Civil war programme was balanced attempt at understanding

It is welcome that Eoin Neeson should contribute in The Irish Times to the debate on the 75th anniversary of the Civil War which our programme has recently reactivated.

It is wrong, however, for him to describe it as "unbalanced and distorted." In his rushed attempt to discredit the programme he misquotes, misrepresents and distorts what was broadcast.

One might wonder, having read some of his comments, if he was actually watching the same programme as the one we produced.

For example, he claims that the documentary contained "one contributor going so far as to contend that Dev was `obscene' and was responsible for the Civil War."

For the record, our programme said no such thing. What it did contain was a statement from one of the leading historians of this period of Irish history, Tim Pat Coogan, to the effect that "to try to ascribe motive to de Valera or the Cosgraveites is something of an obscenity." A rather different point altogether.

Mr Neeson also gets it wrong when he claims that the programme said Michael Collins was successful in having a republican constitution adopted for the Free State. In fact it said Collins was "pressing Lloyd George to accept republican proposals on a draft constitution for the new State."

Another of Mr Neeson's factual quibbles tells us more about his own position than it does about the programme. He complains that we stated that the Provisional government was "elected by the people."

Again, for the record, the statement in question was actually made by a survivor of the Civil War, retired Lieut Col Sean Clancy. He put forward the perfectly sustainable position that Ireland in 1922 had a government "elected by the people".

The members of the Dail had been elected by the people, the Government had been approved by those same members - a remarkably similar arrangement to that which still pertains in the Irish political system.

Mr Neeson's dissatisfaction stems perhaps from the fact that a majority of the Irish people and their representatives chose, in 1922, not to support the anti-Treaty position put forward by de Valera.

A balanced viewing of what was a carefully balanced programme would not justify the simplistic view that, as Mr Neeson asserts, it showed the pro-Treaty side as pragmatic and right and the anti-Treaty side as waging a campaign of "murder and sabotage" against it.

The programme certainly did outline the motivation and conduct of those who led opposition to the treaty but it also contained, in an even-handed manner, a thorough, critical examination of the motives and conduct of the provisional Government in prosecuting the Civil War.

As was pointed out by a number of contributors, among them several supporters of that first Irish administration, the policy of executions which it pursued was almost certainly excessive, was in many cases illegal, and guaranteed a legacy of bitterness for decades thereafter. The balance achieved by this treatment Mr Neeson chooses to ignore.

OF course, what brings Eoin Neeson to write in response to this programme is not fundamentally a series of what he calls "factual mistakes." Rather, it is the continuing reassessment of the role of Eamon de Valera in Irish history to which he really wishes to object.

He claims that our programme continues the trend of recent years towards "the malicious and wildly inaccurate demonisation of de Valera". The truth is that among historians Eamon de Valera has very few apologists for the manner in which he conducted himself in 1922 and 1923. We found this strikingly to be the case in extensive research and preparation for the programme.

The Civil War, in short, was far from being de Valera's finest hour. He was out-manoeuvred by Collins in the run-up to the June 1922 election. He was quickly marginalised by the militarists on the anti-treaty side whom he tried most unconvincingly, or at the very least most unsuccessfully, to control.

Eoin Neeson refers to de Valera's "persistent attempts to end hostilities" - the vast bulk of contemporary historical opinion would not regard de Valera as a voice for peace and dialogue in the critical first half of 1922, when this pointless war could still have been avoided.

If the rewriting of Irish history now, 75 years after the Civil War, is less than favourable to the memory of de Valera, that is not something which can be laid at the door of one humble contributor to the debate, which our programme represents.

It might be more useful to continue this debate with the candour and balance which recent research and scholarship has promoted.

Eoin Neeson would have us engage in turgid and labyrinthine considerations of the internal politics of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and Sinn Fein in the early part of the century. In itself this exercise, honestly conducted, might have some merit. As a prescription for a television programme, attempting to put some shape and sense on the sprawling confusion of Ireland's Civil War for a general audience, it would be wholly inappropriate.

All the questions which Eoin Neeson identifies about the Civil War were dealt with honestly in this programme - why did it occur, who began it, who fought it, what were the respective roles of the leaders on either side, what part did the British play? And these questions were dealt with, where possible, through the recollections of veterans of the conflict and of others who lived through it.

How more forcefully could one convey the anti-treaty position than through the words of Ms Mary Margaret Walsh, now in her 90s, who recalls how she wept when she heard the terms of the treaty?

"I couldn't swallow an oath of allegiance to the king of England," she says, "not today . . . not for a million pounds, not for all Ireland."

We have attempted to provide our audience in 1998 with as much relevant material as possible, fairly presented, to enable them to make their own interpretations of what occurred in 1922 and 1923. It is a perfectly accepted part of the process of debate that people will complain about the bits that we put in and the bits that we left out.

This programme represents one view of this painful episode in Ireland's recent past. Supervised by two of Ireland's leading contemporary academics in the field, it proceeded nevertheless on the basis that history is far from being the exclusive property of historians.

Practically all the indications we are receiving suggest that this was indeed a fair and balanced contribution to a critical, ongoing, popular debate.

Bryan Dobson was the presenter and Colm Magee the producer of The Madness from Within