OPINION: A century on from the Treaty, a sense of history is needed

HELLO, and welcome to 2022. I am sure that, like myself, you will not be sorry to see the back of 2021 – the first full year of the pandemic and all that it has brought in its wake. As you read this the Omicron variant is sweeping the country and, it is believed, has infected far, far more people than the official statistics indicate.

This is not another of those nonsense, if not downright dangerous anti-vaxer conspiracy theories but is based on the belief that not everyone who has succumbed to the omicron variant is bothering to go for a test or are in fact testing themselves.

That said the demand for antigen test kits seems to be at unprecedented levels. I myself was unable to get one last week despite checking out local pharmacies and supermarkets. They were all sold out.

And I know of people who insist that what they are going through is a flu or variation thereof rather than test themselves for omicron. Everyone is aware that this variant is not as severe in terms of illness as previous ones on the Covid virus and a huge majority of people are vaccinated and boostered. So, some are taking their chances.

We plough on, it being January, and as we have no alternative. It is likely that, by the end of this month and due to the highly transmissible characteristic of the omicron variant, most of us will have contracted it or a previous variant; meaning a majority of us will by then have Covid antibodies. That should stand to us, whatever the future may bring.

Meanwhile, life goes on as we face into one of the trickiest years of this decade of centenaries here in Ireland – that which witnessed the beginnings of the civil war and which left such a deep level of bitterness among subsequent generations.

Indeed it is an irony of our history that the two parties which emerged from that civil war should find themselves in government together, and for the first time, as we face into this year.

It may be a blessing as it will, likely, restrain those at the harder edge of both parties from rehearsing old enmities which might colour attitudes among today’s younger generations.

Hopefully we will be able to look back with equanimity therefore on the tragic events of 1922. And what a year that was!

On January 7 1922, following weeks of intense debate, the Dáil approved the Treaty with Britain by a margin of just seven votes; 64 to 57. That, then, should have been that, you might think. A narrow majority, but a majority nonetheless. Of course that was not how it turned out.

On January 10 Eamon de Valera lost an election for President of the Dail by two votes, to Arthur Griffith. Given that de Valera was the only surviving commandant from the 1916 Rising, this was a bitter blow.

The following month he formed Cumann na Poblacht, a party representing the anti-Treaty wing of Sinn Féin. In April 1922 anti-Treaty forces took over the Four Courts in Dublin. Later that month the Catholic bishops issued a statement supporting the Treaty. In actions that would find a parallel during the recent Northern Ireland Troubles, anti-Treaty forces began raiding banks to fund their campaign.

In a general election on June 6 1922 pro-Treaty candidates easily win a majority; gaining 58 seats to 36 for the anti-Treaty side, (while Labour won 17, the Farmers Party 7, with smaller parties and Independents winning 10). You might say this made it very clear what the people wanted, peace!

What many consider the beginning of the civil war proper took place later that month, on June 28 1922 when Michael Collins began the bombardment of the Four Courts that day with artillery said to have been borrowed from the British.

Two days later the anti-Treaty forces fled the Four Courts and a major explosion blew up the Public Record Office there, obliterating centuries of our history. Each side has blamed the other for this travesty.

As the fighting continued anti-Treaty leader Cathal Brugha was shot dead on Dublin’s O’Connell St. Altogether an estimated 300 people are killed in Dublin during July 1922, the great majority uninvolved civilians, while at the same time in Belfast approximately 450 people died in sectarian violence in June and July of that year.

Gradually anti-Treaty forces were forced out of all the main cities in Ireland by the Free State army, one of the last being Cork which was cleared of anti-Treaty forces in mid-August 1922, a month which turned out to be such a disaster for the new State besides.

On August 12 Arthur Griffith (51) died of a brain haemorrhage while, 10 days later on August 22 Michael Collins (31) was shot dead at Beal na Blath in Cork following an ambush by anti-Treaty forces.

The following month Army Emergency Powers legislation was passed by the Dáil to allow military courts impose the death penalty. It meant that 77 anti-Treaty men were executed between November 1922 and May 1923. Among them was Erskine Childers, executed for being found in possession of a revolver - a gift from Michael Collins.

In December 1922 four anti-Treaty leaders captured in the Four Courts the previous July - Rory O’Connor, Liam Mellows, Dick Barrett and Joseph McKelvey - were executed, as were seven other anti-Treaty 'irregulars' later that month.

Meanwhile the new Free State came into being on December 6 1922, while the last British soldiers left on December 17.

Micheal Martin will be Taoiseach for just one of those dates as he stands down on December 15 next to be replaced by Tanaiste and current Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar. It is ironic that the man who will lead this state on the centenary of its coming into being will be the successor of Eamon de Valera, who led the opposition to the Treaty which made that possible. The significance of this hardly be lost on Micheal Martin, who has a strong sense of history himself.

Last month he said he had signed off on a plan to put resources into Beal na mBlath to create a proper memorial to his fellow Corkman and to mark the centenary of his death. “I think we should commemorate the centenary of the death of Michael Collins in the manner we would commemorate the loss of a statesman,” he said.

Collins, he said, was “an outstanding” leader during the War of Independence. “I think we should honour the leaders of that period without fear or favour and do it in a proper way,” he said. It is the proper approach.

We are also lucky that President Michael D Higgins has such a deep personal connection with and understanding of that bitter period. His father fought on the anti-Treaty side and ended up in abject poverty while the President and his sister were reared by an uncle in Clare who had been a Free State soldier at that time.

You might say President Higgins is the right man in the right place to help lead us through these tricky commemorations, particularly, aided and abetted by a Taoiseach with a sense of the history which we must all rise above 100 years later.