The revision of history, as new
facts emerge and details or stories previously unknown are revealed, is a good
and a necessary part of learning about the past. But ‘revisionism,’ which seeks to perpetuate a particular version of
history by distorting, suppressing or ignoring elements of the story, usually
only serves the establishment’s interests. So, it has been in Ireland for a very
long time.
The history of struggle in Ireland,
and in particular of the revolutionary period, has been dumbed down and
distorted. This has included a significant effort to differentiate between the
IRA of 1916-1923 and its actions, and the IRA after that. It also includes the
notion that we have won our freedom and that the southern state is the nation
and so on.
The availability of much new
historical and military documents and manuscripts from the revolutionary period
has broken down much of this. The digitalisation and wider availability of this
new material, and the emergence of a younger cadre of historians, has opened up
history and undermined the myths perpetuated by the ‘revisionist’ school. One of these historians is Lorcan Collins.
Mise agus Michael O'Brien and Lorcan Collins
A couple of weeks ago I was asked
by Michael O’Brien of O’Brien Press to speak at the launch of Lorcan’s latest
book - ‘Ireland’s War of Independence 1919-21: The IRAs Guerrilla
Campaign’. Along with the late Shane Kenna, and the late Shane Mac
Thomáis, and his father Eamonn, and the very alive Liz Gillis, Donal Fallon,
Conor McNamara, Micheál MacDonnacha, Margaret Ward, Breandán Mac Suibhne, Mary
McAuliffe, John O’Neill and Aengus O Snodaigh and many others, they are the
alternative to the dumbing down of our history.
For over 20 years Lorcan has been
running his Dublin Walking Tours, talking to visitors about the momentous
events of Easter 1916, bringing them to the sites of battle, and telling them
stories of the courageous men and women who took on the might of the British
Empire. His knowledge of that period is amazing. Lorcan has also published a
number of books, including The Easter Rising: A guide to Dublin in 1916; and
1916: The Rising Handbook. It was Lorcan who suggested to O’Brien Press that,
as part of the centenary celebrations for 1916, that they publish the 16 Lives
series which recounts the lives of each of the leaders executed by British
after the Easter Rising. Lorcan wrote the book on James Connolly.
His latest work, ‘Ireland’s
War of Independence 1919-21: The IRAs Guerrilla Campaign’ is a timely
publication. It’s a nice book. It’s a handy size of a book. When you get a new
book there is a feel to it, a smell to it. Lorcan’s book presents short, well
researched, and insightful accounts about the major events and personalities of
that period. Unlike most history books which require you start at the first
page and work your way through to the end, this book is written in a style that
allows the reader to dip in and out of it. To go back to it and pick it up if
you have a specific interest in an aspect of the period.
Where other historians have often
diminished or simply ignored the role of women in the struggle for Independence
Lorcan writes about the “Radical Women” – Inghinidhe na hÉireann,
Bean na hÉireann, Cumann na mBan, and also those sisters who fought with the
Irish Citizen Army.
One of the great strengths of
this book is Lorcan’s ability to merge history with storytelling. The
characters involved in operations against the British forces become more than
just names in a history book. They are real people living and dying in a very
dangerous time in our history.
Lorcan recalls the story of
British Army Captain Percival Lea-Wilson. He subjected the GPO Garrison, after
they surrendered to savage abuse. Wilson is said to have been especially
vicious toward Tom Clarke and Seán MacDiarmada. Lorcan tells how Liam Tobin who
had witnessed Wilson’s savagery “registered a vow” to “deal with
him at some time in the future.”
Four years later Wilson was a
District Inspector for Gorey in Wexford. Liam Tobin was now Michael Collins’s
Chief of Intelligence and in June 1920 he travelled to Wexford where he
ambushed and killed Wilson. War can be a deeply personal business.
There are many stories of daring
raids on RIC barracks; executions by the ‘Squad’ of British agents and spies;
including the targeting of the Cairo Gang, and then the British retaliation
later that day in Croke Park.
Reading the book I came across an
aspect to these two incidents I wasn’t aware of before. In a little section
under ‘House of Commons Reaction’ Lorcan tells us how the Secretary
of State for Ireland Hamar Greenwood read through the list of the dead British
agents to a packed British Commons.
Lorcan describes Greenwood; “pausing
slowly for effect and whipping the House into a frenzy with the use of phrases
such as ‘possible a hammer was used as well as shots to finish off this gallant
officer.’ After much discussion and calls for further powers to be extended to
the military and police, Joe Devlin, the Irish Party MP for the Falls Road area
of Belfast, rose to ask Lloyd George and Greenwood why there had been no
mention of the killings in Croke Park. There were shouts of ‘sit down’ from
hundreds of MPs, and Greenwood whispered something to his fellow MP, Major John
Molson, who lunged at Devlin, grabbing him by the neck and pulling him over the
bench, egged on by shouts of ‘kill him, kill him’ from MPs.”
So, the
madness of Brexit didn’t just appear out of thin air.
Another of the many stories
Lorcan relates is that of Kevin Barry. Most of us know that Barry – a lad of
eighteen summers – was hanged by the British. What is less well known are the
two attempts by the IRA to rescue Barry. One of these involved a plan to blow a
hole in the wall of Mountjoy Prison and rush the armed British guards. It was
called off because too many people arrived outside the prison to pray for Kevin
Barry as he awaited his fate.
The song of his death has been
sung many times by many people including Leonard Cohen, Paul Robeson, the
Clancy Brothers and most recently by Boy George. Pól Mac Adaim sang it as
Lorcan’s book launch. Most of us will have sang it at some point in our own
lives. It captures the heroism and tragedy of the struggle for Irish freedom.
So does ‘Ireland’s War of
Independence 1919-21: The IRAs Guerrilla Campaign’. It tells it as it
was.
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