Empire: World History - 240. Ireland’s Fight For Freedom: The Irish Civil War (Ep 3)

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

In the aftermath of the Irish War of Independence in 1921, Michael Collins is sent to London to meet Winston Churchill, David Lloyd George and other British officials to negotiate a treaty.  After weeks of travelling back and forth across the Irish Sea, Collins and his fellow Sinn Féin negotiators return with a deal. Ireland would become a Free State, but it would remain in the British Empire, and the Irish must swear an oath of allegiance to the King. Eamonn De Valera, the president of the republic, refuses to accept. De Valera and Collins, who were on the same side, are suddenly enemies. A rift tears through the republicans, splitting them into pro-Treaty and anti-Treaty forces. Families are divided, and soldiers who once fought together are on opposite sides. As the Irish tricolour replaces the Union Jack above Dublin castle, war breaks out between the two factions. Will Collins and De Valera survive their third war on home soil? Listen as William and Anita are joined once again by Diarmaid Ferriter, author of A Nation Not A Rabble, to discuss how the Anglo-Irish Treaty descended into civil war.  _____________ Empire Club: Become a member of the Empire Club to receive early access to miniseries, ad-free listening, early access to live show tickets, bonus episodes, book discounts, and a weekly newsletter! Head to empirepoduk.com to sign up. Email: [e-mail] Instagram: @empirepoduk  Blue Sky: @empirepoduk  X: @empirepoduk goalhanger.com Assistant Producer: Becki Hills Producer: Anouska Lewis Senior Producer: Callum Hill Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mparpoduk.com. Hello and welcome to Empire with me Anita Arnan. And me, William Durabult. Now we are joined for the final time by the quite spectacular Derrida. author of Between Two Hells, The Irish Civil War and a Nation Not a Rabble, The Irish Revolution 1913 to 1923.

And he's also written so much more on Irish history. We supremely recommend anything that has his name on it. I've been enjoying his transformation of Ireland, 1900 to 2000, which it doubles up as a dumbbell if you ever don't want to go to the gym. You could just play with Thurmet's book. It's about thousand pages long. I'll take that as a compliment, well. I'm sure I'm sure he meant it as a compliment

He did I mean you know Sometimes it's hard to tell But it was I could tell It's a big fat book though It's a lump of work Nobeth

You can be a fit historian That's what we think of When we think of William Fit historian That is exactly what you think of That is it That is what comes in Look so let me just remind you

Of what you've missed If you've missed The first two episodes In this trilogy We started off with the Easter Rising We then had A little bit of what The British response

to that was. And now we're entering, I think, possibly the most troubled waters as far as contemporary Irish historians are concerned. And that is the Irish Civil War. So, you know, we've had independence, we've had Easter rising, but now we have Ireland at war with itself. Just as a recap, just remind us that thread that goes from famine to Easter uprising in 1916 through to independence of sorts for Ireland, And where are we now in the scheme of things? We're at the moment where there is a dilemma for an Irish Republican movement. And I mean that in the political and the military sense. If the fighting stops, as it has stopped in July 1921, where do you take your project?

And what does the British government propose in relation to a resolution of a conflict that is not going well for them either? In a sense, both sides had fought themselves into a stalemate. Now, Republicans could claim that Britain was not able to inflict the defeat that it would have wished. Britain would claim, of course, that the Republicans were not successful in achieving their republic. But the question is now, if there is going to be dialogue, what will the dialogue be about? What might compromise look like? And what will that mean for a Republican movement that has prided itself on its unity of purpose, even if behind the scenes there were frequently tensions, as we've outlined, but that they had a strong

sense of their central mission, which is to establish a republic. We often talk about red lines in the modern era. Britain and the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George had a red line in the summer and autumn of 1921. You are not leaving the empire. That's the red line. So how does an Irish Republican movement built on the idea of exiting that empire deal with that red line? So what we're really looking at is the challenges of negotiation and compromise. There's a lot of confusion in the IRA ranks about what the truce and the ceasefire of July 1921 actually means, because they're not necessarily attuned to all of the political nuances. And Sinn Féin is a political movement. There is a Sinn Féin underground government.

There are very high-profile leaders of Sinn Féin, and we've mentioned a number of them. But there are also those who have seen themselves primarily as soldiers as fighters. And many of them, of course, have both endured and inflicted considerable pain. So you have to factor in those different perspectives. Some IRA units that were active in the summer of 1921 were sent these communications to say that fighting is going to cease, but they're not given a memorandum on what happens next. And what we get are a series of letters exchange

between the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George and the president of Sinn Féin, the self-styled president of the Irish Republic Amund, Devalera, in which David Lloyd-George reiterates the willingness to come to an accommodation, but that accommodation has to involve Ireland staying within the British Empire, and Aymand-de-Valera reiterating the validity and the sacredness of the Irish claim to independence. So the question is, can they meet somewhere in the middle? Yeah, I mean, to meet, you've got to actually meet. And this is to some confounding decision that Aymand de Valera makes. You know,

maybe the normal man in Ireland doesn't understand the nuance of politics, but de Valera is an essentially political man. But instead of going himself to Westminster, he decides not to. He decides he's going to send Michael Collins instead, who is known as a fighter, not a talker. Yes, what's your understanding of that? Because it's a kind of mystery, isn't it? Collins is not renowned. He's not got the education that De Valera's got. He doesn't have the experience in dealing with political issues and negotiations that de Valera has. Why does he, why does he back out? Does he suspect that the negotiations are not going to succeed like he hopes and wants somebody else to carry the can? Is it a cynical thing? Or is there another explanation?

Well, the first thing to remember is that Amon de Valera did travel to London to meet David Lloyd George on his own before there is a delegation of Sinn Féin sent over to formally negotiate a compromise He met David Lloyd George. David Lloyd George had a big map of the British Empire on his wall and said to De Valerre, you can be part of this. You too can play a role in this, trying to communicate this idea that this could be a positive future for Ireland and a positive development in Anglo-Irish relations. David Lloyd-George found Amid Devalaer enormously frustrating, like trying to pick up mercury with a fork. he recorded. And Devalera, as the schoolmaster, was very apt to give long history lectures

to those he was speaking with. And, you know, David L. George found that very frustrating. But Devalera came back to Dublin, having been told a republic that he sought was not on offer. And why then did he remain at home when he sent others to begin formally negotiating the treaty from October to December 1921? One of the justifications he made for his decision, decision was that he needed to remain at home as the untarnished symbol of the Irish Republic, that in the event of the negotiations breaking down, he would be unaffected by that London atmosphere and he could rally a united people. And he also suggested he was sending a well-balanced team in that Arthur Griffith, who was the original founder of Sinn Féin and a more moderate voice,

and Michael Collins would represent different strands of the Sinn Féin movement. You know, of course, Michael Collins had a reputation as being more hardline. But I wouldn't assume that Michael Collins did not want to be part of the solution. You know, we can conjure up a narrative of him being flung into the Lions Den at Downing Street as a reluctant fighter talking to politicians. Collins wanted to be part of the solution. What he feared, however, was that he was being sent over to bring back the bad news that Devalera didn't want to bring back. Right. And did he suspect that even before he went? He did. And I mean, as he put it at the time, the compromise was in accepting the invitation. And the way one of De Valera's other colleagues put her to Sinn Féin figure W.T. Cosgrave,

why would you send over your team with your best player in reserve? You know, given the stature and the experience that Amin de Valera had. So it was a decision that flummoxed many of his contemporaries, but some were convinced about this idea that Devalera should actually remain removed as that symbol. Do you personally think it was a shrewd, clever move by De Valera? Or do you think, that he was passing the can? He was passing the can. I think it was a grave mistake. I think it's very revealing that Devalera lived a very long life and kept coming back even in old age

to the decisions that he made in 1921 and 1920. I was just sort of interested in what the papers thought of Michael Collins at the time. And actually, they didn't think much of him. So it does seem like a very odd choice. So the coverage between 1919 to 1921 of Michael. Michael Collins. They called him the master of assassination due to his part. They called him the man behind the murder gang. These are headlines. Elusive and dangerous. So it is an odd choice that you're going to send somebody over to Britain to argue or to Westminster to argue for a really

fraught negotiation who is so very detested. That's what the papers in the public thought of him. And they were called terrorists, you know. So the idea of talking to terrorists, I mean, that controversy reverberates down through the decades. But it also developed a huge media interest. You know, Michael Collins was very famous as the elusive Michael Collins. And people were intrigued as to what would be involved in meeting the British Prime Minister in Downing Street, what they shake hands, for example. But also, you know, there was a logic too, perhaps to sending someone who was regarded as quite formidable, who did, of course, have his finger on the pulse of of the IRA, because if there was to be any agreement, obviously the IRA, that have to be an attempt

to bring them on board. And let's not forget, I said this earlier, that Collins was also a strategist. He was a deskman. He was a thinker. He was somebody who corresponded in great detail about various aspects of the Republican movement, not just the direction of intelligence for the IRA. So there was more to him than that. You know, the idea of including Collins was not without merit. And maybe there was a belief that Collins might also be able to establish a degree of authority or even fear in London that might nudge them in a particular direction. Of course, you can look back on all of these explanations as being questionable. But Collins did go. And that's the important point to suppose about what his particular role was at that point, that he did see himself as having

to be part of the solution, even if that solution was going to be very difficult. And let's not forget. The likelihood of failure was very strong. So it wasn't assumed at all that these negotiations would be successful. And they were very highly likely to fail. Do you think that the Irish negotiating team was up to it? Were they sufficiently experienced in the event with diplomatic niceties and with creative solutions to difficult problems? Or did you feel that the likes of Churchill were more experienced and unable to play diplomatic games with them. Oh, it was a very heavyweight British delegation. You know, you mentioned Churchill there.

And, you know, you're also talking about the man referred to as the Welsh wizard. And we have a real insight into what went on because Tom Jones, it was the secretary to David Lloyd George, who was also a Welsh speaker. He kept very detailed diaries of what went on the dynamics and the attempts to try and isolate different members of the Sinn Féin delegation. So they were inexperienced and that was taken advantage of. But their biggest problem was they didn't have their bottom line worked out. They were still trying to figure out, I talked about red lines, what their red lines were.

Were there certain issues on which they had room for maneuver? And without getting into all of the specifics of the negotiations, because they were very, very lengthy and extended, the big questions were obviously empire. The other question was they wanted the undoing of partition, because Ireland has been partitioned at this stage to satisfy the unionists. There's a new Northern Ireland. They want that undone. But they also recognize that geography is relevant as well as history. Is Britain going to continue to have an input into the defence of itself and using Ireland in relation to that defence? The rest of the 20th century will see country after country leave the British Empire, in 1947, India, then throughout the 50s

whole range of Africa and other countries. Were there any templates for, for the Irish negotiating team of anyone who'd already left the British Empire, who they could model their negotiations on, or were they literally the first. They were the first to be colonised and then the first to get out. Yeah, I mean, this was the important point about how high the stakes were. There would have been a perspective on the part of the British Hawks as well, that this could be the domino that would begin a process that would see all other dominoes fall.

So what David Lloyd-George was emphasising, again, was the Canadian example. You know, we've mentioned Jan Smuts in the South African example, where, you know, we would acknowledge your right to a degree of self-determination, but it would have to be done within the empire. So there wasn't that template for complete separation. So, you know, in that sense, they were in uncharted territory. Now, there were very able individuals on the Irish side, you know, and they did have advisors and they had a significant retinue with them, and they took themselves very seriously.

You know, I mean, Arthur Griffith was no slouch, and either was Michael Collins, George Gavin Duffy, who had legal expertise. You know, they did try and cover different bases. But, you know, they didn't have significant negotiating experiences. And what can happen in negotiations as well is that a particular dynamic develops. It's important to remember the instructions they were sent over with. They had the formal title of plenty potentials. Now, if you were to give the dictionary definition of that, you could say, well, that gives them the power to negotiate and conclude an agreement.

But they were also told by Emma Devalera that they had to refer any proposal or final proposal or draft proposal, back to those Sinn Féin cabinet members who remained in Dublin. So in a sense, we have a London Sinn Féin now and a Dublin Sinn Féin, and relations really break down and become quite fraught because the practicalities of that. And even think of the physical effort that was involved in travelling back, you know, these extended train journeys and then the journey across the Irish Sea, it was physically exhausting as well. How did you get to Ireland in those days?

Liverpool and Stranra again like today. You got the train. You could get the train up to Hollyhead and you could take the boat over. then, you know, it was a long old journey. But I think the important point is that the way in which the British approached it was to try and bring certain points to a conclusion quickly and, you know, try and work on individuals on the Irish side who they thought were more amenable to compromise. And that chiefly was Arthur Griffith. Okay. So you know where the Brits are coming from. But what about, you know, Michael Collins and so on? Are they writing to De Valera, who is their

chief? After all, he's the man who, you know, is going to take responsibility. they think for whatever agreement is signed? Are they asking him for guidance? I mean, are there, is there a paper trial saying, Deb, tell us what to do? There is a very substantial paper trail. And we're lucky as historians, because we have access to that. We have the files of the treaty negotiations from the Irish side. And what you can see developing over the course of the negotiations is increased frustration on the part of the negotiators in London, the Sinn Féin negotiators. At one stage, they tell Devalier, you are putting us in an impossible position because, you know, things are changing. There are various draft proposals, for example, about the Ulster question or about

empire or about the possibility about oath of allegiance to the British Crown, which becomes such a sticking point, but also around questions of the future defence forces, if there are to be any, for an Irish free state. And what might an Irish free state actually mean? All of these different questions, De Valera didn't have the Ulster policy worked out before they left. But does he reply? What does he say? Does he say, look, just sort it out yourselves? Or does he, what does he say? What he says, keep us abreast of the various negotiations and the developments and the proposals and that then, you know, we will respond to them and give you position papers.

If we think there's something completely unacceptable, we will inform you and you will then tell them it's completely unacceptable. And yet, that might be fine in theory. But in practice, you also had an impatient British negotiators who had a finite amount of time as they saw. The heat of discussion, a closed room, banging tables, you know. And they would also say, you know, who is in charge? You cannot expect us to negotiate with you and with Aiman Devalera, who has left himself in Dublin.

So those dynamics are interesting. And like when it came to the Oster question, for example, they wanted to get that out of the way. It's interesting that they felt that the Oster question was not something that interested in British audience. You know, they're not particularly interested in partition. Many on the British side privately conceded that the partition of Ireland was a very bad idea. They didn't like the idea anyway. And they had done it because they didn't want civil war on their doorstep. So they came up with this idea of a boundary commission that would review.

the border at a later stage to try and kick that can down the road. And, you know, Arthur Griffith interpreted that in a particular way. They thought that it would force Ulster down as to be kind of economically and politically no longer feasible. And they were sold a pup in relation to that. But they're working on Griffith because they believe that, you know, Griffith is more open to compromise. What was it like socially for them? Obviously, Collins had lived in London and worked in the post office earlier in his life. But since then, he's assassinated a whole bunch of Brits in the streets of London. Is he boycotted socially or is he fated in the drawing rooms of London? Are they living in modest digs? What's going on day to day? He's certainly not boycotted. There are

people who like the whiff of sulphur. You know, there's one historian has referred to the Collins mania that was apparent in London in the autumn of 1921. You know, people want to be seen with this elusive Collins. You know, despite all the issues that you mentioned in relation to his history, he's in significant demand in society terms. People like Lady Lavery, for example, the wife of the artist John Lavery, were very captivated by the idea of this Irish rebel. They sometimes sit for portraits, they go for dinners. Collins actually stays in a separate residence, and that's partly to do with what's regarded

as his particular vulnerability, but also the possibility that he might have to be spirited away if things go awry and that there will be a plane on standby for that. But they did, as a delegation, take themselves very serious. They were well-financed. But there is that whole social scene around the treaty negotiations. Since you've opened up the social scene, I'm going to dive in and ask. You know, the story that's told in the film that he's in love with the same woman that Harry Boland is in love with as well, Kitty, this woman, Kitty. I mean, is that true?

Are they devoted to each other at this time? What is the love life of Michael Collins who's being courted by all these very fancy ladies in London? Yeah, I think the love life of Michael Collins was in. not half as complicated as it was sometimes presented or wished to be, I suspect Michael Collins died a virgin. But at the same time, that love triangle was real. You know, Harry Boland, his close friend, Michael Collins, of course Harry Boland is a significant Sinn Fain figure in his own right. And Kitty has to decide between the two of them, and she decides on Michael Collins. And Harry Boland is very put out about that. And we also have the correspondence between Kitty and Michael

Collins. And Michael Collins assured her that he was attending Mass every day and he was being dutiful. And he told her not to believe the stories that she was reading in the press. The fancy ladies and the fancy dinners. Yeah. So I mean, she's really frustrated. I mean, that human side of it is absolutely fascinating. But, you know, Collins was not somebody who was loving his way around London. You know, there's a very traditional side to Michael Collins as well. So I think some of the narrative around the great Lothario of Collins can be exaggerated. He's going to the Brompton Oratory, everybody. That's right. And I mean, a lot of the correspondence between them, you know, they're not necessarily discussing the serious matters of the negotiation. You know, it's more frivolous matters, you know. But you can also detect Kitty's frustration. Yeah, because he's far away and he's away too long, which is actually, it's rather cute. And she wants reassurance. Yes. And I know, just, are you still mine. But look, the negotiations are carry on in the background. And it is at 2.10 a.m. And I think that's really significant. 10 past 2 in the morning.

of the 6th of December that articles of agreement for a treaty are signed at 10 Downing Street. Now, the one thing you mentioned it before is this oath of allegiance that they draft that everybody must take. And I'll read it because you can, once you hear it, you'll know why the reaction is as strong as it is when he takes it back. So this is what they should swear. I do solemnly swear true faith and allegiance to the constitution of the Irish free state, as by law established and I will be faithful to His Majesty King George V, his heirs and successes by law in virtue of the common citizenship of Ireland with Great Britain and her adherence to and membership of the group of nations forming the British Commonwealth of Nations.

Now, that in itself contains two things that most Republicans will not be able to stomach. One, we take the knee to use the Game of Thrones terminology to a king that we have hated and who we feel has persecuted us. And also, that Ireland is part of what now? We're meant to be free. What is this backdoor membership? We didn't sign up to this. So does Collins think they will accept this oath of allegiance when he takes it back?

Or does he take it back filled with lead and dread thinking, oh God, this isn't going to work, is it? Well, the way he puts it is that if he assigns the treasions, treaty, he's signing his death warrant. And, you know, when you consider the emotiveness around the question of empire and what the Republicans had fought for, the wording that you have just read there, well, that's like a red flag to a Republican bull, isn't it? But when you look back at the various drafts of a potential oath of allegiance, you can see the positioning of the free state constitution that I will swear allegiance to the free state constitution. And then it goes on to reference the crown. So were you ultimately in taking that oath, were you actually primarily taking an oath to the

Free State Constitution, the proposed new Free State Constitution? Some argued that that diluted the primacy of your allegiance to the Crown. You know, you can dance on the head of a pin in relation to this, but obviously this was the most difficult issue. And again, I refer to Red Line and the absolute insistence of David Lloyd George about staying in the empire. And he ratcheted up the drama towards the end of negotiations. He said these issues have to be. be brought to a conclusion. You're not going back to Dublin again for another exchange. I have two letters here in my hand, both addressed to the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, James Craig. One saying we have agreed and can look forward to harmonious cooperation in the other. The other

says that the negotiations have broken down. If I send that letter that says the negotiations have broken down, it'll be war and war within three days. Now, the drama is there. The tactics of David Lloyd George on display, were the Sinn Féin negotiators in a position to call his bluff about that? Because what they were promising was an intense war, a new type of war. So, you know, some have argued that, you know, that placed them in an impossible position, that they even had a moral duty in relation to saving lives to sign. Others accuse them of falling under the spell of London and the negotiators and of compromising to the point of embarrassment.

Now, obviously, they are weighing up these dilemmas. Arthur Griffith, foolishly, you could argue, said that he would sign even if his fellow negotiators didn't, because he believed it was an honorable and a fair compromise. And they are beginning, of course, to think in terms of the bigger picture over what would be the consequences of not signing. And then there's the argument that, well, maybe this can be a beginning, the famous stepping stone argument that Michael Collins used, a stepping stone that we can reach further freedom if we accept this as a starting point. The problem, of course, is how do you keep the IRA on board? Right.

How do you keep the IRA on board? Well, just for a moment, put a pin in that. How do you keep Aymand de Valera on board? Because, you know, there is no dancing on a pin when they bring back this treaty to Ireland. Because De Valera says no. He is furious. How could you have done this? How could you have done this without coming back to me first?

Let me just describe the fire and the fury. And even the way the language he used in rejecting it, that it was in viourious. conflict with the wishes of the majority. Now, as it turns out, that wasn't true, but Devalero had a tendency at different stages famously to look into his own heart to decide what the Irish people thought. But, I mean, that was his initial response. The Sinn Féin cabinet is split on the question. There are very heated arguments and accusations being hurled against the negotiators. Why didn't you refer the final text back to us? Why didn't you fulfill your obligations in relation to the credentials that you were given. And the reality is, of course,

that it was the Doyle, the Parliament, that actually authorized the sending of the delegation. So another question arises, is the Parliament? Are the Irish parliamentarians, the Sinn Féin T.Ds, as they're known and aren't, are they going to have the ultimate say in this? So the Cabinet is completely split, and this is the beginning of the unravelling of the unity of Sinn Féin. But there is no exaggerating the fury of Aymn Devalera. Now Devalera himself, let's remember, had said in August 1921, we are not Republican doctrinares as such, which suggested Riggle Room. But Devalera's problem was that he had an idea of a third way. Not the treaty, not the republic, but the idea of external association. And this was Devalera as the mathematician as well as the politician. What he

suggested that was because of realpolitik and geography and defence needs, that Ireland will be willing to be associated with the British Commonwealth, but not a part of the British Commonwealth. So we would have that external association. Of course, Britain was never going to accept that. And there were those in Sinn Féin who were very frustrated at the idea of Devaler, the mathematician, coming up with further complications. So there was a sense maybe that Devalero thought that he could save the day by coming up with this third way. Is there a sense that there's a great rivalry between Collins and De Valera? Is De Valera a bit miffed that Collins has been swanning around London,

living it up with Lady Labbery, and he's been sitting in Ireland all on his own? I think there's always egos at play here. You know, I mean, consider the profile of the two of them. But I think more important than maybe the personal animus that is developing is the question of the emotiveness around it, that you have betrayed our dead. And if you consider some of those who had been involved in the fighting

or had lost ones in the fighting, did they die for an oath of allegiance? You know, how do you square those circles? You know, Devalera was a pragmatist in many ways and he wasn't the absolutist when it came to foreign policy, but this was just a step too far as far as he was concerned. And of course, it wasn't his compromise.

And that's where the ego also comes into play as well. Yeah, because, yeah, he says, says let Ireland decide, but then Ireland is asked, and the majority of the Irish say, we are pro-treaty, but that does not call de Valera at all? There was a general election in June 22, six months after all of this, and, you know, the majority of the electorate voted for pro-treaty candidates. But of course, the argument was made, well, that's only a vote that is conducted under a threat of war from the British Empire, so it's not legitimate. So again, you know, people were tailoring their arguments to suit the

particular needs. But the important, point was that the Sinn Féin cabinet had broken down in relation to this, a slight majority in favour, but then the vote of the Parliament, of the Doyle-era and the Irish Parliament, becomes a fascinating exercise in national soul-searching, where 100 parliamentarians speak and give their views over the course of late December and early January. And you can feel the emotion running through it. Mary McSweeney, for example, who was a Cork Republican, one of the few women in the parliament, whose brother, famously Terence McSweeney, had died in Brixton Prison during the War of Independence as the Lord Mayor of Cork after 74 days on hunger strike. She never mentioned his name,

but she spoke for two and a half hours, and she invoked the spirit of the dead. And she said, we hold the Republic as a living faith, as a spiritual entity. And you cannot take that away from us. So you have that level of emotiveness, but also personal accusations being hurled, the breakdown of personal relationships. We mentioned Harry Boland and Michael Collins, who find themselves on opposite sides of the treaty debate. That was being replicated in families around the country. And even when you consider then the intervention of the Catholic Church over the course of Christmas 1921, you know, a more conservative entity which are urging acceptance because it will mean peace and business interests and economic interests, commercial people, are saying, well, this will be good for business if there is peace. So there are a lot of different societal pressures as well. And there are those who don't have the appetite to go back to war.

So the vote is very close. It's 64 votes in favour, 57 against. So that is a narrow margin, but it is, you know, sort of almost an equally balanced, you know, not quite. But it also, it's indicative of the depth of the split. Split in the country. So now you have, in politics, at least, pro-treaty and anti-treaty. Let's take a break. Join us after the break when that fissure is divided by violence. Welcome back. So Michael Collins has returned from London with a treaty. It doesn't give the Republicans everything they want, but it is an incredibly historic moment. On the 14th of January, 1922, Dublin Castle, which for nearly 700 years has been the symbol of alien British rule over the Irish people is handed over to a new Irish government.

And Michael Collins wearing his new uniform of the free state takes charge of what had been till then that dread bastille of Ireland, as Colin calls it. Tell me what it must have felt like. How was it viewed in Dublin and beyond in Ireland at this point? Some of the treaty supporting media framed it as a final release. from 700 years of enslavement. It's also something that Collins wanted to happen quickly so that he could say there is a tangible, obvious change and benefit to the signing of this treaty, that we are now in control of our own destiny. So the symbolism of it was hugely important. It didn't impress

anti-treaty Republicans, of course, who saw it as just cosmetic and nowhere near far enough. And in truth, of course, there was the departure of significant numbers of British troops. But Churchill was not going to let all of the British soldiers leave Ireland until he was satisfied that the compromise and the peace was secured. So there's still a lot going on behind the scenes and a lot of nervousness. But it was hugely important for Collins to be seen, to be taking control of Dublin Castle. The difficulty, of course, is what is going to happen to the rupture within the IRA. We know that 70% of the IRA was opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty roughly. Now, it was sometimes said that the IRA were so loyal to Michael Collins that what's good

enough for Mick is good enough for me. That wasn't true, you know, and it's reflected in those figures. And, you know, Collins wasn't in a commanding position in terms of changing all of those minds. So there's a fraught atmosphere. People don't know what is going to happen next. but it's quite clear that some within the IRA who are opposed to the treaty are not going to let it lie. And they begin to organise and they begin to meet and they begin to defiantly challenge what is now the provisional government of the free state to challenge their authority and their right to exist at all.

Right. So I mean one of those first challenges made tangible is the anti-treaty people taking a British barracks. So you know, you've got Michael Collins trying to sort of carry on with. that feel-good factor of we are all together, we are all one, but there is a major split and they defiantly go against him and they take weapons, signaling intent for the future. And how to deal with them is the real dilemma as well, because, I mean, it's hardly surprising that such with the depth of feeling that these anti-treaty IRA members were not going to accept this and they wanted to demonstrate as soldiers their loyalty to the Republic. The question is, how will the government respond to them? Do they go after them quickly? Do they have their resources or their means to do that?

And let's not forget, the shadow of Winston Churchill is also there as well. He writes these extraordinary letters to Michael Collins in April 1922, saying, your government must assert itself or perish and be replaced by some other form of control. Classic Churchillian flourish, and the some other form of control is about Britain reentering the fray again, which of course would have been regarded as a humiliation, but which some anti-treaty Republicans would have welcomed, because they believed it might unite both sides of the treaty divide. So there is that fraughtness, and you then have the occupation of the four courts, a very significant building in Dublin City Centre, when anti-treaty Republicans decide under the nose of the authorities, the provisional government, that they are not going anywhere until the validity of the Irish Republican cause is recognised, and they hold themselves up there. So, you know, this is increasing pressure on Michael Collins and his colleagues. Arthur Griffith is getting increasingly frustrated, and he's been called over to London to explain what is going on.

and why haven't you made more progress? And how are you, as a provisional government who have accepted the treaty and the dollar has accepted the treaty, how are you going to face down these Republicans? Give us a picture of the seizure of the forecourts and tell us about the building itself. It's on the river, it's on the lifi, it's a magnificent Georgian structure,

one of the main big buildings in central Dublin. And these guys have just walked in with guns, with barricades. What are they got? I mean, it was one of the jewels in, the crown of that 18th century building program. And it's a very imposing building. And of course, it sits overlooking the River Liffey as well. And, you know, as a very important site of legal affairs, it also housed the Public Record Office. So it housed the archive of the administration of the British state in Ireland. So these IRA members went in with considerable ease. They barricaded

themselves in. They ultimately began to plan for what might happen in the event of them being removed, which ultimately resulted in the destruction of the public record office, which was a great cultural tragedy. But many people were not focused on culture at that moment. They were focused on the enormity of the oath of allegiance question and the finer details of the treaty. So they're essentially waiting. And the British government not only wants initially the provisional government to move against them, they're prepared to move against them themselves. You know, Winston Churchill was discussing plans as to how the British forces might remove them. That would have been humiliation too. So ultimately, towards the end of June, Michael Collins decides under considerable pressure

that he has to move against them. And the only way to move against them is by using the resources and the artillery that the British have provided. So this is like a kind of perfect reversal of where we opened in the first episode of this trilogy when he's sitting in the GPO barricaded in with the British guns facing him. Now he's at the guns looking at his mates and friends like Harry. He's on the outside, yeah. People he's trained. I mean, also, and also the youth of a lot of these people who, you know, are arrayed against him. There are many accounts, very moving accounts of boys in uniforms that belong to their dads, you know, that are just hanging off their tiny slight frames.

There are beautiful accounts and poetry written about the time of looking over and seeing your neighbor or somebody that, you know, you've known since a child. Only a few months ago, you were fighting shoulder to shoulder. Now you're aiming a gun at his head. So this is like a complete nervous breakdown for a new country. Oh, completely. And I mean, even like we've referenced the relationship between Michael Collins and Harry Boland and we're jumping ahead of slightly. But, you know, Harry Boland is ultimately killed in the Civil War.

And Michael Collins, as his former close friend, he can't even go and see his body and pay his respects. And he writes about that, you know. He can't because he's disgusted or he can't because he's broken by the death? Too dangerous. It's too dangerous. And he wouldn't have been accepted there. because he was regarded as somebody who had engaged in such a great betrayal. But it's the human motions.

He weeps, doesn't he? They do. And I mean, many of them break down. And, you know, when you consider, I've used that phrase between two hells, you know, it's not just about the high-profile leaders. P.J. Maloney was a Tipperary Sinn Féin TD who described that dilemma in 1922. We're being asked to choose between two hells. You know, the hell of remaining in the empire or the hell of turning on each other

or continuance of the war. He had spent 23 days on hunger strike. He had lost a son in the IRA during the War of Independence. That's the nature of the kind of human dilemmas that they're dealing with. And some of the TEDs went back to their constituencies at Christmas and discovered that their position was at odds with the constituents who had elected them. So families are making their views known. And sometimes within an individual family, you can have people at this stage who are not even speaking to each other.

Can we also just talk about the fact that, you know, these are men who've been trained by the same men. So are they using the same sort of guerrilla tactics that were so successful against the British, against each other? Yeah. The difference is now you've a divided community, so they can't rely on public support to the same extent. And they're much reduced in terms of numbers. So if the anti-treaty IRA want to engage in a civil war or guerrilla campaign, they are much reduced. And they do generally retreat to what we call the Munster Republic. In other words, the counties where they were strongest, such as Cork and Tipperary. But what happens then at the outbreak of the Civil War is that Michael Collins becomes commander-in-chief of a new pro-treaty, national army as it's known, which is the pro-treaty IRA effectively. And they have more resources. Ultimately, that army is bloated to over 50,000 members by the end of the short civil war. And the anti-treaty IRA could not compete with that. So they are fighting a rearguard action really from the very beginning. The fighting moves from Dublin to Wicklow in the east and then towards the south and the west. But they don't have the resources. Those who oppose the treaty don't have the resources to win this civil war.

But the great tragedy, you're right, you put your finger on it. It's the fact that former comrades are inflicting this pain. And I often think in civil war that that makes it even more vicious. Because such is the sense of betrayal on both sides that they are moved to do things that they perhaps wouldn't have even done during the War of Independence. There's a beautiful part in your between two hells. And I won't be able to lay my finger on it now. But it is a strike that's going on with agricultural workers.

And the pro treaties open fire because they think the anti-treaties are about to open fire the strikers. And one young kid looks up into the eyes of the man who is commanding the pro-treaty forces and said, you're doing this to us. And it's that word us that kills him. Because he's like, my God, us used to be both of us. You know, you could be my kid. That's a crucial point, yeah, because there's a social aspect of this as well. because those who were engaging in social and economic issues at that time, including those who were striking for, you know, bread and butter issues, for cost of living issues.

It's just poor Irish. But they were regarded as subversives. And in a time of civil war, you know, we are going to crush any activity that is regarded as subversive. The same is true of land seizures, for example. You know, the government, Kevin O'Higgins, who becomes the Minister for Home Affairs later, justice, he says, we were the most conservative revolutionaries, whoever put through a successful revolution, We are not going to tolerate this level of subversion when it comes to social issues and land questions and economic questions.

And the way that they were postal workers who were striking. And the government reaction at the time was described by a labor activist as the scrapping of every individual liberty. So that the state is becoming centralized and ruthless, which it is justifying on the grounds that it has to defeat this threat from within. It's an existential question as it sees it. How do the scale of the casualties in the Civil War compare with the previous, War of Independence or the Anglo-Irish War? 1,500 people roughly were killed in the Irish Civil War between June, 1922 and May 1923. That is not a high body count.

The Finnish Civil War in 1918, in a country of similar size and population a couple of years previously, 36,000 people were killed. Many of them were starved to death. There wasn't that level of slaughter. But what's important about the Irish Civil War killings is the intimate nature of the killings. And some of the things you've mentioned in relation to people knowing who is inflicting this and those who are enduring this, there are terrible scenes towards the end of the Civil War when the free state is so keen to quash the last outpost of Republican, anti-treaty,

Republican IRA that they actually tie prisoners to mines and detonate them. And the way one contemporary observer and Republican putters, the birds were eating the flesh off the trees in Bally-Sidi, which is a site in Kerry. And that was a revenge. for what the anti-treaty IRA had done to free state soldiers. So there are those revenge killings. The details are appalling. And at the same time, it is not a high body count when we think of the scale of European killings during that period.

Now, as the Civil War ebbs towards the West and the Free State Army with its greater resources are now beginning to have more and more control over more and more of Ireland, and there's only a few counties left where the anti-treaty forces are, are in control, we have the great tragedy, as it's sometimes depicted certainly, of the Civil War, which is the ambushing of Michael Collins himself. Now, it's a very contested bit of history and the film version is particularly inaccurate, I think. Well, it puts it all on De Valera, that De Valero lures him, lures him to cork. And all his friends are begging him, Michael,

don't be going to cork. Isn't it interesting that Alan Rickman, the actor who portrayed Devalera was not happy with that depiction. He gave interviews about it subsequently that he actually made the case to the filmmakers that this was not the way to do it and he was ultimately overruled. Now, you know, Michael Collins was interested perhaps in putting out feelers in his native West Cork about whether or not you could bring people together to try and bring this to an end. But there are a number of different factors relevant to the ambush. He was leaving himself very exposed. They'd also been drinking. And that is important in relation. to how it may have clouded their judgment.

And there was an arrogance too associated with his thinking that they're not going to do this to me in my own back garden. Yeah, yeah, I know I shoot me in my own county. Which my, you know, underestimates the depth of feeling that was there. Let's go through the events of the day slowly and really focus in on it. So on the 22nd of August 1922, Michael Collins sets out from Cork City on a securitus tour of the West Coast in an open-topped car.

And he passes through some towns and reaches an isolated crossroads. You have to pronounce the, is it, Bail and Blath? Bailne Blah. Bailne Blah. Valley of the Flowers. He stops at the local pub, Long's pub, and he's spotted there. He's recognised. And they set up an ambush, hoping he might come back.

Tell us what happens. Yeah, and I mean, they were there for hours, you know, they were waiting. And there's a very long delay. And by some accounts, they were actually preparing to go by the time the convoy appeared. And then they decided to make their move. And these were West Cork anti-treaty IRA members. Of course, Collins is exalted in West Cork to a degree. But there's also, because he is of West Cork, the depth of the opposition on the part of the

anti-treaty IRA is really strongly felt as well. So they saw their opportunity. And it is the great public tragedy and the best-known tragedy of the Civil War. was only 31. George Bernard Shaw, who we've mentioned the playwright wrote to Collins' sister, Hannah afterwards, asking her to be thankful that he did not die in a snuffy bed of a trumpery cough as an old man inevitably disappointed by what would have been his life had he lived, which was slightly insensitive. But I suppose he was also making the point that it also secured the legacy to a degree of Michael Collins. He became that kind of canvas because he was the lost,

dashing young leader. And there was then myth-making. And propaganda, arch propaganda, statement released by his colleagues saying that his last words were forgive them. Now, he was travelling with Emmett Dalton and it's likely his last words were Emmett, I've been hit. So, you know, you had the myth making from the very beginning. But it was a terrible tragedy. And of course, it had an international ripple because of the profile of Collins. Well, absolutely. I mean, what we will learn afterwards is that he got his fatal shot through the head, struck by a bullet, fired from on high.

And, I mean, it was, death came quickly to Michael Collins. But you're right about the reception of this death. I mean, you're going to tell me about Ireland in a moment. But the British press again, I love looking at newspapers. I absolutely can't stop myself. But they start, you know, from calling him the man behind the murder gang, elusive and dangerous and all of that kind of thing, they start writing eulogies almost immediately for Michael Collins as if he was a great statesman.

They are absolutely valedictory and saying, you know, this man was a statesman. we have lost a great presence from the world. The Daily Express, the one man who could have united Ireland. This one from the Times, Ireland has lost its greatest leader, the Manchester Guardian, the lost hope of Anglo-Irish peace. I mean, what a difference a few months make. And also the politicians, the senior politicians releasing statements, the same politicians who would have referred to him as a horrendous terrorist,

now framing him as a statesman. What was de Valera's reaction when he heard about the death? I mean, he'd come to hate the man, hadn't he? Or was there still feeling? He is distraught because the enormity of it could not but impact on anyone who had worked with him or anyone who was in a senior position in Sinn Féin. We also know that the free state side was imprisoning an awful lot of anti-treaty IRA members and some of them dropped to their knees to pray when the news came trickling through.

Some would have also believed that he got his just desserts given what they regarded at the scale of the betrayal. but it places Devalera, of course, who's at the lowest point of his career at this stage in another difficulty because, you know, he's well aware that he will also perhaps be blamed for the circumstances that led to this assassination. And of course, that blame game becomes very much a part of what we call Civil War politics down through the decades, about who was responsible for what happened in Ireland in 1922. So the reverberations are very deep. The consequences are massive. It's interesting that you refer there to the idea of the man that might have united Ireland.

That might be an exaggeration, of course, but there was a sense that Collins, of all of the members of that pre-state government was most attuned to the plight of northern nationalists. Now, whether he would have been able to practically undo partitioned is another question altogether. But that's, I think, what happens when you have the cutting down the lost leader narrative. This is what he would have done had he lived. And that can be exaggerated, of course, too, because, You know, Collins was a product of his time. He was not a sole operator. He was surrounded by very interesting people and they shared an awful lot of the same worldview and cultural reference

points. I think what he did have was an exceptional ability, and those abilities were certainly lost. But, you know, at the same times, Collins would not necessarily have set Ireland on a completely different path. Yeah. Well, there is a ceasefire after the assassination of Michael Collins. and the IRA order to dump arms and go home. And this is what de Valera issues out, saying it is anti-treaty fighters on the 24th of May. Soldiers of the Republic, Legion of the Rear Guard, the Republic can no longer be defended successfully by your arms. Further sacrifice of life would now be in vain, the continuance of the struggle in arms, unwise in the national interest, and prejudicial to the future of our cause.

Military victory must be allowed to rest for the moment with those who have destroyed the Republic. So it's not exactly a, let's sing come by a together. Not forgive and forget. It's interesting obviously to contrast the public statements and the defiance with the private acknowledgement of how weak a position they were in. You know, like Collins has killed in August 1922 and the Civil War limps on until May 1923. But what happened after the death of Collins is that there is a firmer resolve on the part of the free state to crush the anti-treaty IRA.

And Richard Mulcahy takes over as commander of the army. and he'd experience, obviously, in the War of Independence. And things do get darker. And by the end of the Civil War, there are in the region of 12,000 anti-treaty IRA prisoners, and they actually engage in a mass hunger strike, which doesn't succeed. So they have very few cards left to play.

And Devala privately acknowledged that, because he refers at one stage to the need to shepherd these men back into civilian life. And he knows that the game is up militarily. And he also knows that he needs to begin to think about how, if possible, he might recover politically from this. Well, I mean, thousands of anti-treaty members, including DeVlera, end up being arrested.

They're not just going to be allowed to dump arms and go home. He spent a year in prison, which I think was important for him, because it gave him time and space to figure out where he had gone wrong and the decisions that he had made and how he might fashion a political future by building on what was still a very significant anti-treaty sentiment in the country. You know, there was potential there to build that into a political force. But the question for Devalera, should he stay with Sinn Féin, or was that a cul-de-sac? Because let's not forget, going back to abstention, the anti-treaty Sinn Féin members who were elected as parliamentarians were not recognising the free state parliament and didn't take their seats. Now, was there a political future in that? Ultimately, DeVallera concluded there wasn't.

Well, I mean, as we will see by 1939, most of what most considered objectionable about the Anglo-Irish treaty, will be removed by Acts of Parliament in Ireland. So slowly but surely, you know, De Valera will become Prime Minister and there will be this erosion of that treaty that he found so objectionable. And what's it heading towards ultimately neutrality in the Second World War? Devalera did not believe you could claim to be independent unless you could implement an independent foreign policy. And it brings you back to that question of empire

and the loss of control of independence or sovereignty and foreign policy. De Valera throughout the 1930s was determined to win that back. And he did. Well, let's just talk very briefly, because we've only got a few minutes left with you, just about legacy, because I read this article, and it's 10 years old now. So it will be, we're coming up to the 60th anniversary of Amon de Valera's death, August, is when he died. And there's this article by a very good writer called Amin Delaney from the Irish independence. And he defends de Valera. He says, you know what? It's about how we look back, because so many people look back in anger at De Valera, they blame him for the death of heroes like Michael Collins.

But he says there is something odd about this that in Ireland itself, in Dublin, you have Parnell Square or you have streets named after Parnell. You have places named after Collins. But when he was talking to somebody saying, where is the De Valera Road? The man answers saying, we don't have a road long and skinny enough to match that bastard. You know, there still is this legacy of anger and hatred towards de Valera, which, well, he certainly doesn't feel he deserves, and I take it from the body of work that you've written, you think is rather unfair as well. Well, I was trying to take the emotiveness out of it.

You know, my grandparents' generation were not able to do that. And for many, he became the man they could not forgive, such was the personal nature and personal reaction to the decisions that were made in 1921 and 22. Blamed for the civil war? Yeah, they lingered for that generation, many of whom had long careers in politics up to the 1950s and the 1960s. And then some of their children inherited those attitudes and those prejudices. So that does linger. And what we call civil war politics, that Irish politics was built around that civil war divide. That has only come to an end in very recent years where the two sides of the civil war and the parties that developed out of them can actually share power now. But it did take a century. But there's a personal element to it in relation to. to Devil Era because many would believe that ultimately he vindicated Michael Collins' interpretation of the treaty because he did use it as a stepping stone to generate further independence. But it was he who ended up doing it, not Michael Collins. And for many, that

was just something that they could not forgive him for. But there is a sense, I think, in more recent times that people have looked back to what he achieved in relation to foreign policy and enhancing Irish sovereignty and reframing Irish foreign policy. And he had a very clear vision in establishing his new party in 1926 in the fall about where he wanted to take it on the country. And for all those who derided him and hated him, he was consistently returned to office. I mean, he was in power for 16 unbroken years between 1932 and 1948. So for all those who hated him, there was a significant number who revered him. Well, I mean, he may not still be loved in his own country, but I can tell you in other parts of the world, you know, there is in Delhi at DeVallera Road.

You know, they did name things after him. Yeah, there is. There is, although it certainly was, there was like a big sort of ceremony to name it after Aymand de Valera. And also, you know, you have, it inspires actions overseas. So, you know, in 1930, there are a group of Indian revolutionaries who seized the armories of the police department in Bengal, and they do it on Good Friday as a tribute to the Easter Rising. So, you know, there are all these reverberations that go around. He would perhaps more loved out of his country than in, in the end.

Do you think that there's a sense in which De Valera's personality, that very often, dear, pious man that he was, shapes the island of the 40s and 50s, very Catholic, censorship of films, and that slightly repressive and introverted nature of Ireland. Because when we think of Ireland in the 20s and 30s, we think of Yates, and we think of the Abbey Theatre and Joyce and the kind of flourishing of the arts, well, are we right in thinking of the 50s as a much more austere time with the Catholic Church, much more dominant and there. in the Constitution, slightly crushing freedom of expression. And does that reflect De Valera himself?

It reflects his generation. You know, I mean, again, you can't isolate Devalier in relation to that. Because a lot of what Fienafal did in power in the 1930s, they were continuing what had been done in the first decade in the 1920s when the free state government and the pro-treaties side were in power. Because whatever else divided them, 94% of the population of Southern Ireland was Catholic. So they had their religion in common. And if there is a power vacuum there or an authority vacuum there after the Civil War,

the church moves into that space very quickly. And both sides of the political divide were happy with that. And of course, they developed extraordinary control over education and healthcare and all these various other areas. So that was shared by both sides of the Civil War divide. There's also a very strong cultural sense of keeping out external influences, you know, that we've had political difficulties, but we can maximise our independence culturally. we develop an Irish Ireland, again, shared by that generation, whatever side they were on in the Civil War. But many of Devalera's mistakes perhaps were economic ones in relation to his approach to a self-sufficient economy, which didn't work.

Then you have that massive emigration of the 1950s, which calls into question the validity of the approach that has been taken since the foundation of the state. And there's a reorientation then from the end of the decade towards greater trade liberalisation and so on. And yes, there are many people who associate Devalera with those failings and that he again had a vision for Ireland, which was based upon rural self-sufficiency and the promotion of the Irish language, cultural self-sufficiency. That may have given people a strong sense of their identity, but it didn't necessarily butter their parsnips. What you have done is you've shown us sort of the roots of hostility. And we are going to be taking this forward and looking at the connection between, well, it really does carry through all the way through to the troubles, which we have. be the next thing that we talk about in this podcast. Well, I think that's the important point, of course, about the wider legacy,

that at the end of the Civil War in 1923, it still leaves certain fundamental questions unresolved in relation to the divisions on the island, the partition of the island, and of course what constitutes the Irish Republican project. And that is opened up again at various later stages. We are so grateful to you. Thank you so much. Dermot Ferreta, he is the author of Between Two Hals, the Irish Civil War and a Nation Not a Rabble, the Irish Revolution 1913 to 1923, and lots of other accounts of history. He is quite, quite brilliant, as I'm sure you'll agree if you've heard these three episodes.

Listen, that's it from us. Till the next time we meet, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnan. And goodbye from me, William Durenpool.