Sir, - I have always been interested in knowing something more about Michael Collins. Though I have several books about him, I could never settle down to read one, so I was very pleased to have the opportunity to see the film last week. I knew it was not historically accurate, but near enough.
I was not prepared to see the entire programme devoted to violence, more violence and never ending violence. If it had been on TV I would have switched channels, but having gone to the trouble of attending a cinema, I stuck it out as women will.
Two thoughts came to me which none of your critics mentioned. One was that the violence, was committed by little men in shabby clothes at the request of bigger men in suits, which is not much different to the violence we know today. The other was that the film appeared to be aimed at the type of audience which formerly watched Cowboys and Indians, or maybe the same audience now grown up. But in the old films we used know they were dead when they fell off their horses, while in the Michael Collins film we had to watch blood oozing out of wounds and pain and horror on the faces of those attacked. I wonder if this gloating over suffering is an advance in civilisation.
The film also brought back to my memory one day when, as a child, I found some metal canisters among the trees outside. I brought them to my father, who said they were a legacy from the Civil War. He said that the Free State Army sent to the house to say they required possession within 24 hours.
It was Christmas week, and my father went to the officer in command, and explained that three generations were living in the house and it was very difficult to leave just then and particularly painful for his elderly parents. He said that if they could remain till after Christmas, the house would be vacated promptly. He was told that he had been given 24 hours to leave, that the army was moving in at the end of that period and if there were any people still in the house, the soldiers would get them out.
It seemed a cruel story, but now that I have seen the film, I believe the army officer was being unduly kind. He could have followed tradition by detailing little men in shabby suits to do a quick shoot out. - Yours, etc
Bishopscourt Hill, Cork.