240. Ireland’s Fight For Freedom: The Irish Civil War (Ep 3)

25:07But I mean, that was his initial response. The Sinn Féin cabinet is split on the question. There are very heated arguments and accusations being hurled against the negotiators. Why didn't you refer the final text back to us? Why didn't you fulfill your obligations in relation to the credentials that you were given? And the reality is, of course, that it was the Dáil, the Parliament, that actually authorized the sending of the delegation. So another question arises, is the Parliament, are the Irish parliamentarians, the Sinn Féin TDs, as they're known in Ireland, are they going to have the ultimate say in this?

25:44So the Cabinet is completely split. And this is the beginning of the unravelling of the unity of Sinn Féin. But there is no exaggerating the fury of Eamon de Valera. Now, de Valera himself, let's remember, had said in August 1921, we are not Republican doctrinaires as such, which suggested wriggle room. But de Valera's problem was that he had an idea of a third way. Not the treaty, not the republic, but the idea of external association. And this was de Valera as the mathematician as well as the politician. What he suggested that was because of realpolitik and geography and defence needs, that Ireland would be willing to be associated with the British Commonwealth, but not a part of the British Commonwealth.

26:31So we would have that external association. Of course, Britain was never going to accept that. And there were those in Sinn Féin who were very frustrated at the idea of de Valera, the mathematician, coming up with further complications. So there was a sense maybe that de Valera thought that he could save the day by coming up with this third way. Is there a sense that there's a great rivalry between Collins and de Valera? Is de Valera a bit miffed that Collins has been swanning around London, living it up with Lady Library and he's been sitting in Ireland all on his own? I think there's always egos at play here.

27:04You know, I mean, consider the profile of the two of them. But I think more important than maybe the personal animus that is developing is the question of the emotiveness around it, that you have betrayed our dead. And if you consider some of those who had been involved in the fighting or had lost ones in the fighting, did they die for an oath of allegiance? You know, how do you square those circles? You know, de Valera was a pragmatist in many ways, and he wasn't the absolutist when it came to foreign policy. But this was just a step too far, as far as he was concerned. And of course, it wasn't his compromise.

27:43And that's where the ego also comes into play as well. Because, yeah, he says, he says, let Ireland decide. But then Ireland is asked, and the majority of the Irish say, we are pro-treaty. But that does not call de Valera at all. There was a general election in June 1922, six months after all of this. And, you know, the majority of the electorate voted for pro-treaty candidates. But of course, the argument was made, well, that's only a vote that is conducted under threat of war from the British Empire. So it's not legitimate. So again, you know, people were tailoring their arguments to suit the particular needs.

28:16But the important point was that the Sinn Féin cabinet had broken down in relation to this, a slight majority in favour. But then the vote of the parliament, of the Dáil era in the Irish parliament, becomes a fascinating exercise in national soul searching, where 100 parliamentarians speak and give their views over the course of late December and early January. and you can feel the emotion running through it. Mary McSweeney, for example, who was a Cork Republican, one of the few women in the parliament whose brother, famously Terence McSweeney, had died in Brixton Prison during the War of Independence as the Lord Mayor of Cork after 74 days on hunger strike.

28:57She never mentioned his name, but she spoke for two and a half hours and she invoked the spirit of the dead. And she said, we hold the Republic as a living faith, as a spiritual entity, and you cannot take that away from us. So you have that level of emotiveness, but also personal accusations being hurled, the breakdown of personal relationships. We mentioned Harry Boland and Michael Collins, who find themselves on opposite sides of the treaty debate. That was being replicated in families around the country. And even when you consider then the intervention of the Catholic Church over the course of Christmas 1921, a more conservative of entity which are urging acceptance because it'll mean peace and business interests and economic interests.

29:41Commercial people are saying, well, this will be good for business if there is peace. So there are a lot of different societal pressures as well. And there are those who don't have the appetite to go back to war. So the vote is very close. It's 64 votes in favour, 57 against. So that is a narrow margin, but it is, you know, sort of almost an equally balanced, you know, Not quite. But it also, it's indicative of the depth of the split. Split in the country. So now you have in politics at least pro-treaty and anti-treaty. Let's take a break. Join us after the break when that fissure is divided by violence.

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31:03an incredibly historic moment. On the 14th of January 1922, Dublin Castle, which for nearly 700 years has been the symbol of alien British rule over the Irish people, is handed over to a new Irish government. And Michael Collins, wearing his new uniform of the Free State, takes charge of what had been till then that dread Bastille of Ireland, as Colin calls it. Tell me what it must have felt like. How was it viewed in Dublin and beyond in Ireland at this point? Some of the treaty supporting media framed it as a final release from 700 years of enslavement. It's also something that Collins wanted to happen quickly so that he could say there is a tangible, obvious change and benefit to the signing of this treaty, that we are now in control of our own destiny.

32:00So the symbolism of it was hugely important. It didn't impress anti-treaty Republicans, of course, who saw it as just cosmetic and nowhere near far enough. And in truth, of course, there was the departure of significant numbers of British troops, but Churchill was not going to let all of the British soldiers leave Ireland until he was satisfied that the compromise and the peace was secured. So there's still a lot going on behind the scenes and a lot of nervousness. But it was hugely important for Collins to be seen, to be taking control of Dublin Castle. The difficulty, of course, is what is going to happen to the rupture within the IRA.

32:36We know that 70 % of the IRA was opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty, roughly. Now, it was sometimes said that the IRA were so loyal to Michael Collins that what's good enough for Mick is good enough for me. that wasn't true, you know, and it's reflected in those figures. And, you know, Collins wasn't in a commanding position in terms of changing all of those minds. So there's a fraught atmosphere. People don't know what is going to happen next, but it's quite clear that some within the IRA who are opposed to the treaty are not going to let it lie. And they begin to organise and they begin to meet and they begin to defiantly challenge what is now the provisional government of the free state to challenge their authority and their right to exist at all.

33:24Right. So, I mean, one of those first challenges made tangible is the anti-treaty people taking British barracks. So, you know, you've got Michael Collins trying to sort of carry on with that feel-good factor of we are all together, we are all one, but there is a major split and they defiantly go against him and they take weapons, signalling intent for the future. And how to deal with them is the real dilemma as well, because I mean, it's hardly surprising that such was the depth of feeling that these anti-treaty IRA members were not going to accept this and they wanted to demonstrate as soldiers their loyalty to the Republic.

33:57The question is, how will the government respond to them? Do they go after them quickly? Do they have the resources or the means to do that? And let's not forget, the shadow of Winston Churchill is also there as well. He writes these extraordinary letters to Michael Collins in April 1922, saying, your government must assert itself or perish and be replaced by some other form of control. A classic Churchillian flourish, and the some other form of control is about Britain re-entering the fray again, which of course would have been regarded as a humiliation, but which some anti-treaty Republicans would have welcomed because they believed it might unite both sides of the treaty divide.

34:33So there is that fraughtness, and you then have the occupation of the forecourts, a very significant building in Dublin city centre, when anti-treaty Republicans decide under the nose of the authorities, the provisional government, that they are not going anywhere until the validity of the Irish Republican cause is recognised and they hold themselves up there. So, you know, this is increasing pressure on Michael Collins and his colleagues. Arthur Griffith is getting increasingly frustrated and he's been called over to London to explain what is going on and why haven't you made more progress? And how are you, as a provisional government who have accepted the treaty and the Dáil has accepted the treaty, how are you going to face down these Republicans?

35:13Give us a picture of the seizure of the forecourts and tell us about the building itself. It's on the river, it's on the Liffey, it's a magnificent Georgian structure, one of the main big buildings in central Dublin. And these guys have just walked in with guns, with barricades? What have they got? I mean, it was one of the jewels in the crown of that 18th century building programme. And it's a very imposing building. And of course, it sits overlooking the River Liffey as well. And, you know, as a very important site of legal affairs, it also housed the Public Record Office. So it housed the archive of the administration of the British state in Ireland.

35:52So these IRA members went in with considerable ease. They barricaded themselves in. They ultimately began to plan for what might happen in the event of them being removed, which ultimately resulted in the destruction of the public record office, which was a great cultural tragedy. But many people were not focused on culture at that moment. They were focused on the enormity of the Oath of Allegiance question and the finer details of the treaty. So they're essentially waiting. And the British government not only wants initially the provisional government to move against them, they're prepared to move against them themselves.

36:26You know, Winston Churchill was discussing plans as to how the British forces might remove them. That would have been a humiliation too. So ultimately, towards the end of June, Michael Collins decides under considerable pressure that he has to move against them. And the only way to move against them is by using the resources and the artillery that the British have provided. So this is like a kind of perfect reversal of where we opened in the first episode of this trilogy, when he's sitting in the GPO, barricaded in with the British guns facing him. Now he's at the guns looking at his mates and friends like Harry.

37:00He's on the outside. Yeah. People he's trained. I mean, also, and also the youth of a lot of these people who, you know, are arrayed against him. There are many accounts, very moving accounts of boys in uniforms that belong to their dads, you know, that are just hanging off their tiny, slight frames. There are beautiful accounts and poetry written about the time of looking over and seeing your neighbour or somebody that you've known since a child. Only a few months ago, you were fighting shoulder to shoulder. Now you're aiming a gun at his head. So this is like a complete nervous breakdown for a new country.

37:33Oh, completely. And I mean, even like we've referenced the relationship between Michael Collins and Harry Boland, and we're jumping ahead of slightly, but you know, Harry Boland is ultimately killed in the Civil War. And Michael Collins as his former close friend. He can't even go and see his body and pay his respects. And he writes about that, you know. He can't because he's disgusted or he can't because he's broken by the death or? Too dangerous. It's too dangerous. And he wouldn't have been accepted there because he was regarded as somebody who had engaged in such a great betrayal. But it's the human motions.

38:05He weeps, doesn't he? They do. And I mean, many of them break down. And, you know, when you consider, I've used that phrase between two hells, you know, it's not just about the high profile leaders. PJ Maloney was a temporary Sinn Féin TD who described that dilemma in 1922. We're being asked to choose between two hells, you know, the hell of remaining in the empire or the hell of turning on each other or continuance of the war. He had spent 23 days on hunger strike. He had lost a son in the IRA during the War of Independence. That's the nature of the kind of human dilemmas that they're dealing with.

38:37And some of the TDs went back to their constituencies at Christmas and discovered that their position was at odds with the constituents who had elected them. So families are making their views known. And sometimes within an individual family, you can have people at this stage who are not even speaking to each other. Can we also just talk about the fact that, you know, these are men who've been trained by the same men. So, you know, are they using the same guerrilla tactics that were so successful against the British, against each other? Yeah, the difference is now you've a divided community, so they can't rely on public support to the same extent.

39:08And they're much reduced in terms of numbers. So if the anti-treaty IRA want to engage in a civil war or guerrilla campaign, they are much reduced and they do generally retreat to what we call the Munster Republic. In other words, the counties where they were strongest, such as Cork and Tipperary. But what happens then at the outbreak of the civil war is that Michael Collins becomes commander in chief of a new pro-treaty national army, as it's known, which is the pro-treaty IRA effectively. And they have more resources. Ultimately, that army is bloated to over 50 ,000 members by the end of the short civil war.

39:42And the anti-treaty IRA could not compete with that. So they are fighting a rearguard action really from the very beginning. The fighting moves from Dublin to Wicklow in the east and then towards the south and the west. But they don't have the resources. Those who oppose the treaty don't have the resources to win this civil war. But the great tragedy, you're right, you put your finger on it. It's the fact that former comrades are inflicting this pain. And I often think in civil war that that makes it even more vicious because such is the sense of betrayal on both sides that they are moved to do things that they perhaps wouldn't have even done during the War of Independence.

40:17There's a beautiful part in your Between Two Hells, and I won't be able to lay my finger on it now, but it is a strike that's going on with agricultural workers. And the pro-treaties open fire because they think that the anti-treaties are about to open fire the strikers. And one young kid looks up into the eyes of the man who's commanding the pro-treaty forces and said, you're doing this to us. And it's that word us that kills him because he's like, my God, us used to be both of us. You know, you could be my kid. That's a crucial point. Yeah, because there's a social aspect to this as well, because those who were engaging in social and economic issues at that time, including those who were striking for, you know, bread and butter issues, for cost of living issues.

40:58It's just poor Irish. But they were regarded as subversives. And in a time of civil war, you know, we are going to crush any activity that is regarded as subversive. The same is true of land seizures, for example. You know, the government, Kevin O 'Higgins, who becomes the Minister for Home Affairs later, Justice, he says, we were the most conservative revolutionaries who ever put through a successful revolution. We are not going to tolerate this level of subversion when it comes to social issues and land questions and economic questions. And the way that they were postal workers who were striking.

41:28And the government reaction at the time was described by a labour activist as the scrapping of every individual liberty so that the state is becoming centralised and ruthless, which is justifying on the grounds that it has to defeat the government. this threat from within. It's an existential question as it sees it. How do the scale of the casualties in the Civil War compare with the previous War of Independence or the Anglo-Irish War? 1 ,500 people roughly were killed in the Irish Civil War between June 1922 and May 1923. That is not a high body count. The Finnish Civil War in 1918 in a country of similar size and population a couple of years previously, 36 ,000 people were killed.

42:09Many of them were starved to death. There wasn't that level of slaughter. But what's important about the Irish Civil War killings is the intimate nature of the killings. And some of the things you've mentioned in relation to people knowing who is inflicting this and those who are enduring this. There are terrible scenes towards the end of the Civil War when the Free State is so keen to quash the last outpost of Republican anti-treaty Republican IRA that they actually tie prisoners to mines and detonate them. And the way one contemporary observer and Republican put it, the birds were eating the flesh off the trees in Ballyseedie, which is a site in Kerry.

42:48And that was a revenge for what the anti-treaty IRA had done to free state soldiers. So there are those revenge killings. The details are appalling. And at the same time, it is not a high body count when we think of the scale of European killings during that period. Now, as the Civil War ebbs towards the West and the Free State Army, with its greater resources, are now beginning to have more and more control over more and more of Ireland. And there's only a few counties left where the anti-treaty forces are in control. We have the great tragedy, as it's sometimes depicted, certainly, of the Civil War, which is the ambushing of Michael Collins himself.

43:31Now, it's a very contested bit of history and the film version is particularly inaccurate, I think. Well, it puts it all on de Valera, that de Valera lures him, lures him to Cork and all his friends are begging him, Michael, don't be going to Cork. Isn't it interesting that Alan Rickman, the actor who portrayed de Valera, was not happy with that depiction. He gave interviews about it subsequently, that he actually made the case to the filmmakers that this was not the way to do it and he was ultimately overruled. Now, you know, Michael Collins was interested perhaps in putting out feelers in his native West Cork about whether or not you could bring people together to try and bring this to an end.

44:11But there are a number of different factors relevant to the ambush. He was leaving himself very exposed. They'd also been drinking. And that is important in relation to how it may have clouded their judgment. And there was an arrogance, too, associated with his thinking that they're not going to do this to me in my own back garden. Yeah, yeah, I never shoot me in my own county. Which might, you know, underestimate the depth of feeling that was there. Let's go through the events of the day slowly and really focus in on it. So on the 22nd of August, 1922, Michael Collins sets out from Cork City on a security tour of the West Coast in an open topped car.

44:52and he passes through some towns and reaches an isolated crossroads at, you have to pronounce the, is it Bale and Blath? Bale and the Blah. Bale and the Blah. Valley of the Flowers. He stops at the local pub, Long's Pub, and he's spotted there. He's recognised. And they set up an ambush, hoping he might come back. Tell us what happens. Yeah, and I mean, they were there for hours. You know, they were waiting. And there's a very long delay. And by some accounts, they were actually preparing to go by the time the convoy appeared. And then they decided to make their move. And these were West Cork anti-treaty IRA members.

45:31Of course, Collins is exalted in West Cork to a degree, but there's also, because he is of West Cork, the depth of the opposition on the part of the anti-treaty IRA is really strongly felt as well. So they saw their opportunity. And it is the great public tragedy and the best known tragedy of the Civil War. He Bernard Shaw, who we've mentioned the playwright wrote to Collins' sister, Hannah, afterwards, asking her to be thankful that he did not die in a snuffy bed of a trumpery cuff as an old man, inevitably disappointed by what would have been his life had he lived, which was slightly insensitive.

46:07But I suppose he was also making the point that it also secured the legacy to a degree of Michael Collins. He became that kind of canvas because he was the lost, dashing young leader. and there was then myth-making and propaganda, arch-propaganda, a statement released by his colleagues saying that his last words were, forgive them. Now, he was travelling with Emmett Dalton and it's likely his last words were, Emmett, I've been hit. So, you know, you had the myth-making from the very beginning, but it was a terrible tragedy and, of course, it had an international ripple because of the profile of Collins.

46:37Well, absolutely. I mean, what we will learn afterwards is that he got his fatal shot through the head, struck by a bullet, fired from on high and I mean, death came quickly to Michael Collins. But you're right about the reception of this death. I mean, you're going to tell me about Ireland in a moment, but the British press again, I love looking at newspapers. I absolutely can't stop myself. But they start from calling him the man behind the murder gang, elusive and dangerous and all of that kind of thing. They start writing eulogies almost immediately for Michael Collins as if he was a great statesman.

47:13They are absolutely valedictory and saying, you know, this man was a statesman. We have lost a great presence from the world. The Daily Express, the one man who could have united Ireland. This one from the Times, Ireland has lost its greatest leader. The Manchester Guardian, the lost hope of Anglo-Irish peace. I mean, what a difference a few months make. And also the politicians, the senior politicians releasing statements, the same politicians who would have referred to him as a horrendous terrorist, now framing him as a statesman. What was de Valera's reaction when he heard about the death? I mean, he'd come to hate the man, hadn't he?

47:49Or was there still feeling? He is distraught because the enormity of it could not but impact on anyone who had worked with him or anyone who was in a senior position in Sinn Féin. We also know that, you know, the Free State side was imprisoning an awful lot of anti-treaty IRA members and some of them dropped to their knees to pray when the news came trickling through. some would have also believed that he got his just desserts, given what they regarded at the scale of the betrayal. But it places de Valera, of course, who's at the lowest point of his career at this stage, in another difficulty, because he's well aware that he will also perhaps be blamed for the circumstances that led to this assassination.

48:31And of course, that blame game becomes very much a part of what we call civil war politics down through the decades, about who was responsible for what happened in Ireland in 1922. So the reverberations are very deep. The consequences are massive. It's interesting that you refer there to the idea of the man that might have united Ireland. That might be an exaggeration, of course, but there was a sense that Collins, of all of the members of that pre-state government, was most attuned to the plight of Northern nationalists. Now, whether he would have been able to practically undo a partition is another question altogether.

49:03But that's, I think, what happens when you have the cutting down, the lost leader narrative. This is what he would have done had he lived. And that can be exaggerated, of course, too, because Collins was a product of his time. He was not a sole operator. He was surrounded by very interesting people. And they shared an awful lot of the same worldview and cultural reference points. I think what he did have was an exceptional ability. and those abilities were certainly lost. But at the same time, Collins would not necessarily have set Ireland on a completely different path. Yeah, well, there is a ceasefire after the assassination of Michael Collins and the IRA are ordered to dump arms and go home.

49:44And this is what de Valera issues out, saying to his anti-treaty fighters on the 24th of May, soldiers of the Republic, legion of the rearguard, the Republic can no longer be defended successfully by your arms. Further sacrifice of life would now be in vain. The continuance of the struggle in arms unwise in the national interest and prejudicial to the future of our cause. Military victory must be allowed to rest for the moment with those who have destroyed the Republic. So it's not exactly a, let's just get, let's sing Kumbaya together. Not forgive and forget. It's interesting always to contrast the public statements and the defiance with the private acknowledgement of how weak a position they were in.

50:25You know, Collins is killed in August 1922, and the Civil War limps on until May 1923. But what happened after the death of Collins is that there is a firmer resolve on the part of the Free State to crush the anti-treaty IRA. And Richard Mulcahy takes over as commander of the army, and he'd experienced, obviously, in the War of Independence. And things do get darker. And by the end of the Civil War, there are in the region of 12 ,000 anti-treaty IRA prisoners, and they actually engage in a mass hunger strike, which doesn't succeed. So they have very few cards left to play. And de Valera privately acknowledged that because he refers at one stage to the need to shepherd these men back into civilian life.

51:00And he knows that the game is up militarily. And he also knows that he needs to begin to think about how, if possible, he might recover politically from this. Well, I mean, thousands of anti-treaty members, including de Valera, end up being arrested. They're not just going to be allowed to dump arms and go home. He spent a year in prison, which I think was important for him because it gave him time and space to figure out where he had gone wrong and the decisions that he had made and how he might fashion a political future by building on what was still a very significant anti-treaty sentiment in the country.

51:36You know, there was potential there to build that into a political force. But the question for de Valera, should he stay with Sinn Féin or was that a cul-de-sac? Because let's not forget, going back to abstention, the anti-treaty Sinn Féin members who were elected as parliamentarians were not recognising the Free State Parliament and didn't take their seats. Now, was there a political future in that? Ultimately, de Valera concluded there wasn't. Well, I mean, as we will see, by 1939, most of what most considered objectionable about the Anglo-Irish Treaty will be removed by Acts of Parliament in Ireland.

52:09So slowly but surely, you know, de Valera will become Prime Minister and there will be this erosion of that treaty that he found so objectionable. And what's it heading towards ultimately? Neutrality in the Second World War. De Valera did not believe you could claim to be independent unless you could implement an independent foreign policy. And it brings you back to that question of empire and the loss of control of independence or sovereignty and foreign policy. De Valera throughout the 1930s was determined to win that back and he did. Well, let's just talk very briefly because we've only got a few minutes left with you just about legacy.

52:45Because I read this article and it's 10 years old now, so it will be. We're coming up to the 60th anniversary of Eamon de Valera's death, August, is when he died. And there's this article by a very good writer called Eamon Delaney from the Irish Independence, and he defends de Valera. He says, you know what, it's about time we look back because so many people look back in anger at de Valera. They blame him for the death of heroes like Michael Collins. But he says there is something odd about this, that in Ireland itself, in Dublin, you have Parnell Square or you have streets named after Parnell, you have places is named after Collins.

53:19But when he was talking to somebody saying, where is the de Valera road? The man answers saying, we don't have a road long and skinny enough to match that bastard. You know, there still is this legacy of anger and hatred towards de Valera, which, well, he certainly doesn't feel he deserves. And I take it from the body of work that you've written, you think is rather unfair as well. Well, he was trying to take the emotiveness out of it. You know, my grandparents' generation were not able to do that. And for many, he became the man they could not forgive. Such was the personal nature and personal reaction to the decisions that were made in 1921 and 1922.

53:57Blamed for the Civil War? Yeah, they lingered for that generation, many of whom had long careers in politics up to the 1950s and the 1960s. And then some of their children inherited those attitudes and those prejudices. So that does linger. And what we call civil war politics, that Irish politics was built around that civil war divide, that has only come to an end in very recent years where the two sides of the civil war and the parties that developed out of them can actually share power now. But it did take a century. But there's a personal element to it in relation to De Valera, because many would believe that ultimately he vindicated Michael Collins' interpretation of the treaty, because he did use it as a stepping stone to generate further independence.

54:39But it was he who ended up doing it, not Michael Collins. And for many, that was just something that they could not forgive him for. But there is a sense, I think, in more recent times that people have looked back to what he achieved in relation to foreign policy and enhancing Irish sovereignty and reframing Irish foreign policy. And he had a very clear vision in establishing his new party in 1926, Fianna Fáil, about where he wanted to take it and the country. And for all those who derided him and hated him, he was consistently returned to office. I mean, he was in power for 16 unbroken years between 1932 and 1948.

55:13So for all those who hated him, there was a significant number who revered him. Well, I mean, he may not still be loved in his own country, but I can tell you in other parts of the world, there is in Delhi a De Valera Road. They did name things after him. Yeah, there is. Although it certainly was, there was a big ceremony to name it after Eamon De Valera. Also, it inspires actions overseas. In 1930, there were a group of Indian revolutionaries who seized the armories of the police department in Bengal and they do it on Good Friday as a tribute to the Easter Rising. There are all these reverberations that go around.

55:50He was perhaps more loved out of his country than him in the end. Do you think that there's a sense in which de Valera's personality, that very austere, pious man that he was, shapes the Ireland of the 40s and 50s, very Catholic, censorship of films, and that slightly repressive and introverted nature of Ireland? Because when we think of Ireland in the 20s and 30s, we think of Yeats and we think of the Abbey Theatre and Joyce and the kind of flourishing of the arts. Well, are we right in thinking of the 50s as a much more austere time with the Catholic Church, much more dominant and there in the constitution, slightly crushing freedom of expression?

56:32And does that reflect de Valera himself? It reflects his generation. You know, I mean, again, you can't isolate de Valera in relation to that because a lot of what Fianna Fáil did in power in the 1930s and 40s, they were continuing what had been done in the first decade in the 1920s when the free state government and the pro-treaty side were in power, because whatever else divided them, 94 % of the population of Southern Ireland was Catholic. So they had their religion in common. And if there is a power vacuum there or an authority vacuum there after the civil war, the church moves into that space very quickly.

57:05And both sides of the political divide were happy with that. And of course, they developed extraordinary control over education and healthcare and all these various other areas. So that was shared by both sides of the Civil War divide. There's also a very strong cultural sense of keeping out external influences, that we've had political difficulties, but we can maximise our independence culturally. We develop an Irish Ireland, again, shared by that generation, whatever side they were on in the Civil War. But many of de Valera's mistakes perhaps were economic ones in relation to his approach to a self-sufficient economy, which didn't work.

57:40And then you have that massive emigration of the 1950s, which calls into question the validity of the approach that has been taken since the foundation of the state. And there's a reorientation then from the end of the decade towards greater trade liberalisation and so on. And yes, there are many people who associate de Valera with those failings, and that he again had a vision for Ireland, which was based about rural self-sufficiency and the promotion of the Irish language, cultural self-sufficiency. That may have given people a strong sense of their identity, but it didn't necessarily butter their person.

58:12What you have done is you've shown us sort of the roots of hostility. And we are going to be taking this forward and looking at the connection between, well, it really does carry through all the way through to the Troubles, which will be the next thing that we talk about in this podcast. Well, I think that's the important point, of course, about the wider legacy, that at the end of the Civil War in 1923, it still leaves certain fundamental questions unresolved. in relation to the divisions on the island, the partition of the island, and of course, what constitutes the Irish Republican project.

58:45And that is opened up again at various later stages. We are so grateful to you. Thank you so much. Dermot Verriter, he is the author of Between Two Hells, The Irish Civil War and A Nation Not A Rabble, The Irish Revolution 1913 to 1923, and lots of other accounts of history. He is quite, quite brilliant, as I'm sure you'll agree if you've heard these three episodes. Listen, that's it from us. Till the next time we meet, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnon. And goodbye from me, William Durrenpil.