How are Collins and De Valera viewed by todays republicans?

dublincc2

I mean traditional republicans as in the types you would find today in places like west Belfast who view 1916 as the founding of the state. Do either of these men have any respect? They did fight against the British and the latter continued that fight longer than the former.

BalcombeSt4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058297287/how-are-collins-and-de-valera-viewed-by-todays-republicans

Traditional Republicans don't view 1916 as the founding of the 6 county states & 26 county states, they view 1916 as the the founding of Provisional Government of the Irish Republic of 1916 & the revolutionary civilian government of the 1919 - 1922 all island (claim) Irish Republic & thereafter as the IRA Army Council as the government of the Irish Republic, sort of in exile

BalcombeSt4

Oh, and as for Collins & Dev I remember Ruari O Braidghi in an interview with Eamon Dunphy in 98 or 99 (I think its on YT) saying his opinion of them is excellent up to a point, and that point is the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

Gerry Adams said something similar in a documentary for the 1996 Michael Collins film, saying they were excellent, and brave men against the Tans, Auxies, British Soldiers & RIC, but said he never would have signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and would have fought on.

BalcombeSt4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0xUhMuiT64

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NP6hBMB1ls8

https://youtu.be/Kyt5epYqu5A

Around 46:40 for Adams ^

Furze99

Would the current crop not just say 'Collins Who'? DeValera Who?

BalcombeSt4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120636823#Comment_120636823

No, I've had several in depth conversations with the ex-VP of Republican Sinn Fein, she was very well versed in Republican history going back to past to 1798 and even before that the event that lit the spark for 1798 the French Revolution and would have known the likes of Robespierre, Girondin, Danton Marat,Marat's assassin Coroday and even Madame du Barry.

And her family being from south Armagh viewed the treaty as an extra betrayal. Maybe the more thuggish elements would have trouble knowing Collins and Dev other than the people who fought the Black & Tans.

Peregrinus

The split in the republican movement in the 1920s was characterised - unsurprisingly - by considerable bitterness, and I think there was a generation of republicans who viewed Collins, de Valera, etc as people who started well but ultimately let down or betrayed the cause.

But I think with the distance we have now from the period, republicans on all sides can take a more dispassionate view. You could disagree with the decisions that Collins or de Valera or anyone else made and you could feel that in their situation you would have made a different decision, and at the same time you could recognise that these were hard decisions and that people generally tried to act as best they could according to their own lights. So I don't think that either of these men would attract the kind of vitriol and hatred from some parts of the republican movement that, in the past, they undoubtedly did.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120637564#Comment_120637564

What generation are we talking about? If I asked our 20/30 yr olds now about Collins and De Valera, they'd shrug. You could extend that by another decade at least. So in terms of current active nationalist republicans, can't see it being much different. They'd know for sure about Bobby Sands, Gerry and Slab Murphy and so on but isn't that where they'd be rooted now - the troubles.

BalcombeSt4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120638749#Comment_120638749

Well naturally they'd be rooted in the troubles history more than the Tan war or civil war history. But thats the same with me, I'd say I could name over 150 - 200 IRA/INLA/IPLO members, from private (volunteer), to company, battalion, brigade staff to army council menenbers, about 50 UVF/UFF/LVF members and at least 300 events (Riots to shootings to bombings to mortar attacks etc) were I could only name the more famous people of the WOI and civil war and maybe about twenty to thirty events like Kilmichael, Crossbarry, Upton Train, Customs House, Limerick Soviet.

I do think the media on purpose throws in rioters/hooligans in with politically motivated & strategically thinking Republicans, Manufacturing Consent.

Jim2007

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058297287/how-are-collins-and-de-valera-viewed-by-todays-republicans

You need to study history in more detail and stop confusing history with politics! For instance Collins continued to resupply northern brigades after the treaty in line with his believe that the treaty was a stepping stone achieving the Republic while Dev started a civil war and was very determined in suppressing the IRA once he got into government. Nothing is ever straight forward in Irish history.

As for northern republicans that is a political question and in my experience of dealing with them they are happy to adapt an historical figure who will justify their stance. They spent a long time rolling out Tom Maguire to justify their 2nd Dail claims.

Jim2007

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120636634#Comment_120636634

In my experience of having to actually deal with O Braidghi, he was a propagandist who happily bent, twisted and blatantly lied his way through Irish history to justify his political objectives. I would not place any reliance on what he said because I know so much of it to be untrue.

BaywatchHQ

I am Northern, not necessarily a Republic but i live in republican area. I wouldn't view any of those famous figures as heroes especially not Collins. The only heroic men in my eyes were the peasantry who died in the battlefield throughout Ireland's long conflict with England. For example the men who died at Kinsale whilst the leaders fled off to Europe.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120667984#Comment_120667984

Collins came from a peasant family (though he himself was a post office clerk) and died on the battlefield. He seems to tick all your boxes.

BalcombeSt4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120655515#Comment_120655515

You have that completely arse-backwards

Starting on Northern Republicans.

Irish Republican legitimists was mostly a southern based phenomenon, the civil war was based secondly on partition or maybe even thirdly behind the oath, but primary it was based on the legitimacy of the Irish Republic over the Free State, which was a belief that ran right up to & past the Provos to the CIRA & RSF founded by two southerners O'Braidaigh & Daithi O'Connell the last thing Tom Maguire was used to justify something. Shortly after shredding the people who became the CIRA the Provos began to stop talking Irish Republican legitimism as it's a pretty stupid idea, this is when the 69ers (people who joined the IRA's after 1969, like Adams, McGuinness, Gerry Kelly, Meehan, Darky, Bell, The Prices, The McKearneys etc) gained full control of the movement in the mid-1980's. The Provos, from pretty early on had two factions, the southerners & the oldskool northerners like Billy McKee, Twomey, Frank Card this faction was the faction pushed the more traditional Republican beliefs, and the other faction was the 69ers, who I already mentioned some, who joined between 1969 - 1972 over events like August 69, Falls Curfew, Internment & Bloody Sunday, most of these people didn't join over some pure Irish Republican ideology but because of the events that directly effected and radicalized them, they were just as much into Marxism as Irish republicanism, once they took a strong foothold over the Provos after the 75/76 ceasefire, they said Eire Nua (the federal Ireland idea) was just sop to unionism and they proclaimed around late 1977 that nothing less than a 32-County Democratic Socialist Republic would do, and the rhetoric became a lot more working class militant and revolutionary socialist, although that's all it was, rhetoric.

And as for Dev who I personally don't like very much at all, but to blame him for the civil war is so lazy & just bad history. It's pretty well documented that Dev was left out of IRA decision making and was increasingly ignored by the likes of Lynch, Tom Barry, Mellows, Rory OConnor, Dan Breen etc... Basically the people who were forming the very short lived Munster Republic which was basically just a defence line that collapsed pretty quickly and the conflict reverted back to guerrilla actions. You should really study that history you like to remind others about as yours seems inadequately sufficient or merely ignorant. I own dozens of books on both The Troubles & the 1916 - 1923 period, I'd be happy to loan you a copy of any that are in my possession.