Mary the First
Mary Robinson - An Independent Voice
By John Horgan
Published by O'Brien Press
Price £14.99 (hb)
In the run up to the recent Presidential election it was felt
that the political parties were looking for a Mary Robinson clone
to get their `Mary' into the Park. This may be a somewhat
simplistic view - Peter Sutherland, Garret Fitzgerald, Peter
Barry of Fine Gael and Ray McSharry of Fianna Fáil were all
reputedly approached to run for their respective parties, but
declined. The eventual candidates for those parties, Mary Banotti
and Mary McAleese had to fight tooth and nail to secure their
nominations.
However there can be no denying that people's expectations of the
presidency were transformed by the Robinson years. She won over
many of those who had voted against her, and enjoyed record
popularity ratings during her term of office. Journalists are
struggling to avoid articles along the lines `Mary Robinson and
Mary McAleese: compare and contrast'.
In such circumstances a fresh look at Robinson's life and career
may seem worthwhile. In this book what we get is largely an
outline of her surprisingly lengthy career. The then Mary Bourke
was elected as an independent to the Senate in 1969 at the age of
25 and immediately faced problems that will be familiar to
Caoimhghín O Caoláin: being squeezed between the major political
groupings in the allocation of speaking time etc.
What follows could be described as a brief political history of
the 26 Counties since the late Sixties. Looking back, it is
difficult to believe just how conservative the country really was
and how deeply felt religious differences still were at that time
in the 26 Counties.
According to Horgan, Bourke's marriage to her boyfriend from her
student days in Trinity, Nicholas Robinson, deeply upset her
family because he was a member of the Church of Ireland. This
despite the fact that there are several mixed marriages in their
background. Her parents and family stayed away from the small
service held in the Dublin Airport church.
She was reluctantly admitted to the ranks of the Parliamentary
Labour party but remained a marginal figure. She unsuccessfully
contested the 1977 general election in Dublin South Central, but
came to prominence during the protests to save Wood Quay from
destruction by Dublin Corporation.
In 1986 however she resigned her membership of the Labour Party
in protest at the lack of consultation with Unionists in the
negotiation of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. It was a remarkable
decision that typecast her as a Unionist for many years.
However earlier in her career she had come under sustained
criticism from Conor Cruise O'Brien, then a government minster,
for participating in an anti-internment rally in the Mansion
House in1974. During the rally Derry republican Sean Keenan
called for calm when Fr Denis Faul was being booed for
anti-republican remarks. Keenan added that there should be
pickets on ``every British establishment in Dublin, the greatest
of which was Leinster House''.
At the heart of their disagreement was what they meant by
liberalism. O'Brien seems to believe in the dictatorship of the
majority in parliament, Robinson believes in political and civil
rights, even for those she may disagree with. She would later
criticise the non-jury Special Criminal Court in the 26 Counties,
and was the barrister who brought the challenge against Section
31 to the European Commission of Human Rights.
Her famous handshake with Gerry Adams would once again bring her
into conflict with southern neo-unionists, especially the Sunday
Independent and John Bruton.
In an interview with Charlie Bird at the end of Robinson's term
of office, Bruton still maintained that Robinson had been wrong
to meet Adams.
For John Bruton, and many Southern neo-unionists, it seems
reaching out to unionists means developing an abiding hatred of
Irish republicans and northern nationalists. Indeed, it is
possible that it is their hatred of republicans that makes them
want to form common cause with unionists. Those who, like Mary
Robinson, bear genuine goodwill towards unionists have shown that
it is possible to `build bridges' to all shades of opinion.
Not many Collins secrets
Michael Collins: The Secret File
Edited by ATQ Stewart
Published by The Blackstaff Press in association with the Public
Records Office
Price: £10.99
``...belongs to a family of `brainy' people who are disloyal and
of advanced Sinn Féin sympathies''.
No, not the latest leaked memo regarding Mary McAleese: it is a
snippet gleaned from the recently released Michael Collins
security file, now published for the first time. According to the
editor, ATQ Stewart, it was a comment which provided Collins with
huge amusement when he famously read his own file and about which
he ``characteristically'' boasted to his friends.
This is a curious little book, consisting of a breathless
introduction by Stewart in his customary role as Unionist
revisionist-historian-in-chief, which races through Collins's
role in the Anglo-Irish war and which occupies a mere 36 pages.
Predictably, for Stewart this history was about loss of Ireland
to the British Empire rather than the struggle to win freedom.
The remainder is taken up with facsimile reproductions of the
contents of the Collins file.
More interesting is what the book doesn't contain. One would
think that the first question even the most naive researcher
would ask on being presented with Collins's file is the matter of
censorship. Stewart, however, never addresses the probability
that this file has been very carefully weeded. Indeed, in his
Preface he offers us his touching belief that the contents are in
a pristine condition: ``the only papers from the file not included
are some which relate to persons other than Collins, or which
duplicate information already given''. Really? What about the
papers which were removed before the file was released? Did not
the fact that the very first document is dated 8 January 1917
seem a little odd? Was there nothing on Collins from the previous
year? The file was originally closed for 100 years, but has now
been released under the `Open Government Initiative' of March
1996 (a contradiction in terms if ever I heard one). It is
difficult to imagine that the essentially fairly innocuous
contents of the file reproduced in this book would have warranted
a 100-year order, even by the pathologically secretive British.
On opening the book many more things spring to mind; one being to
close it again, because of the difficulty of trying to plough
through almost 150 pages of mostly hand-written notes, many of
them barely legible. Once one has gone to the trouble of doing
this one is left wondering whether it was actually worth it.
Nothing here adds in any significant way to what we know about
Michael Collins, either as a man, a military leader, or as a
politician.
It is true to say, however, that the documents do provide the
pleasure of a sense of authenticity and immediacy: ``Michael
Collins was reported for drilling at Ballinamuck,'' writes one
officer ``He appears to be a very dangerous criminal, is a member
of the Sinn Féin Council... his activities, if not speedily
restrained, will lead to serious mischief''. One can't help
wondering how many of the present day leadership's security files
contain similar comments.
The lasting impression which is gained from the documents,
however, is the very one which Stewart has overlooked, but which
to be fair is something which is too often overlooked in the
history of the time; that the Tan War was less about Michael
Collins as an individual than the collective endeavour by the
Irish people as a whole to wrest their country back. Many of the
documents are police reports of Sinn Féin meetings, invariably
attended by hundreds of people who were prepared to fight for
national self-determination. What was achieved was done so by the
people, not just by Collins and twelve men in Dublin.
By Fern Lane
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