Coalition leaders must confront those who would tear down the State bequeathed by Michael Collins

The enthusiasm that drew such a large crowd to Beal na Bláth last Sunday should inspire Micheál Martin and Leo Varadkar to redouble their efforts to convince the electorate not to put the State’s very real achievements over the past 100 years at risk when the next election comes around.

The coming together of the Fianna Fáil Taoiseach and Fine Gael Tánaiste to publicly honour the contribution of Michael Collins to Irish independence represented an unprecedented and welcome defence of the democratic tradition that has served this country well. However, they need to do far more to convince voters to reject those who want to tear it all down and start again.

The Taoiseach was entirely right in claiming that Collins’s vision of the freedom to achieve freedom had been justified. “There are those who claim in ever-more-passionate speeches that Ireland has achieved nothing in 100 years – and that we are close to being some sort of failed state. This says more about their cynicism than it does about our country. The centrist, democratic politics which emerged in our country has achieved far more than any other approach could possibly have achieved.”

He pointed out that Irish politics has allowed an honest choice between parties that may differ on many important issues but have a shared commitment to democracy, to Ireland’s place in Europe and to creating new opportunities for the people of the country.

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“We need to do more to confront the new revisionism of those who try to denigrate our country’s achievements and who try to claim legitimacy for violent campaigns waged in the face of the opposition of the Irish people. We have to give no quarter to their attempts to link themselves to the men and women who fought our revolution over a century ago.”

The same theme was echoed in the speech of Leo Varadkar, who noted that it was through the European vision of statesmen such as Seán Lemass and Garret FitzGerald that Ireland truly opened up to the world and finally began to fulfil the promise that Collins had identified.

The populist policies of Sinn Féin, whose rhetoric is generally hostile to globalisation and the European Union, will pose a real threat to the country’s economic model

That opening up to the world has transformed this country in recent decades into one of the best places to live on the globe, as judged by the United Nations human development index. The facts are incontrovertible, even if many Irish people have difficulty in recognising that reality and prefer to focus solely on genuine problems such as housing, which are a feature of life in most rich-world countries.

The populist policies of Sinn Féin, whose rhetoric is generally hostile to globalisation and the European Union, will pose a real threat to the country’s economic model if the party manages to achieve power at the next election, and it is about time the parties in government began to point this out in forcible terms.

More important still is the emphasis Martin placed on the commitment to basic democratic standards, which has been a feature of Irish political life in bad economic times as well as good.

What kind of leader could Michael Collins have been?

Listen | 25:24

The killing of Michael Collins created the greatest "what if" in Irish history. If he had lived, would Irish history have played out differently? Would the influence of the Catholic Church have been less? Would he have attempted to win back the six counties of Northern Ireland? 100 years on from Collins' death, Irish Times reporter and historian Ronan McGreevy looks at the outstanding questions over his life, death and influence today. Ronan mcgreevy is the author of a new book Great Hatred: The Assassination of Sir Henry Wilson MP, which explores the origins of the Civil War.

[ Who shot Michael Collins? One hundred years on, the question remains unanswered ]

McDonald’s gall

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald had the gall to claim after the television coverage of the Collins commemoration last weekend that her party was entitled to a similar level of airtime on RTÉ. “Michael Collins is a giant of Irish revolutionary struggle. He deserves commemoration & respect from all. Having broadcast live a FF/FG event I assume that @rte will also broadcast a SF event as we mark and remember other Republican revolutionary leaders this year?” she said on Twitter.

The republican movement has such contempt for democratic norms that it still adheres to the belief that the IRA army council is the true government of Ireland

This is part of Sinn Féin’s ongoing campaign, articulated again recently by Michelle O’Neill, to bamboozle people into believing that the IRA’s most recent and bloodiest terror campaign should receive retrospective justification from the Irish people.

The republican movement has such contempt for democratic norms that it still adheres to the belief that the IRA army council is the true government of Ireland and that the organisation is entitled to call itself Oglaigh na hEireann, the official title of the country’s legitimate Defence Forces. This is far from being an arcane relic of former times, The Garda Commissioner is on record saying he believes the army council oversees Sinn Féin.

A remarkable insight into republican thinking is provided in a newly published book, Ireland’s Special Branch 1922-1947 by Gerard Lovatt, which chronicles the inside story of the battle by gardaí to preserve Irish democracy in the face of earlier IRA campaigns. The author, a former detective inspector with the Special Branch, details how the forces of law and order confronted and dealt with the armed conspirators intent on destroying the State.

He does not gloss over the fact that at times the tactics of the gardaí were almost as brutal as those of their opponents but the full story of how the institutions of the State won out over those who had no compunction about killing policemen, and supporting the Nazi war effort in support of their campaign to bring about a united Ireland, is illuminating.

The current drive by Sinn Féin to achieve retrospective validation for the Provisional IRA campaign is not simply an eerie reminder of its past; it also provides an insight into what a future Ireland under the party’s rule could become.