A response from Brian Anson to today's May Day blog on Martin McGuinness
A RESPONSE TO PAUL’S BLOG ON JACK JONES & MARTIN McGUINNESS.I agree with everything Paul has written. The worrying, and sad, possibility is that the threat to Martin McGuinness could become a replay of the Michael Collins tragedy in 1922.
Collins who, almost single-handedly, had created the Republican Army, was a good man. I don’t believe he was right to sign the Treaty which partitioned Ireland, but I do believe that he did it in good faith believing that it was a crucial step towards the unification of the country, a goal which he believed would come, by force or negotiation, soon after The Treaty. There was a certain logic in his thinking: The Republic had been fighting to free it’s entire country: The Treaty left just six counties to free. Collins was not a politician, he was a freedom fighter. Who knows what the history of Ireland would have been during the past century had this genuine Republican fighter not been assassinated by his former comrades?
Personally I believe that, had he survived, the occupied six counties would have long been a thing of the past. The Republic (as proclaimed in 1916) had, by its courage to fight, brought the occupying enemy to the negotiation table – it was not the other way round despite the bombastic threats of Lloyd George that he would wage wholesale war unless the Republic accepted The Treaty. I believe that McGuinness (and many others) have similarly, through their courage, brought the enemy to the table and that they will achieve that, long-awaited, goal of a united Ireland. The Treaty led to The Civil War the ferocity of which was exacerbated by the assassination of Michael Collins: please God, let this not happen again.