Ever since his tragic and untimely death, Michael Collins has excited the interest of many writers. One of the finest of these was his fellow Cork man Frank O'Connor, who was born 100 years ago this Wednesday, September 17th.
O'Connor was a superb short-story writer, one of best in any language. I have read French and Russian short stories but have encountered nothing to compare with O'Connor's Guests of the Nation. He also had an extensive knowledge of short stories in Irish, English and other languages and his book The Lonely Voice analyses the form with great imagination and insight. Anyone who seeks a greater understanding of the short story as a genre couldn't do better than read it.
O'Connor's foray into biography was far from the standard fare. It was perhaps surprising that he undertook to write a book on Collins at all, given that the two men had fought on opposite sides during the Irish Civil War. Death in Dublin: Michael Collins and the Irish Republic was first published in the United States in 1937. Less than 15 years before that Frank O'Connor probably thought Michael Collins a traitor. After all, Collins had been to the fore in negotiating the Anglo-Irish Treaty that was the root cause of the Civil War. And when hostilities broke out, he wasn't just any old private in the ranks; he was the commander-in-chief of the forces against whom O'Connor fought.
What happened in the interim to change his attitude? He told us himself that he became disillusioned with Irish republicanism. Like another master of the short-story form, Sean O'Faolain, who also fought on the Republican side in the Civil War, he became disillusioned by its lack of a coherent philosophy. At the time of the war they were young men who did not really know what they were fighting for, but as they matured they knew what they did not want.
O'Connor's foreword to his Collins book gives another reason why his attitude changed. He calls the work "a labour of love" and says that, to some extent, it is "an act of reparation". Then follows a crucial sentence: "Since the fever of the Civil War died down, I have found myself becoming more and more attracted by Collins as a character." He had continually heard anecdotes about Collins and was struck by their extraordinary consistency. A particular friend and colleague of Collins, also a friend of O'Connor himself, recreated the dead leader so well "that for the first time I seemed to see Collins as a living man". O'Connor had similar experiences with a number of other friends of Collins - "and each time it was as though a ghost walked in".
In his book, O'Connor wants to preserve the image of the living Collins but sensibly warns his readers that while anecdote does that, it also exaggerates him. Most of the documentation concerning Collins's life had yet to be published when O'Connor was writing his book. "When the documents are published, it will be seen that Collins was a much greater figure than was suspected by any but a few," is O'Connor's opinion. He accepts that the greater part of Collins's work was in those documents, "and to deal with him without dealing exhaustively with that work scants the respect due to his industry, his patience, good humour and splendid intellect". However, he remarks, documents endure, but "how much of the living man has perished even now I do not care to think".
He goes on to comment on how little interest the young generation has in the story that began with Easter 1916. This causes him no surprise because writers have made "unhuman shadows" of the leaders. So he presents Collins in all his humanity, good and bad, because not to do so "would be a poor compliment to so great a realist. It is as a realist Collins will be remembered, and as a realist he should be an inspiration to the new Ireland".
O'Connor the creative writer captures so much of Collins in telling phrases. Collins "did nothing in moderation". The three qualities which marked him all his life were "his humour, his passionate tenderness, his fiery temper". His "nature safeguarded him from the commonplace". He "swore with a thrilling capacity for improvisation". Similarly, there are some brief, telling sentences. For example: "Even those who liked him least had to admit that he worked." Or: "One can never think of him as being superior; he was the man of all others most likely to rob charity of its sting."
Again, a sentence conveys so much about Collins's state of mind at a particular time. For example, after the bitter Dáil vote on the Treaty, as the pro-Treatyites prepared to form the Provisional Government: "That violent, Shakespearean emotion - swaying him constantly, making him now tearful, all surrender; now impetuous and scornful - rendered him a constant problem and danger to his political associates."
On his final tour of his native Co Cork, Collins felt safe, believing his own fellow countymen would not kill him. But at twilight at Béal na mBláth he met his end. "The countryside he had seen in dreams, the people he had loved, the tradition which had been his inspiration - they had risen in the falling light and struck him dead."
As historical biography, O'Connor on Collins is hard to beat.