Historians may focus on the complex achievements of political leaders, but the popular memory consists of a few memorable soundbites and images, writes Jim Duffy
So how will Charlie Haughey be remembered by history? An outstanding reformer of the law? The defendant in the Arms Trial? The man who led the Irish State back from bankruptcy? The man whose policies led to the near bankruptcy in the first place? Or will he simply be remembered as a "show me the money" politician who pocketed cheques from rich businessmen and dodged paying his taxes?
Haughey supporters such as Bertie Ahern want to hype up his many considerable achievements, and believe these are all that will matter in history. But the answer isn't that simple. For the question is: whose history? The history in third-level lectures? The history in mass-market history books? Academic theses? Or the popular history of popular culture?
Popular history - the history of the people, not the experts - invariably remembers the dramatic iconic image or images. Take Napoleon. How many people when they hear his name think of the legal code he created and that is still the basis for law across Europe? It is arguably his biggest contribution to Europe, and has shaped the experience of law of hundreds of millions of Europeans for two centuries, and will do for centuries to come. Do they remember his reform of local and regional government in France, again a massive achievement still impacting today? Or his overthrow of the French Republic?
In reality, most people when they hear the word "Napoleon" think of the three Ws: Wellington, war and Waterloo. They know him for "not tonight, Josephine"; his exile; that he was a small man who put his hand under his waistcoat.
Or take Churchill. He was a war correspondent, a painter, a writer, a pamphleteer, a social reformer, a liberal, a Tory. By the 1930s, he was dismissed as an irrelevant failure. Yet come the second World War, he was an inspiring, if difficult, leader. Early in the war, contrary to the public impression now, he was so unpopular he could easily have lost power. Yet popular history remembers key snippets about him: some of the greatest soundbites ever produced; iconic images such as the V sign.
Take Michael Collins. Ask popular culture what it remembers of Collins and it will focus on the man in a military uniform (even though that image dates from after the War of Independence), the intense Corkman who gave his life for his country. In reality, Collins was far more complex. He was a brilliant organiser whose fundraising for the Irish Republic still looks breathtaking today. He was a natural leader, a visionary, a motivator, an ideas man who didn't worry about the theory, just the practice. But the complexity is lost in the fleeting popular culture images of Mick the revolutionary, the Mick who has given Ireland "the freedom to achieve freedom", and "signed my actual death warrant".
Contrast that to WT Cosgrave. Cosgrave's achievements are immense. He set up an independent Irish State from scratch, produced a functioning Irish government, parliament and civil service, a State governed responsibly, an Ireland at the forefront of radical reform of the Commonwealth. And he led a cabinet of giants in terms of their impact.
At a time when the rest of Europe was moving away from a short-lived enthusiasm for democracy in the decade after the first World War, he peacefully handed over power to his arch rival, securing Ireland as a democracy. Looking back on Cosgrave, his government and their work as we read the archives, they got the ultimate compliment from arch rival Éamon de Valera, who said simply: "They were magnificent."
Yet today, who remembers Cosgrave? Unlike Collins, de Valera, Churchill or Napoleon, he has no "memory" in popular culture. For he presented no iconic image. No military uniform and "man of action" image like Collins. No physical presence and Constitution like de Valera, no great soundbites or that V sign like Churchill, no sexy soundbite like Napoleon's to Josephine, no winning and losing wars. There is no incident, no image, no words, nothing to sum up Cosgrave. He is at the same time too complex and too colourless. So while professional historians warmly praise him, and fellow politicians such as Seán Lemass privately thought him a hero, popular culture has lost him.
Contrast that to Parnell. He, too, was complicated. But few remember the details. Popular history remembers his affair with Mrs O'Shea, his overthrow, his death, the lost leader, the "uncrowned king of Ireland" (though that was a term originally used for O'Connell). The same is true of Brian Lenihan. He was an outstanding, liberalising justice minister, but he will be remembered staring into an RTÉ camera and saying "mature recollection" over and over.
But back to Charlie. Unlike Cosgrave, and like Collins, Churchill, Parnell or Napoleon, he has given us iconic images. Historians may mull over the brilliant Succession Act, his faux pas over the Anglo-Irish Agreement, his economic policies, but popular culture and popular history - however much Bertie and others may try to change the image - will remember the iconic highlights: Charvet shirt Charlie. Charlie's cheque from big Ben. Charlie and Kinsealy. Charlie and Terry Keane, the Arms Trial, bugging, tax dodging, Charlie holding his hand out to pick up cheques. It may be unfair. It may tone down a complex man to simplistic imagery, but that is what people will always think of when the word "Haughey" is said. The iconic image has been created and will be handed down in history.
Jim Duffy is a historian and political commentator