Some interesting writings and quotations from Michael Collins.

"Michael Collins In His Own Words" (edited by Francis Costello) from Gill & Macmillan.

On Culture:
(pp. 109-10) "We have now won the first victory... We re now free in name. The extent to which we become free in fact and secure our freedom will be the extent to which we become Gaels again. It is a hard task. The machine of the British armed force, which tried to crush us, we could see with our physical eyes. We could touch it. We could put our physical strength against it. We could see their agents in uniform and under arms. We could see their tanks and armored cars.
"But the spiritual machine which has been mutilating us, restoring our customs, and our independent life, is not easy to discern... And it has become so familiar, how are we to recognise it? We cannot perhaps. But we can do something else. We can replace it. We can fill our minds with Gaelic ideas, and our lives with Gaelic customs, until there is no room for any other.
"... The biggest task will be the restoration of the language. How can we express our most subtle thoughts and finest feelings in a foreign tongue? Irish will scarcely be our language in this generation, not even perhaps in the next. But until we have it again on our tongues and in our minds we are not free, and we will produce no immortal literature.

"Our poets and artists will be inspired in the stimulating air of freedom to be something more than the mere producers of verse and the painters of pictures. They will teach us, by their vision, the noble race we may become. They will inspire us to live as Irish men and women should.... Our civilisation will be glorious or the reverse, according to the character of the people. And the work we produce will be the expression of what we are. Our external life has become the expression of all that we are deprived of - something shapeless, ugly, without native life.... Irish art and Irish customs must be carried out by the people themselves, helped by a central government, not controlled and managed by it, helped by departments of music, art, national painting etc., with local centres connected with them."


The following quote, with references to the English removed, could be applied to the European Union. The foresight of the man is astounding:
(pp. 107-108) "Up to the [1800] Union... interference in Ireland had succeeded only in its military and economic oppression. The national spirit survived... The people spoke their own language, preserved by their Gaelic customs and way of life, and remained united in their common traditions... Entrenched behind their language and their national traditions, they kept their social life intact... With the Union came upheaval. The seat of government was transferred... The garrison which became Gaelicised towards the end of the eighteenth century turned away from Ireland with the destruction of the Dublin Parliament....
"Only by developing our resources, by linking up our life with the past, and adopting the civilisation which was stopped by the Union could we become Gaels again, and help win our nation back..."


On economics:
(p. 103) "How are we to develop Irish resources? The earth is our bountiful mother.... Foreign trade must be stimulated by making facilities for the transport and marketing of Irish goods abroad and foreign goods in Ireland. Investors much be encouraged to invest Irish capital in Irish concerns."

Popular rule:
(p. 102) "We have to build up a new civilisation on the foundations of the old. And here let me say it is not the leaders of the Irish people who can do this for the people. Leaders can only point the way. They can but do their best to establish a reign of justice and of law and order which will enable the people to attain their ideals. The strength of our nation must be the strength of the whole people. We need a political, economic and social system in which our material, intellectual and spiritual needs and forces will find the fullest expression and satisfaction."

Ireland in the world:
(p. 99) "We are a small nation. Our military strength in proportion to mighty armaments of modern nations can never be considerable. Our strength as a nation will depend on our economic freedom, and upon our moral and intellectual force. In these we can become a shining light to the world."

Innocence:
(p. 116) "I never knew there was so much cowardice, dishonesty, hedging insecurity and meanness in the world."

Modern politicians (just look at those election posters!):
(p. 37) "Whenever I think of politics, I think of the false air which is a part of most politicians. However much he may blind the public, and even himself, into thinking that he is for party and country, it does not blind me into thinking the same way. To be a politician one needs to keep tongue in cheek for all the day and most of the night; one needs to have the ability to say one thing and mean another; one needs to be abnormally successful at the 'art' of twisting the truth. Can you wonder that I think and think yet never manage to achieve peace of mind? In my time I have told men and women what I thought of them. I've cursed them - and they understand me all the more for it. But what can one say to a politician? Knowing it is more possible that one's words will be taken out of context, twisted and warped, shaped into a lie and be flung back into my teeth. I do not in the least care for the false atmosphere of these discussions."