary can hardly be a celebratory commemoration; yet neither dare we forget. Nor is it enough to repeat by rote time-worn rhetoric handed down from that day to this; depending on which side our forebears embraced; or on the political expedience of the moment.

(Also see linked posts: “Reconciliation and the Irish Civil War” Part II and Part III on this blog site.).

Like the Centenary of the Easter Rising, this is a priceless opportunity for deepening our understanding of who we are, where we’ve come from, and where we might go from here. A chance to re-examine the meaning of independence, patriotism, history; the meaning of Ireland itself.

It is offered that there can be no better means to commemorate that generation’s achievements & hardships, than a fearless moral inventory, and unsparing scrutiny of the Civil War in all its aspects, on all sides.

How could anyone more substantially express respect for their good intentions, reverence for their sacrifices, gratitude for the very same combattants’ immense achievements in the Tan War / War of Independence of 1919-1921?

The Civil War divide
As in any country which has suffered the tragedy of civil war, personal feelings or factional outlook may color Irish views. Bitter recriminations continue to resound over it, to this day.

At the same time, reconciliation has become a cornerstone of astounding achievements in Ireland wp.me/p43KWx-9z It’s been at the core of policies & dialogue which, in our lifetime, helped free Northern Ireland from the violent Troubles, which once seemed eternal & insoluble.

Courgeous people do not fear forgiving for the sake of peace.
– Nelson Mandela

Yet for all the amazing work done on reconciliation between Catholics & Protestants, between Nationalists & Unionists… never has anything been heard about reconciliation within Ireland, over the Civil War split, now a hundred years old.

There can be no reconciliation where there is no open warfare.
– M E Braddon

There remain those in Ireland for whom the clock stopped with the Second Dail (1922): who still refuse to accept the legitimacy of any subsequent Dublin government. On the opposite extreme are those who abhor the memory of any war with Britain, who objected to the commemoration of the Easter Rising, & even would seem to sigh for a return to the British Crown!

It’s said that truth is the first casualty of war. Truth recovery must therefore be both the first step and ultimate goal in any responsible remembrance: the alpha and the omega.

For the Civil War Centenary, this will require partisans of both sides to acknowledge not only what our side says happened: but also to listen to what patriots on the other side say happened. Not only to celebrate those whom we look on as the heroes of the day, not only to lament the wrongs they sustained; but also to hear heartfelt tributes and greviances from the other persuasion.

To hear that heroes of the independence struggle were shot by former comrades; others shot by former British soldiers in green uniforms, some by firing squads, and some by secret service assassins. Some were beaten and died in Free State custody. Some fell to anti-Treaty mines. Yes, and to hear that some elements in leadership, as history has taught us to expect, perhaps sold out the popular victory for a piece of London’s pie.

Now two Russias will be facing each other.
Those who were sent to prison. And those who sent them there.
– Anna Akhmatova

The Republic and the republican movement today have suffered from these flaws in their foundations. A lot of politics and policy have been based on fallout from the Civil War.

Yet, as Michael Collins’ story itself demonstrates, that period remains so controversial, that there is still a great deal of confusion about what in fact actually did happen. wp.me/p43KWx-7o That child-bed of the nation was so recent, so chaotic and volatile, that public discussion and public record about it has been distorted: both in flawed institutions of the south, in republican rhetoric of the north... and, dare we add, in British versions (so as not to say “coverups”.)

Eighty years of institutionalized inhibition of historical research often left the public with little but oral traditions to judge by. Without access to reliable, scholarly analysis, it has been all but impossible to make an accurate assessment of that era, or of its meaning for subsequent generations.

This has sometimes allowed mistaken analysis, misfired arguments, rumour, or open wounds to stand in the place of history. Such errors have in some quarters been carried on and enshrined like some sacred scroll; as Ireland wandered through the wilderness of the 20th century. Since the 1970s, new generations, wrestling with these legacies, have brought new hope, new conflicts, tragedies, and victories.

We are only beginning to unravel that story now. Perhaps the first lesson here is that the lessons of the Civil War have not yet been fully learned.  

Margaret Skinnider fought in the Easter Rising and served the anti-Treaty side in the Civil War

 

Our debt to the past
To those who lived through that crucible of fire, because it was the only path they could see to Ireland’s independence… we owe a great debt. We owe it to them to ferret out the painful truths of that crippling wound in the national psyche; or we’ll never get beyond it. Or their suffering would truly have been in vain.

Certainly such reassessment will not be possible without constructive, realistic criticism of the actors in those events.

I admired the men and the women [engaged in the Easter Rising]… I admire Connolly… Tom Clarke & [Sean] MacDiarmada… They have died nobly at the hands of the firing squads.

But at the same time… the actions of the leaders should not pass without comment… On the whole I think the Rising was bungled terribly, costing many a good life. It seemed at first to be well organised, but afterwards became subjected to panic decisions and a great lack of very essential organisation and cooperation.
– Michael Collins (private letter)

Can this generation well afford to do less by the Civil War, which continues to haunt, and even control, so many aspects of national life, than Collins did here for the Easter Rising? Is it not the duty of the survivors to learn all that can be learned, not only from the successes but also from the failures of those who went before?

Were there really any heroes in the Civil War? Certainly none who are universally revered. One side’s patriotic martyrs may still be regarded by descendants of the other persuasion as enemies of Irish freedom.

Whatever heroism there may have been in that hell paved with the good intentions of some of Ireland’s best and brightest… the Civil War certainly had no winners.

Is it time for all persuasions to openly acknowledge that this was a failed strategy, for both sides? Could this be a fertile occasion for facing up to its catastrophic consequences, which Ireland is still living with today? To candidly discuss who we are, where we’ve been, and where we might go from here, together.

May your choices reflect your hopes not your fears
– Nelson Mandela

This post includes excerpts from:
“The Assassination of Michael Collins:
What Happened At Béal na mBláth?” by S M Sigerson
Paperback or Kindle edition here:
www.amazon.com/dp/1493784714

All other e-reader formats:
www.smashwords.com/books/view/433954

Read reviews:
http://www.rabidreaders.com/2014/12/03/assassination-michael-collins-s-m-sigerson-2/

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“The Murder of Michael Collins” gets the Paddy Cullivan treatment

“The Murder of Michael Collins” is an online video by Paddy Cullivan; as well as a live performance piece. See www.paddycullivan.com for details, tickets, links, and itinerary. While this writer cannot completely concur with his analysis in every point, his presentation is extraordinary, in every sense of the word; and merits extraordinary notice.

If you want to tell people the truth, you’d better
make them laugh, or they’ll kill you.
– George Bernard Shaw

For those familiar with musical satirist Paddy Cullivan’s unique approach to Irish history, he needs no introduction; and… the very idea of the death of Collins in his hands is rather mind-boggling… fascinating… if not frightening! Still, quintessentially Irish, in his wry determination to stare down the bottomless travesties there, until they yield their reducto ad absurdum. Cullivan uses tears of laughter like a magic prism, enabling us to explore these agonies & ecstasies, triumphs & tragedies to new depths. Which perhaps we might never reach, without the liberating and envigorating tonic of humour.

My own book, The Assassination of Michael Collins: What Happened at Béal na mBláth?, www.amazon.com/dp/1493784714 was the first on this subject since John M Feehan’s landmark edition of 1991 (The Shooting of Micheal Collins: Murder or Accident?) My highest ambition, in writing it, was to build on Feehan’s work: like him, not to “sell” any one theory, but to help people study the case. To enable the public and future researchers to better examine the evidence fully, for themselves.

Since publishing it, I’ve waited, sometimes breathlessly, for the appearance of other new works on the topic to follow; especially as the 2022 Centenary of Collins’ death wp.me/p43KWx-96 drew nearer.

I hoped to see other works take up the tale in the same spirit; which would be penetrating, disinterested, disciplined, and illuminating.

Well, many are called, but few are chosen. Down the ages, discoveries of note have sometimes emerged from surprising places. I confess I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find more research of value, and more interesting analysis, in Cullivan’s persuasive pastiche of lecture, lampoon, & song, than can hardly be found in any work on the death of Collins to appear since my own. All of this richly illustrated with rare visuals from the period; including copies of orginal historical documents; some aired here for the first time.

Let me write a nation’s songs, and I care not who writes its laws. – Daniel O’Connell

Cullivan’s original songs for the show, and masterful music production, deserve air play of their own. I hope music radio is listening. In Ireland, his catchy pop broadside “Béal na Blah Blah Blah” https://youtu.be/Z9CvohYT-b0 could and should go right up the charts; especially for the 2022 Centenary year. Cullivan is a first-class musician, well-known (in Ireland) as vocalist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, & producer. (Glad I’ve lived to see the day when performing artists can have their work in other fields taken seriously, such as in literature or politics.)

Cullivan manages also to make his video a kind of bibliography on the topic, giving on-screen space to a crowded bookshelf of sources. (While his particular comments on The Assassination of Michael Collins: What Happened at Béal na mBláth?, www.amazon.com/dp/1493784714 far exceed expectations, they could never win from the author any praise for Cullivan’s work, but that most richly deserved.)

Who IS Paddy Cullivan…?

History is a scholarly pursuit, but not an exact science. Proper academic researchers have been known to protest the popularity of mere mortals, with no letters after their names, poaching on their domains, so to speak. Raising the inevitable question:

Who IS Paddy Cullivan to dare trespass where academics have feared to tread in this history?

The truth is, institutions often fail us. Nowhere more spectacularly than in the death of Michael Collins.

That doesn’t mean we can do without them. Institutions are necessary. Expertise is necessary. The public needs protection from critical decisions & information affecting society being handed out by any Joe Blow, whether they have a clue or not.

At the same time, institutions are made by humans, run by humans; and therefore subject to all the usual human frailties. They cannot be treated like infallible deities.

Institutions are created to serve, not rule, humanity. Therefore they must continually satisfy the public that they’re doing their jobs. Admittedly, this can be problematic: how does the public judge experts’ performance, in areas where they have less expertise than the experts whom they must monitor? Not only in academic studies, but in such critical organs as law, government, medicine, science? These epistemological questions are at the heart of countless current controversies, as we speak.

Thankfully, experts’ work must be subject to constant peer review; as well as the universal tribunal of common sense. While these, too, can err, it’s the best we can do. Human society & human institutions are subject to these eternal margins of error, which we must all bear in mind.

This is precisely why the voice of Joe Blow is not without its place and value. Just as the innocent, uninitiated, uninformed may sometimes be the only one to step forward and candidly exclaim, “Look! The Emperor has no clothes!”

History is a field particularly vulnerable to such pot-shots from the peanut gallery of inquiry, so to speak. It is a field in which we are all swimming, all immersed; which we are all living with the profoundest consequences of, every day. It’s an area of study in which innovative, multi-disciplinary approaches may prove remarkably effective; especially where an “official story” regime has managed to stifle institutions.

I challenge any academic researcher to take in Cullivan’s work, to excel it, or even… to avoid relying on it!

But above all to explain how and why academics have managed to so completely fail and neglect the elephant in the room of modern Irish history: the death of Commander-in-Chief Michael Collins, erstwhile Chairman of Dublin’s first native Provisional Government… So as to leave it to be unearthed by the likes of your humble servant; and by such as the inimitable Paddy Cullivan… who at this time stands in serious danger of… becoming an Historian!

Look out for his personal appearances, bringing the live version of “The Murder of Michael Collins“, and other shows, to a venue near you.

Read more
“The Assassination of Michael Collins:
What Happened At Béal na mBláth?”

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1493784714

by S M Sigerson

Paperback or Kindle edition here:
www.amazon.com/dp/1493784714

All other e-reader formats:
www.smashwords.com/books/view/433954

Read reviews:
http://www.rabidreaders.com/2014/12/03/assassination-michael-collins-s-m-sigerson-2/

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Why Michael Collins Signed the Treaty – In His Own Words

Minister for Finance Michael Collins
(colorization courtesy Rob Cross)

This month marks 99 years since the Anglo Irish Treaty of 1921 was debated by Ireland’s nascent Dáil. A debate with far-reaching consequences indeed: which determined the young nation’s path of development, ever since.

Critical turning points change us forever. Some spend the rest of their lives periodically puzzling over them, reliving them, striving to understand what happened there: what had the options been, really? Had we made the right decision? Can these lessons aid decision-making in future? Such rites of passage, for an individual, a community, or for a nation, loom large in the consciousness.

This space is once more given over to Michael Collins: who certainly knew more about that particular debate than most anyone. Yet, despite the fame of his name, and his prominent role in those events, his own words are little enough heeded in the historical debate, which still continues today:

All the streams – economic, political, spiritual, cultural and militant, – met together in the struggle of 1916 – 1921, which has ended in a peace in which the Treaty of Limerick is wiped out by the departure of the British armed forces, and the establishment of an Irish Army in its place … The Union is wiped out by the establishment of a free native parliament, which will be erected on a Constitution expressing the will of the Irish people … With the termination of the Union goes national enslavement if we will it. Complete national freedom is ours and nobody but ourselves can prevent us achieving it.
– Michael Collins 1922

Read more
“The Assassination of Michael Collins:
What Happened At Béal na mBláth?”

by S M Sigerson

Paperback or Kindle edition here:
www.amazon.com/dp/1493784714

All other e-reader formats:
www.smashwords.com/books/view/433954

Read reviews:
http://www.rabidreaders.com/2014/12/03/assassination-michael-collins-s-m-sigerson-2/

Reader reviews:
http://goo.gl/sDmWfh

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What is an assassination?

Assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, following the close of US’ Civil War  (public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Was the death of Commander-in-Chief Michael Collins an assassination?
Can military actions by Collins and the Irish Volunteers during the Anglo-Irish War (1919-1921) be termed “assassinations” themselves?
Did British authorities commit political assassinations in their domains?
These questions are part of a sometimes-heated debate; by no means merely historical, but with high political stakes, in Ireland and elsewhere, now.

 

He’s a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain,
a Bhuddist, and a Baptist, and a Jew.
And he knows he shouldn’t kill,
And he knows he always will…  – Buffy Ste Marie “Universal Soldier”

All societies have their rules of operation; usually including express sanctions intended to inhibit killing unjustly, excessively, or indiscriminately. When first set forth, even “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” represented a major moral leap forward.

In modern times, international debate rages as to which wars are just or unjust. Following World War II, the concept of war crimes focused unprecedented scrutiny on the actions of both leaders and combatants in military conflicts. It meant that such actions could be judged and sanctioned according to global standards of martial conduct.

Ireland’s Revolutionary Era, which gave birth to its democratic Republic, was part of the same ideological maelstrom. During World War I, Irish thinkers pointed up the irony of Britain’s claim to be defending “small nations”; while it still held Ireland by force.

Controversies of this kind continue around the world today. The press and other public platforms often disagree as to which side to call white-hat “good guys” “freedom fighters” “security forces” etc and which to label black hat “bad guys” “terrorists” “warlords”, in hostilities which dot the globe as we speak.

The word “assassination” in English particularly denotes killing which is secretive, and targets a politically prominent person. That is to say, for political reasons.

The word originally came to English from French, where it simply means “murder” and has no other context. The same word & definition occur in Spanish and other Romance languages. The Irish equivalent “feallmharu” means secretive but not expressly political violence. Many languages have no word which means political murder per se.

“Even he who commands thousands of swords must fear one who commands dozens of daggers.” – Voltaire

We owe the word “guerilla” to popular resistance which opposed  Napoleon in northern Spain: literally “little war” in Spanish. They entered the dictionary by giving pause to an emperor whose forces vastly outnumbered and outgunned them. The word and the techniques have proved decisive in numerous theatres since, wherever poorly-armed locals defended their homes against overwhelming odds.

The right of individuals and nations to self-defense is one of the cornerstones of law everywhere.  Although unconventional in methods, the Irish Volunteers (aka Irish Republican Army) during the Anglo-Irish War aimed with remarkable fidelity and success at enemy combattants and spies, as acts of war against a violent foreign occupation force. 

Together, Collins, Arthur Griffith, and colleagues in the Dail’s shadow government-in-hiding understood that such a war could be carried on successfully in Ireland, only with great care to maintain an orderly campaign; which struck effective blows against British rule, while minimizing negative effects on the general population.

They realized also that the underdogs in that war hadn’t a chance, without the decisive weight of public opinion, at home and abroad, on their side. A tall order, while powerful British voices flooded the media with denials that this was a fight for national independence at all, dubbing the movement a mere “murder gang”.

“Our Government and our Army were not going to allow any man to be shot without the fullest possible proof.” 
– Frank Thornton, IRA GHQ 1919-1921
https://collinsassassination.wordpress.com/2019/09/21/michael-collins-squad-no-man-shot-without-full-proof-of-his-guilt/

In the link above, Frank Thornton of Collins’ GHQ Intelligence command, details the painstaking care which went into these actions. There’s little question but that it was this kind of discipline which won the field for the embattled Irish.

I am a war man in the day of war. But I am a peace man in the day of peace.
– Michael Collins 1922

While he continued after the Truce to cooperate with local IRA in the northeast, in their defense against unionist violence, there is no evidence that Collins participated in the killing of any public or private individual, unless military targets, in wartime. 

On the other side, the British establishment of the time viewed those they called subjects as meriting imprisonment or death, for any resistance to or questioning of the Crown’s right to rule in and out of season. Its routine executions of non-combattants and strictly political figures are legion, across the Empire, throughout history.

For decades, historians were non-committal regarding the violent death of newly-independent Ireland’s Commander-of-Chief in 1922. Since the appearance of the book “The Assassination of Michael Collins: What Happened at Beal na mBlath?” http://www.amazon.com/dp/1493784714 commentators have come more and more generally to look on it as an assassination.

Read more
“The Assassination of Michael Collins:
What Happened At Béal na mBláth?”
by S M Sigerson   
Paperback or Kindle edition here:
www.amazon.com/dp/1493784714

All other e-reader formats:
www.smashwords.com/books/view/433954

Read reviews:
http://www.rabidreaders.com/2014/12/03/assassination-michael-collins-s-m-sigerson-2/

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1949: The Republic of Ireland as we know it becomes official

 

18 April 1949, Ireland took the step into a new era: ending the “Irish Free State” as a Dominion within the British Commonwealth (the semi-independence compromise which had ended the Anglo-Irish War 1919-1921 (aka War of Independence / Tan War). Dublin’s new international status went far to vindicate Michael Collins’ position on the controversial 1921 Treaty.

In 1922, just as Ireland rightly revelled in its astounding military and political victory over British occupation, Eamonn DeValera had led the shattering of Ireland’s fledgling independent legislature. He had called on his faction within the Dail to follow him in leaving the new Dublin establishment en masse.

Their issue? They declared that it was traitrous for Irish nationalists to accept the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, as a stepping stone toward complete self-determination.

That disastrous split earned DeValera the notorious tag “architect of the Civil War”: that horrific debacle which transformed Ireland’s brilliant triumph into tragedy, slaughtering many of the War of Independence’ greatest leaders and activists. It profoundly undermined the young nation’s unity, integrity, and social justice; leaving “Ireland broken for generations.”

1949 Dublin celebrates Republic of Ireland declaration

Yet 1949 at last saw the formal, complete withdrawal from the British Empire of Irish soil (excepting the six counties of Northern Ireland.)  Interestingly enough, no single political party of the time can claim credit. It was Dublin’s very first Inter-Party Government, headed by John A. Costello, which acheived that bold stroke on the pages of history.

This largely proved the validity of Michael Collins’ arguments, that the 1921 Treaty be used as a stepping stone in the on-going struggle for complete national independence.

Meanwhile that firebrand of freedom, Mr DeValera, although having dominated the Dublin establishment for the preceding 16 years (1932-1948,) had not brought Ireland one millimeter closer either to breaking ties with England; nor to ending the partition of Northern Ireland; (another of the key points over which he had incited the Civil War.)

Soon after the 1949 declaration, DeValera discreetly retreated from Irish soil; to embark on a worldwide tour lecturing about partition. (Perhaps not unlike his previous retreat from Ireland for the duration of the War of Independence; also for an extended speaking tour overseas.)

And how is it that in 1922, Mr DeValera had just happened to be at the very same obscure, back-country crossroads, within hours of Michael Collins’ being shot down there?

Read more
“The Assassination of Michael Collins:
What Happened At Béal na mBláth?”

by S M Sigerson
Paperback or Kindle edition here:
www.amazon.com/dp/1493784714

All other e-reader formats:
www.smashwords.com/books/view/433954

Read reviews:
http://www.rabidreaders.com/2014/12/03/assassination-michael-collins-s-m-sigerson-2/

Or ask at your local book shop