Big Fellow, Long Fellow by T. Ryle Dwyer

Author:T. Ryle Dwyer [Dwyer, T. Ryle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gill & Macmillan

‘At first sight Mr Collins is decidedly disappointing,’ one reporter noted. ‘He does not look a bit like a mystery man. And the stories we used to hear about him! One, I remember was that he had slipped up a chimney to escape arrest. I should like to see that chimney, for Mr Collins does not weight an ounce under fourteen stone. He is of more than average height, although you would not describe him as tall. His face is round and somewhat O’Connellesque, with a sharpish nose and a largely mobile mouth. A phrenologist would give him good marks for his head, and he has a fine pair of eyes, which are set off by arching brows. One misses that aggressive firmness that hits you when you look at Mr Arthur Griffith. Mr Collins can be firm enough when he pleases, but it is impulse rather than resolution that makes him dig his heels into the ground.’

De Valera delivered a short presidential address in which he spoke ‘with great emphasis and obvious sincerity’, according to one experienced reporter. Speaking off the cuff he caused a bit of a stir when he talked about the unmistakable answer given by the people in the recent general election. ‘I do not say that the answer was for a form of government so much, because we are not Republican doctrinaires,’ he said, ‘but it was for Irish freedom and Irish independence, and it was obvious to everyone who considered the question that Irish independence could not be realised in any other way so suitably as through a Republic.’

In a further speech next day he elaborated by emphasising his personal readiness to compromise on partition and defence, as well as on the issue of association with the British Commonwealth. ‘I would be willing to suggest to the Irish people to give up a good deal in order to have an Ireland that could look to the future without anticipating distracting internal problems,’ he said. The unionists in the six counties were ‘Irishmen living in Ireland’, so he would be prepared to give up a lot to win them over. ‘We are ready,’ he emphasised, ‘to make sacrifices we could never think of making for Britain.’

Having publicly indicated his willingness to compromise, he went even further in the following days when the Dáil met in private session. In the course of a rather rambling discussion on 22 August, he told deputies to realise that if they were determined to make peace only on the basis of recognition of the Republic, then they were going to be faced with war, except that this time it would be a real war of British reconquest, not just a continuation of limited military coercive measures ‘in support of the civil police’ to force some people to obey the law. In short, he was saying the War of Independence had not been a real war at all.

Although de Valera’s remarks were couched in terms of outlining stark realities so the

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