The portrayal of Michael Collins in popular culture is "doing him a great disservice," the Taoiseach Micheál Martin has suggested.
Mr Martin, a historian before he became a politician, said the “enormous charisma and impact of Michael Collins remains undeniable”, but he was a more complex man than often portrayed.
He would have rejected a presentation that put his personality before the ideas and movements he participated in.
Speaking at a conference in University College Cork (UCC) on Saturday, marking the centenary of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, Mr Martin said when he looked up from his desk to find portraits of both Michael Collins and Éamon de Valera staring back at him.
“I can’t but reflect on the fact that neither would be comfortable with the popular view which has often neglected to tell us how long and how successfully they worked together before the final Treaty negotiations,” he said.
“Neither would support the idea that the enormous contribution of the other to the success of the War of Independence was overrated. They would have understand that they both operated in the year after the Truce with forces they could not fully control.”
The Civil War was not inevitable, Mr Martin suggested, and “the sheer number of times that stopped the drift to conflict was remarkable”.
Mr Martin described Arthur Griffith, the leader of the Irish delegation that negotiated and signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty, as a man who was often overlooked.
“He was not just a major personality at the time, he was a relentless propagandist of the cause of Irish self-determination. His contribution was vital.”
Mr Martin told the conference Ireland has developed an approach to commemorating the past which shown a "shared pride and a challenging reflection on our past".
Mr Martin said he took pride in the fact that, while other countries are “reverting to an inward looking and exclusionary nationalism, we have shown respect for the complexity of the past.
“In marking the centenary of the Treaty I feel there is a lot of wisdom to be found in the guidance of the expert advisory group on commemorations where the State’s task is to encourage a reflective and reconciliatory tone that recognises that neither side had a monopoly of either atrocity or virtue.”
Bringing the British to the negotiating table in 1921 was a “dramatic achievement” given the disparity of strength between the biggest empire in the world at the time and the IRA which lacked the military means that other independence movements had developed, he stated.
However, the independence movement had the “broad support of the majority of the people” which the British side did not have.
Mr Martin said the failure to expand the franchise in the June 1922 general election to include all women was a “shameful episode that set women back many decades”.
The 1922 Irish constitution envisaged that women should be able to vote on an equal basis with men, but the Provisional Government at the time pleaded that there was not time to update the electoral register.
“There is simply no doubt that the Treaty debates and its aftermath saw rampant misogyny in the service of belittling and marginalising the voices of women,” Mr Martin added.
“Because of their predominance on the anti-Treaty side, women were often portrayed as hysterical and unthinking with no attempt to reflect their central role in the success and legitimacy of the Irish revolution.”
Mr Martin said the Treaty did not define all allegiances after independence. By 1971 many of those who had been from pro-Treaty families supported Fianna Fáil and vice versa.
The Taoiseach suggested that the centrist nature of Irish politics meant that the extremes of politics in Europe in the 20th century did not happen in Ireland.
The conference can be accessed here.
