Daily Ireland
Damian McCarney speaks to Peter Hart, author of the definitive biography on the ‘Big Fellow’
Click to view - Michael Collins
Newfoundland is an unlikely location for an expert on the legendary Irish guerrilla soldier turned politician, Michael Collins, to hail from.
However with last week’s publication of his definitive biography, Mick – The Real Michael Collins, Canadian Peter Hart has confirmed his position as a leading authority on the ‘Big Fellow’.
Busy studying as a history undergraduate student on the other side of the Atlantic, Peter says that Michael Collins was a subject that found him.
“I was always interested in revolution and guerrilla warfare, which drew me to the war of independence and then Collins,” he says.
“I started off studying the IRA and the revolution, at first as a case study, and it grew from there.”
Peter’s contributions to research on Collins has been widely welcomed by his Irish peers, who have judged him on the merits of his work rather than his nationality.
“In the time that I have been studying Michael Collins, I have never heard anyone say, ‘What do you know, you’re a Canadian’.
“I have never heard that once. My work has never been dismissed simply because I do not come from here, which is wonderful,” said the former researcher and teacher at Queen’s University Belfast, who has returned to lecture at the Memorial University in Newfoundland.
Myths are never too far from the Michael Collins story, but in Mick Peter strives to document only what can be supported from verifiable sources.
Refraining from sensationalising, he has succeeded in chronicling the decisions and actions in Collins’ life to construct a believable man behind the public figure.
“It is a forensic biography. I am trying to replace bad facts with good facts. So I have nailed down a lot,” says Peter. “I was not trying to be hostile or debunking of him. I have not set out to cut him down to size. He was an amazing man who did amazing things. It is the first critical biography asking tough questions about his career.”
As such there is a focus on his formative years growing up in the townland of Woodfield in West Cork followed by his stint working as a clerk at the Savings Bank in London, before returning to Dublin in time to participate in the doomed 1916 Easter Rising.
Collins’ rise within republican circles was accelerated when he got a prestigious job in the National Aid Association (NAA) in 1917, an under-examined period that Hart believes is crucial in the making of the man.
“Nobody had thought that he was a charismatic leader before this.
“He got the support from former friends in the IRB and pals from prison - he was excellent at lining up support, but he lied on his application for the job, saying that he had been an accountant in London for two years which I thought was interesting.
“I spent hours trying to find out about it and grew very angry with him going through records, and then found that he invented the job. This was crazy – what if he was found out? Many people exaggerate to get jobs, but it says something about him.
“I found that his political skills were acquired very quickly after 1917. He was a pushy, ambitious, competitive guy, who people called the ‘Big Fellow’ mockingly at first - to make fun of him. Later they called him the ‘Big Fellow’ out of respect.”
Peter has revealed some fascinating aspects of Collins’ past such as an enthralling encounter with a British intelligence officer in 1919 operating under the codename Jameson.
Mick uses hitherto unseen British Intelligence reports to shed light on Jameson’s and Collins’ relative perspectives on the clandestine affair.
“Collins originally thought he [Jameson] was a good guy and would sell us arms and then he realises, ‘Oh my God – he’s a spy! What are we going to do?’”
Collins outwitted Jameson in the end, stringing him along for some time after the spook’s cover was blown.
When Collins’ career is examined, it is often at the expense of other prominent political figures of the time, such as de Valera.
Even in the Hollywood film Michael Collins, there is the absurd portrayal of de Valera as, in Peter’s words, “almost a jealous lover”.
Since he has undertaken the project, Peter has actually grown fonder of the man Collins christened ‘The Long Whore’.
“The problem in making Michael Collins a hero is that you end up making other people villains, such as de Valera.
“His hero status also puts other people’s contributions in the shadow.”
Collins’ death has attracted a number of conspiracy theories, but Hart gives them little heed saying that “there isn’t a shred of evidence” to support them.
However his death has ensured he remains an iconic figure, and rightly so, as few people have had as profound an impact on Irish history, particularly considering the relatively short period Collins’ career lasted.
Before his death at only 31-years-old, he had fought in the Easter Rising, been elected to four different parliaments, organised the IRA and smuggled in its arms, launched its guerrilla war, negotiated the Anglo-Irish Treaty, and run the first independent government of Ireland.
Such facts have resulted in speculation by many that some of the country’s failings could have been avoided, had he not been killed.
“People say that if he had have lived then things would have been different,’ says Peter.
“They think that the civil war wouldn’t have been as bitter, that the economy would have been better, he would have handled Northern Ireland better, and he would have done more. I think that this is more wishful thinking.”
