Big Fella ‘inquest’ was a good try to solve riddles
Cold Case Collins
The Rose Of Tralee
RTÉ One, Monday/Tuesday
House Of The Dragon
Sky Atlantic, Monday
WELL, there’s one myth put to bed forever. For some years now, there has been a theory that Michael Collins was shot and killed by one of his own, namely Major General Emmet Dalton. Dalton had served in the British Army. The narrative had it that he was a sleeper agent charged with eliminating Collins lest he reunite the Regulars and Irregulars, and march north to seize the six counties excluded from the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
In Cold Case Collins, produced by independent company Loosehorse for RTÉ One and shown on Wednesday night, former State pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy was drafted in.
She assembled a group of experts – forensic scientists, criminal investigators, a military strategist, an archaeologist, an archivists, and historians – to see if they could do what no one did at the time – conduct a proper inquest.
My fear was the entire concept would be merely gimmicky, and for a time it seemed that might be the case. The 90-minute programme alternated between the experts having a discussion of the evidence, and a dramatisaton of events including the cross-examination of Dalton, Eamon De Valera, and other witnesses and players in the drama.
Dev was lit to look evasive and sinister, since that appears to be the way all dramatic representations are contractually obliged to be, and he spoke like a Disney animatronic on a slow current.
The pool of younger actors in Ireland seems to be quite compact, since Collins was played by Art Campion, formerly known as Peter Campion and who plays the priest in Derry Girls and narrates First Dates Ireland; an IRA man was the garda from The Young Offenders; and two gardaí were played by the thug murdered by the hairdressers in Deadly Cuts and the lad who gets a bad haircut in the ad for Chill Insurance (and who also had a gay affair in Redwater with his first cousin, played by, well, the priest in Derry Girls).
Campion’s Collins was pure nonnonsense Cork, and when he chastised two his bodyguards you could almost hear Roy Keane saying: ‘C’mon, lads, it’s your job, like.’
Yet, oddly, the drama ultimately bordered on touching, in a scene in which Collins visited the area of his birth in the company of his brother, and delivered the famous line ‘sure they wouldn’t kill me in my own county’. But, of course, they did.
In the most riveting conclusion, a forensic scientist found an entry hole in Collins’s cap that no one ever noticed before, as they were too busy looking at the back of it which was ripped when the bullet exited. Analysing both, Dr Cassidy concluded that the bullet had followed an odd trajectory through the skull and brain, and could only have done so if fired from a position about the road at Béal na Bláth, thus exonerating Dalton.
As to why Collins was so foolhardy to stand up to his impressive height and make himself an easy target, historian and RTÉ news anchor David McCullough offered an explanation – after a tour of
West Cork pubs, the Big Fella’s judgement may have been slightly impaired – no doubt we’ll argue for another hundred years if that was due to Beamish or Murphy’s.
If dwelling on the past as if it happened yesterday is a peculiarly
Cold Case Collins
Marie Cassidy, left, cleared up one 100-year-old mystery
Irish phenomenon, there were a few reminders during The Rose Of Tralee, on RTÉ One, Monday and Tuesday, that a lot has changed.
The Newfoundland and Labrador Rose, Jennifer Mackey, explained she lived near a town called Dildo, which wasn’t a word I had on my Rose bingo card – then, during the break, RTÉ showed that Viagra ad. You know the one, with the middleaged guy who looks like he’d have more chance of regular coital contact if he popped into the shower instead of popping a pill.
As for the Rose itself, the three-year break didn’t do it any favours. There was more than a tiara lacking by the end of it all. Winner Rachel Duffy, representing Westmeath, was deserving of the title, because there wasn’t much to write home about from most of the other interviews, which all blended into one. Even the sight of Dáithí Ó Sé taking an ice bath failed to amuse, while James Patrice dressed as a giant budgie and, later, as Michael Flatley, fell, well, flatly. The whole thing needs a revamp.
Finally, the biggest launch of the week was on Sky Atlantic, with the long-awaited prequel to Game Of Thrones. Set 172 years before that saga, House Of The Dragon revisits the Targaryens and played out a bit like the Lion King, with Paddy Considine as a wise but easily manipulated Mufasa to Matt Smith’s mercurial and conniving Scar.
There was a battle for succession in the event of the death of the king after his wife and baby son died during the birth (a horrifically graphic and unsurvivable Caesarean section); a raid by Smith’s army on the criminals of King’s Landing that proved bloody and brutal; lots of violent jousting scenes; and the obligatory orgy you’d expect in this fantasy world, if the fantasy was that of a 14-year-old boy.
The trouble is that it looks beautiful, and was utterly compelling, so that’s the next nine Monday nights sorted with a body count that would keep even Marie Cassidy on her toes.