Higgins becomes first president to give oration at Béal na mBláth
IRELAND will need to be courageous and honest when commemorating the centenary of the Civil War which divided families and communities for decades, President Michael D Higgins told the annual Michael Collins Commemoration at Béal na mBláth last Sunday.
President Higgins said that the memory of “Michael Collins will be forever enmeshed with the tragic and bloody Civil War” which he described as “a dreadful human tragedy for so many families” - but Ireland will need to recognise that no side in the war had a monopoly on atrocity or virtue.
He said that while the Irish people should never underestimate the challenge it was to build the foundations of a stable democratic state, “we must never forget what a terrible price was paid in divided families and divided communities, leaving a legacy that was felt for generations.”
The first serving president to deliver the oration at Béal na mBláth to commemorate Collins’s death in an ambush by Republicans on August 22, 1922 during the Civil War, President Higgins has strong personal ties to both the War of Independence and the Civil War.
President Higgins’s late father, John, a native of Co Clare, fought with the Charleville Company of the No 2 Cork Brigade of the IRA during the War of Independence and took the Republican side during the Civil War, while his late uncle, Peter, who fought with the IRA in Clare, took the Free State side.
Accompanied by his wife, Sabina, President Higgins told the large crowd, which included Ministers Simon Coveney and Michael Creed, that the next few years will see Ireland recall the events of the early 1920s and “the devastation spread throughout the land by the Auxiliaries and the Black Tans “
The arbitrary killings, the ruthless raids on civilians’ homes, the torturing of prisoners, the looting of shops and the burning of creameries and farmhouses in a bid to destroy the rural economy impacted on the public consciousness far beyond Ireland, he noted.
Ireland will remember too how the Catholic minority in the north-east of the island fell into the grip off embittered sectarian violence and “the initial bewilderment “of RIC men when they became targets during the War of Independence and their changed relationship with their communities.
“We will be required to face, too, the ruthlessness of many executions by the IRA, the mistakes that inevitably happened in killings of purported informers, the executions of Republican prisoners during the Civil War and the outrages perpetrated during both wars against Protestant people.”
The Civil War was used by some as a cover to settle vendettas but it was important the desire for truth does not descend “into shallow point scoring “but shows “a generous willingness to go past old wrongs so as to build a new shared understanding of who we are as a nation and as a republic.”
At the height of the Civil War, Collins showed himself to be “a man of compassion” who wept upon learning of the death of Cathal Brugha who took the Republican side and who urged those fighting under him to remember the Irregulars were fellow Irishmen, never enemies.
“Sadly, such a spirit did not prevail and the atrocities of the Civil War were ones that we must recognise for what they were, on both sides - cruel, vicious, uncontrolled, and informed by vengeance rather than any compassion,” said President Higgins.
“They were divided but also confused at what were the consequences of the Treaty, its acceptance or rejection. We should also recognise the fact that there were elements within the different forces which were simply out of control,” he added.
Some of the civilian losses had little to do with republicanism or any emancipatory version of nationalism and revealed “the jagged ends of land hunger, envy and indeed, it should not any longer be denied, the opportunity taken for a sectarian identification of targets”, he added.
Future commemorations should also address the exclusion of women and the failure to recognise poverty and class during the revolutionary period as well as examining the reasons why so many who participated in the fight for Irish freedom emigrated after the foundation of the state.
Turning to Collins and his legacy, President Higgins said that many of those who previously gave the oration had speculated as to what Collins would make of Ireland today but he wanted to focus on just one aspect of his character-his desire to use the country’s resources to benefit the Irish people.
“Michael Collins would, I am sure, have wanted our people to have reached sufficiency in all of the essentials: health, housing, education, childcare, culture, and above all in the ability to live together in peace,” said President Higgins.
“He saw the importance of using our resources well and he was very interested in not being dependent on a single market. He was also concerned at the consequences of emerging tendencies to monopoly in international trade.”