THIS lavishly produced, coffee table edition of the love letters of Michael Collins and Kitty Kiernan is timed to coincide with the release of Neil Jordan's film on the Big Fella, due out here in the autumn. It is a unique correspondence there is nothing comparable in Irish history, not even between that other pair of star crossed lovers, Parcell and Kitty O'Shea.
Cian O hEigeartaigh has added 64 letters to the original 241 published by Leon O'Broin. They include 47 from Michael Collins to Kitty Kiernan, 16 from Kitty to Michael, and one from Harry Boland to Kitty, who was in love with her and at one stage had high hopes that he might win her hand. Clearly she did not reciprocate his feelings, and though they remained good friends, she warned Collins that he should be very careful what he discussed with him after Harry took de Valera's side in the civil war. Micheal, as she calls him throughout, thanks her for the advice and expresses admiration for her keen, womanly "horse sense " in this matter.
Unfortunately for us, there is little by way of political giveaway in these letters, which cover the crucial years 1921/ when Collins was in the thick of conflict and negotiations on the Treaty. He believed in being "close mouthed", and Kitty clearly was not interested in politics she read the daily papers only to see what they said about him.
There are glimpses of his frustrations during the Dail debates on the Treaty, when he writes her "Wishing to God I could be with you and had left it all. The tactics of the opposition not very creditable at times, but a great many things are allowable in positions like this."
Even after they had come to an agreement with Sir James Craig, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Collins admits that he is not very sanguine about the future. The "powers that be" in London were getting very alarmed that there might be a bust up at any moment. "It would be so pleasant to be relieved of all responsibility, yet while one has the responsibility, it would be cowardly to shirk from standing up to it."
The fear that "a few madmen may do anything" was casting a gloom over him. "In spite of what is a big human hope, I cannot help feeling that as a people we are destined to go on dreaming, vainly hoping, striving to no purpose until we are all gone. When I think of how the position is given away behind our backs. Last week Belfast was dreadful to everyone here. A few things are done by our political opponents and all is changed. They all stand in with Craig again immediately."
Most of the contents of the letters are personal, tossed off without any attempt at literary artifice, in keeping with their promise to write to each other every day Kitty often wrote them "on her knee", in between fulfilling the chores of running the family hotel and shop iii Granard, and Collins in between waiting around for civil servants to draft reports, or on the boat to England.
They show a couple very much in love, for whom the minutiae of everyday living is important.
They search each other out she with a self questioning scepticism as to whether their feelings for beach other would last beyond marriage, wondering that she "might give all my love and it wouldn't lead to happiness", and probing him to "answer me straight and be straight with yourself". In reply, he attempts to reassure her that she shouldn't give in to her doubting "little fits".
She tells him of what she is doing, the dances she goes to, what she wore, indulges in a little whinging when she hears he has been hobnobbing in Mayfair with Lady Lavery. He reassures her that she is not to believe all the rumours she hears.
They became engaged and had discussed some dates for their marriage, one of which turned out to be the fatal day on which Collins was shot. Despite an acknowledgment to herself of the permanent danger that he lived with and an attempt on his life a few weeks earlier, Kitty was shattered and devastated when she got the news.
As his coffin was borne on a gun carriage through Dublin to Glasnevin, there was a single white flower on top an Annunciation lily her last tribute.
Given his compulsive and dashing lifestyle and her introspective and reclusive temperament, one wonders if it would have been a successful marriage. The letters give us an insight into Collins's strong religious convictions and sincere hopes that after all the troubles and wars, Ireland could attain some level of peace and prosperity . They show a side of him that contrasts with the popular image of the gun toting Pimpernel, forever on the run and cut off in the prime of life.
What Liam Neeson and Julia Roberts will make of it all, one can only await with a certain curiosity.