The South Bank Show (1978–…): Season 20, Episode 6 - Michael Collins - full transcript

Now, Neil Jordan's lavish film on the
controversial Irish hero, Michael Collins.

[Theme music,
instrumental folk compilation]

Michael Collins was a military mind
behind Irish independence.

He invented modern
urban guerilla warfare...

...and fought a campaign...

...that forced the British government
to negotiate a peace treaty...

...which led to the foundation
of the Irish Free State.

He was also a ruthless guerilla
who made a compromise for peace.

He was eventually killed
by his own side for doing so.

Neil Jordan has been planning
to make a film about Michael Collins...

...for over 10 years.



When he finally began filming last year,
there was an IRA ceasefire...

...and hopes that there might be
some sort of peace in the north of Ireland.

After filming was over,
the ceasefire ended.

The film was shown
at the Venice Film Festival...

...where it won two awards and praise
from critics such as Alexander Walker...

...who's known to be no friend
of the Republican movement.

Tony Knox's film looks at
how Neil Jordan has treated the story...

...of the real Michael Collins,
and at some of the political implications...

...for the present-day
of the Michael Collins story.

[String music]

PRODUCTION ASSISTANT: Move back
down the rows. Push down the rows.

[Silent footage,
string music continues in background]

MELVIN BRAGG: What are the main things
that people should know about...

...Michael Collins, to come into this film?



NEIL JORDAN: He was the most effective...

...guerilla leader the country ever had,
and he did the impossible.

Which is, basically, he brought the
British Empire to the negotiating table...

...with regard to the whole issue
of Irish sovereignty.

On the other hand, he was in an odd way
one of the most passionate...

...kind of peacemakers
there has been in the country.

In a way, he died in an effort
to decommission the army...

...that he himself had set up.

There were two facets to him.

They were in many ways contradictory,
but equally fascinating to me.

BRAGG: The fllm of Mlchael Colllns
beglns wlth the Easter Rlslng of 1916.

Colllns was one of just over
1,000 Volunteers...

... who occupled the Post Offlce
and other key bulldlngs...

... In the center of Dublln In an Insurrectlon
agalnst the Brltlsh government In Ireland.

He was 26 years old at the tlme.

[Gunfire]

He had been born In a remote part
of County Cork, near Clonakllty...

... In a farmhouse that was later
burned out In reprlsals.

At the age of 15, he was to go to London...

... followlng a long West Cork tradltlon
of worklng for the Brltlsh Post Offlce.

COOGAN: Emplres draw corn from Egypt
and postal workers from thls dlstrlct...

...and there was a legend in that area...

...that when a child was born...

...the first thing the neighbors would do...

...is say, "Most artistic grand sorter
he'd make, or she'd make."

COOGAN: Colllns was dlfferent...

... because he dldn't stay In the Post Offlce
when he went to London.

He moved on to flnanclal Instltutlons...

... apart from the savlngs bank,
or the Post Offlce.

He went, for example,
to work for the Amerlcan offlce...

... the London offlce of the Amerlcan
company, the Morgan Guaranty Trust.

So, he learned a good deal about finance,
as opposed to bookkeeping...

...and it obviously stood to him
later on in life.

BRAGG: Colllns spent 10 years In London.

Hls Interest In Gaellc sports reflected
hls membershlp wlth the Secret Soclety...

... of Irlsh Republlcans
and the Irlsh Republlcan Brotherhood.

In the sprlng of 1916,
he went back to Ireland...

... to take hls part
wlth the Irlsh Volunteers...

... a paramllltary group
that was preparlng for rebelllon.

Colllns found a job In Dublln
as a flnanclal advlsor.

REGAN: Hls contemporarles recalled
that he was always Immaculately dressed.

Dapper, rather than ostentatlous.

He affected the appearance
of a buslnessman...

...and that, in essence, was exactly
what Collins was when he returned to...

...lreland in January of 1916.
He was a young businessman.

BRAGG: The Easter Rlslng was
generally unpopular In Ireland.

It took place In the mlddle
of the Flrst World War...

... and many local women had husbands
away flghtlng Germany In the trenches.

The rebels were utterly outnumbered
by Brltlsh troops...

... and wlthln flve days they'd surrendered.

They were jeered at by the populatlon
as they were marched off to jall.

Colllns was not Important enough
to face the severest punlshment.

He spent some tlme In prlson...

... and was sent to a prlsoner of war camp
at Frongoch In North Wales.

The Rlslng mlght have flzzled out
completely.

But the Brltlsh authorltles made what was
to prove, polltlcally, a dlsastrous mlstake.

In a serles of executlons, many of the
rlngleaders were shot by flrlng squads.

The tlde of oplnlon In Ireland began to
change to one of sympathy for the rebels.

By Chrlstmas of 1916,
Colllns had been released.

He was dlsappolnted
that on hls return to Cork...

... only two people recognlzed hlm
as one of the heroes of the Easter Rlslng.

But he went to Dublln...

... and he was soon placlng hlmself
at the center of polltlcal actlvlty.

Colllns was one of the flrst Republlcans
to reallze the propaganda value...

... of the new medlum of fllm.

When Thomas Ashe, the head of
the Irlsh Republlcan Brotherhood, dled...

... after belng forclbly fed
In Mountjoy Jall...

... It was Colllns who arranged
for the funeral to be fllmed.

REGAN: The funeral was In that long
tradltlon of Fenlan propaganda funerals.

Beyond its importance
as a propaganda event...

...it was also Collins' debut
as a revolutionary, after 1916.

REGAN: He stepped forward
from the crowd, resplendent...

... In hls full Volunteer's unlform,
and dellvered the oratlon.

It was Colllns, at the blow In
from London, really...

... assertlng hlmself as belng
a cuttlng-edge revolutlonary.

[Trumpets play funeral march]

Reading about him, he seems just
as much, if not more, a businessman...

...and an administrator, and these seemed
to have been powerful strengths for him.

He raised, I think,
an extraordinary amount of money...

...as he was living on the run.

As he was running
the war of independence.

As he was financing all the various kinds
of flying columns around the country.

As he was importing guns from Britain.
As he was doing about 2,000 other things.

Collins treated the revolution very much
as a corporate enterprise...

...of which he was the self-appointed
managing director.

Not only managing director
of the grand enterprise...

...but also of the ancillary
small businesses.

REGAN: That was, In essence,
the secret of hls success.

He professlonallzed revolutlon In Ireland.

BRAGG: Colllns organlzed not only
the flnanclng of a natlonal loan...

... to ralse money for the revolutlon,
but also Its publlclzlng.

COOGAN: Colllns used hls sense...

... of flnanclal rectltude and hls moral code.

For example, he stlpulated that hls
movement would have to be temperate.

This is one of the breaks he made
with the past: "No booze."

The other thing: "No corruption."

Everybody got a receipt.
There wasn't a shilling spent amiss.

He ran this national loan
off the back of a bicycle...

...and yet everybody got a receipt.

COOGAN: A hunted man, wlth a prlce
on hls head, cycllng to hls safe houses.

Talklng to hls assasslns here,
to hls Intelllgence gatherers there...

... to hls dlplomatlc frlends here...

... and fllllng In the double-entry ledger
In the other part.

De Valera's wlfe,
he used to cycle out to her every week...

... at the rlsk of hls Ilfe, and glve her
the money that kept her allve...

...while her husband was away
for most of the Anglo-lrish war.

De Valera's eldest son, Vivian, told me
how much he used to look forward...

...to the visits and playing with this lovely,
friendly guy.

So he kept the humanity
and the ruthless efficiency...

...in different compartments.

The efficiency spilled over
to matters financial...

...which is not a characteristic
of revolutionaries, generally.

I had to clarify my attitude
towards his capacity for violence.

Because...

...it is quite appalling...

...when you examine it in depth.

His ability to cold-bloodedly
pursue that war...

...in the way he did,
and to change the rules of warfare...

...so that people fight without a uniform...

...and they can kill people
on the street in broad daylight...

That sort of stuff is quite terrifying.

Michael Collins
was one of the first to realize...

...that if you're fighting in small bands
and you don't have large armies...

...that actually the urban scene
gives you an enormous advantage.

A built-in advantage.

So, yes. Whether we think
in terms of conventional warfare...

...or whether we think
in terms of urban guerilla warfare...

...he was probably its inventor.

It's all shadowy, it's all hidden:

Who's on the side of Sinn Fein.

Who's on the side of the government.

Who's laundering the money.

Is that little girl typing out the report...

...putting a carbon copy and sending off
the copy to Michael Collins...

...so that by the time the colonel gets it...

...telling him that there's a raid tonight,
Collins already has a copy?

My grandmother, whose name
before she married was Nancy O'Brien...

She was working in the telephone system.

Amazingly...

...the British government asked her
to decode messages...

...not realizing she was
the first cousin of Michael Collins.

So, of course, he had an absolutely
wonderful inside source of information...

...which he didn't hesitate to use.

One gets an impression,
from reading everything available...

...of somebody with
a tremendous capacity for kindness...

...and for this extraordinary ability
to remember...

...the particular detail
about everybody's life.

Somebody who actually...

...remembers your name even though
they met you 20 years ago.

- Good manners, isn't it?
- Pardon?

But it's also to do with the fact
of looking at people as human beings.

As individual human beings.

So, the fact that he had that capacity,
allied to this ability...

...to eliminate human beings
from the planet...

...was, I suppose, the contradiction
between both of those things.

It gives rise to a character
of an endless kind of complexity...

...that you can be endlessly curious about.

I empty the basket and take the linen...

...and then his hand comes over
with a half-crown in it.

CHARLIE: You shouldn't take it, Rosie.
ROSIE: He's a gentleman, Charlie.

And you're a lady, Rosie. Shut up, you.

ROSIE: Thank you, Mr. Collins.

CHARLIE: Show him what you got
from the basket, Rosie.

Ta.

Come on.

[Papers rustling]

God bless you, Rosie.

COLLINS: We've got them.

Collins had discovered
how the British system worked.

He was smuggled into
what is now Pearse Barracks.

Brunswick Street Barracks,
it was in those days.

He sat up all night,
looking at the ledgers...

...and there, in the mundane columns,
he saw in the reports...

...from the remote part of west of Ireland,
"well-known subversive so-and-so took...

"...the train this morning to Dublin, and
was met at the other end by so-and-so."

Now, that information is then passed on
to political detectives...

...who either arrest the person,
or tell the army where to go and get them.

So, Collins realized if he started
cutting out the political detectives...

...suddenly there was a vital link
gone in the chain.

By killing about a dozen detectives...

...he could really paralyze
the British machine.

They, in turn,
didn't know who to get after...

...and they started spending
an awful lot of money on intelligence.

To this day, the Irish files are embargoed
way into the next century...

...in the Public Record Office,
in Kew Gardens...

...partly to conceal
what the British did here.

They also want to conceal the names of
prominent Irish people who helped them.

- Could you open the Castle files?
- I'd never get them out.

No?

But you can get me in!

- Jesus, you're serious.
- Do you think I'm joking?

Does anybody know what I look like?

BRO Y: Only me.

Pretend I'm an informer.
Let me in around midnight.

We'd never get away with it.

Everything's possible
if you wish hard enough.

Now, who said that?

BRO Y: You did.
COLLINS: No!

COLLINS: 'Twas him, Peter Pan.

[Heavy footsteps]

Is there a sense in which you felt you had
to protect him, to keep his hands clean?

He never kills anyone in the film.

No, that was actually a worry
more than anything else...

...because I thought that would be
a reason the audience wouldn't like him.

Because the young guy, Vinny Byrne,
for example...

...who's got to go out
and do that first assassination...

You feel terribly for him.

I was terribly worried that an audience
would actually loathe Collins...

...because he was obviously older
than these young men.

He's recruiting these young men,
and they're Catholics.

- Putting their immortal soul in danger.
- Absolutely.

COLLINS: These men are more experienced.

You'll get one chance,
and I don't need to tell you...

...it's either them or us.

We hit them at daybreak.

COOGAN: He hated waste and he taught
to keep the killing to the minimum.

Shoot the detectives,
spare the ordinary people.

There is evidence that he did that.

But once somebody had to be killed,
he was ruthless.

He wouldn't take a "no" for an answer.

The people who went out to kill
the officer or the spy...

...were more frightened of coming back
to Collins with him un-shot...

...than they were of what they had to do
in risking their lives.

BRAGG: The kllllngs by Colllns' forces,
now known as the IRA...

... led to reprlsals by the Brltlsh forces.

Two new forces, the Black and Tans
and the Auxlllarles...

... were recrulted to combat the vlolence.

They roamed the country,
murderlng and burnlng Indlscrlmlnately...

... and appalled even thelr own offlcers.

As events In Ireland splraled
out of control...

... a group of crack Intelllgence agents
known as the Calro Gang...

... were brought In from England.

Colllns' Intelllgence servlce acqulred
thls photograph of them...

... numbered for Identlflcatlon.

Colllns determlned to have them
all kllled on one nlght...

... whlch became known as Bloody Sunday.

Typlcally, the Brltlsh reactlon
was excesslve.

The Black and Tans went
to a hurllng match...

... that was belng played
at Croke Park the followlng afternoon.

They opened flre on the spectators
and players at random.

Twelve people were kllled
and 60 were Injured.

It's dlfflcult to establlsh exactly
what happened...

... but there's no doubt that Nell Jordan
altered the course of events In hls fllm.

A lot of people will say,
in Croke Park, where the football game...

...was played,
the British did not come in with tanks.

There were soldiers who climbed ladders
and dropped into the park.

So, why introduce tanks?

Well, it wasn't a tank.
It was an armored vehicle.

Looks a bit like a tank, though.

JORDAN: Well, it's basically...

...a machine gun
with a kind of protective...

...saucepan around the top.

But they did drive their own vehicles.

They would've had protective vehicles
like that there.

What they did was kind of worse in a way.

They scaled the walls
and locked all the exits...

...and kept the people in there
for the best part of the day.

They were firing and picking them off
for an entire day.

So, the reality would have been
probably more terrifying.

- Yes.
- The reason I did it really was because...

...I wanted the scene to last 30 seconds.

[Large explosion]

JORDAN: I also wanted
the spectators and football pitch...

...to treat the possibility of violence
with incredulity at the start.

So, when the thing breaks through,
that little tin pot vehicle looks ridiculous.

JORDAN: The player klcks a ball
over the top of It and scores...

... and the entlre football ground
bursts Into laughter.

[Cheering and applause]

[Rapid gunshots]

The rhythm of that war
that Collins fought was...

...every action by the Volunteers...

...would give rise to a grossly inflated
reaction by the British forces.

Whereupon Collins would have
a wider ground and wider support...

...and then strike in another way.

The rhythm of the conflict
was one of escalation...

...and I just tried to mirror
that in the presentation...

...of that conflict in the film.

But that was the reaction to 14 people
being killed that morning.

Now, were all of them
British Intelligence seeking Collins...

...or were some of them
working in administration?

The interesting thing
about Collins' activities is...

...that many of the people
he assassinated were Irish.

And a large amount of the energy...

...of the Battle of the Volunteers,
and even people like Tom Barry...

...and the other leaders of flying columns...

...was against the Irish people who were
working for the British administration.

In many ways...

...the war of independence
was not too far from a civil war.

Or, not too far from a war about different
concepts of what it was to be Irish.

All guerilla warfare is very difficult
to combat for the state.

In fact, I would say that it's impossible
to defeat militarily. I would go that far.

But you can only actually, in the end,
defeat any form of terrorism...

...by some form of political compromise.

By the time the truce came,
in July of 1921...

...the IRA were pretty well spun out.

They'd fought an exhausting war
in the Republic and in the north of Ireland.

COOGAN:
They were under terrlflc pressure.

Colllns knew they'd gone as far
as they could.

JOE: Jesus Christ,
where the hell have you been?

COLLINS: Would you give me
one free night to be a human being?

We've been combing the city for you.
Have you heard?

No! I haven't heard!

Would the bloody Irish Republic
leave me some time off?

It's over.

What's over? What do you mean?

It's over. They called a truce.

You mean, it's finished?

- The whole damn thing?
- Yes.

You mean, we've won?

Lloyd George has thrown in the towel?

We've brought the British Empire
to its knees?

Yes.

COLLINS: Why the fuck didn't you say so?

BRAGG: The Brltlsh Invlted De Valera
to London to negotlate a treaty.

He sllghted Colllns,
the man who'd won the war...

... by leavlng hlm out of the delegatlon,
ostenslbly on the grounds...

... that he dldn't want Colllns
to be photographed.

But De Valera soon reallzed...

... that there was a Ilmlt to what he could
achleve wlth the Brltlsh negotlators.

He dldn't want to be assoclated wlth
the compromlse he knew was Inevltable.

That was the settlement.

Partitioned Ireland in the South...

...with the status of the dominions,
Canada or Australia.

Two states. One, the small one,
in the north, governed by the Protestants.

The other, an independent Irish Free State
in the south, governed by the nationalists.

And De Valera obviously blinked from
bringing back this to the Republicans...

...because he knew there'd be a split.

The more extreme ones would want
to fight on. There'd be talk of sellout.

In August, he persuaded Collins...

COOGAN: ... whom he wanted to keep
from any photography...

... earller In the summer, to go effectlvely
as the leader of the delegatlon...

... who had to negotlate the settlement...

... and brlng back the polsoned challce.

Just thlnk, the people he negotlated wlth
In the treaty negotlatlons...

... were so emlnent In thelr day...

... that Wlnston Churchlll was
only number four In the Brltlsh team.

People Ilke Blrkenhead
and Lloyd George were there.

They counted hlm thelr equal.

BRAGG: Durlng hls stay In London,
Colllns was Ilonlzed by hlgh soclety.

He was taken up by Hazel Lavery,
the wlfe of the palnter, Slr John Lavery.

Her portralt was later to adorn
Irlsh bank notes.

You can stlll flnd her on the watermark.

It was wldely thought at the tlme
that Colllns and Lady Lavery...

... were havlng an affalr.
Although there Is no proof.

JORDAN: I don't know whether he had
sexual relatlons wlth Lady Lavery.

I suspect he posslbly dldn't.

I expect that was an older woman
obsessed with this...

The obsession was on her side, in a way.

It seems that he did have other...

...kinds of dalliances in his life.

The "one-woman man" does reinforce
an idea of fidelity to a cause.

Doesn't it?
Fidelity to a woman, fidelity to a cause.

Perhaps. I mean,
I would've loved to have him...

...surrounded by women in different ways.

I would love to have him sleep
in other beds besides Harry Boland's.

What I did like about...

...the triangular thing was...

...that it was almost like these two men
were in love with each other in a way...

...in a way obsessed with each other.

BRAGG: The trlangular relatlonshlp
In the fllm Is real.

Mlchael Colllns and hls best frlend,
Harry Boland...

... were In love wlth the same woman,
whom they met...

... whlle electloneerlng In County Longford.

Her name was Kltty Klernan.

HARRY: Sure you want to hear this?
KITTY: Oh, yes.

COLLINS: Did I tell you he snores?
HARRY: Mick! How are you?

- Do you remember Kitty?
- Indeed I do. How are you Kitty?

- Do you remember me?
- Vaguely.

All right, I know when I'm not wanted.

HARRY: See you.

I did write a section
involving Collins in London...

...involving Collins meeting Lady Lavery,
getting his portrait painted...

...by Sir John Lavery.
Meeting Lloyd George.

Some relationship between himself
and Birkenhead emerging.

But that sequence did nothing
to illuminate the actual...

...details of the treaty negotiations.

He did not have De Valera's...

...slippery political cunning.

Like Lloyd George famously said,
"Negotiating with Eamon De Valera...

"...was like trying
to pick up mercury with a fork."

He did not have that.
He'd walked into a trap.

In the negotiations he realized that,
and he used to say...

...to his fellow delegates
when the British weren't around...

"That long whore has got me."

He walked into a trap.
He knew when he'd signed the treaty...

...as he said in the famous letter,
he'd signed his death warrant.

BRAGG: The terms of the treaty that
Colllns and the other delegates slgned...

... were less than De Valera had wanted...

... but were posslbly as good
as anyone could have achleved.

PAULIN: People shy away
from talklng about the treaty...

... llke the clvll war,
whlch was the product of the treaty.

It's never dlscussed,
there are almost no books about It.

It's a buried part of Irish history...

...because it's something
that people can't bear to look at.

The border never changed
by one millimeter, practically.

Well, there were very tiny cosmetic
changes from Collins' day to ours.

So that was a given, that was a reality.

Instead of facing that reality,
they fought over the oath.

It was very much
like the Dean Swift's "Civil War"...

...which was fought over
which end of the egg should be topped...

...the big end or the little end.

It was about as useless a war as that,
and it poisoned Irish life...

...for decades afterwards.

I would plead...

...with every person here.

Make me a scapegoat, if you will.
Call me a traitor, if you will.

But please, let's save the country.

The alternative to this treaty is a war...

...which nobody in this gathering
can even contemplate.

BRAGG: The country spllt. De Valera
walked out of the Irlsh Parllament.

[Crowd cheering]

BRAGG:An electlon was called
wlth Colllns on the pro-treaty slde...

... and De Valera headlng
the antl-treaty slde.

The Irlsh people voted heavlly
In favor of the treaty.

But the antl-treaty slde refused
to accept the result.

A vlclous clvll war ensued.

Colllns and the Irlsh government,
wlth weapons supplled by the Brltlsh...

... were flghtlng thelr former colleagues
In the IRA.

[Canon shots]

[Flames roaring]

The civil war is very much a skeleton
in a cupboard in Ireland, isn't it?

JORDAN: Yes, it is.

And you rattled it.

Because the Irish don't like
to admit to themselves...

...and why should they? In the killings
that have gone on since 1916...

...more Irish have killed Irish
than British have killed Irish.

More people died in civil war
than in the entire war of independence.

They battled out brutally, with somewhere
around the region of 4,000 deaths.

Which is more in a shorter time...

...with less modern weaponry
than we've had in 25 years.

ERVINE: There are songs about the hatred
for the Brltlsh and about Imperlallst rule.

But there are very few songs
ever publlcly sung about the clvll war.

So, homogeneous Ireland now...

...has elevated its common enemy...

...to paper over its own divisions.

REGAN:
There Is the famous Image of Colllns...

... strldlng across the parade ground
at Portobello...

... wlth a revolver loosely strapped
to hls leg.

Thls Is the most popular
and best-selllng Image, I'm told.

In a way, It's not seen as belng
an Image of a clvll war general...

... In the process of prosecutlng a war
agalnst hls brother revolutlonarles...

... as It were, and hls fellow countrymen.

I thlnk that the Image of the swaggerlng
gunman Is very often projected...

... back onto the good war, If you wlsh,
agalnst the Brltlsh.

It denies the civil war.

There is a popular amnesia
about the civil war...

...and still a glorification
of revolutionary violence...

...which almost inevitably, I would argue...

...led to civil war,
and destroyed the positive dynamic...

...of the revolution,
which Collins symbolizes.

BRAGG: In 1922, Colllns went back
for a tour of hls old country In West Cork...

... whlch was stlll a stronghold
of the antl-treaty factlon.

Colllns' motorcade was ambushed,
and Colllns was shot In the head.

[Gunfire]

He dled Immedlately.
He was 31 years old.

Hls rlval, De Valera, had stayed
the nlght before In a farmhouse...

... only a few hundred yards away
from the slte of the ambush.

De Valera's responsibility for Collins' death
lies in the fact...

...that he helped to create
the overall situation of civil war...

...which led directly to Collins' death.

But it is utterly untrue to say...

...that he was physically present, or that
he had anything to do with the shooting.

He, in fact, tried to prevent the ambush.

He thought he could again
impose his will on Collins...

...if he got talking to him man-to-man,
in Collins' own country.

He said that if he could talk to Collins
down in Cork...

...away from his people in Dublin...

...he would be able
to work his charisma on him.

Just as he had done
sending him to the treaty.

It's not true to say that he had any hand,
act or part in the shooting.

I don't want to say that De Valera...

...had anything to do with the planning
of the assassination of Michael Collins.

They're the greatest liberties
with historical facts I've taken...

...in the screenplay.

The circumstances surrounding...

You can see De Valera
on the night before, weeping.

Because he has heard
Collins' passionate pronouncement...

...that he wants to meet De Valera,
to settle it.

The death of their mutual friend,
Boland, has...

...just taken things too far.
It's time this was settled.

Yes. Basically, yes.

I mean, I'm not saying that...

...attempted meeting...
I'm not saying that...

...De Valera was ever
in close enough proximity...

...to hear anything that Collins said.

I mean, dramatically for me...

...I had to bring those two protagonists
together, towards the end.

In other words, I had to have one case
made to the other man.

I had to have Collins' words,
in some way, reach De Valera.

As it's a movie,
and a dramatic reconstruction...

...the only way to do that is
to have him overhear him, in a way.

Tell him I'm sorry
I didn't bring back the Republic.

But nobody could have!

He was my chief, always.

COLLINS: I would have followed him
to hell if he'd asked me.

Maybe I did.

I show this young go-between, kind of
skipping between one and the other...

...De Valera not being able
to say anything to Collins.

And the go-between saying,
"He'll meet you tomorrow."

Now, that is my invention,
and I don't mean to imply...

...that De Valera had anything to do
with the assassination.

And I don't think
that the movie does imply that.

It shows two men at the end
of their tether, both wanting it to stop...

...not knowing how to bring that about.

[De Valera sobs]

BO Y: So, I take it you heard?

DE VALERA: Oh, Jesus, Mick.

DE VALERA: God forgive us, Harry.
BO Y: Have you got any reply?

BO Y: He's come all this way.

BO Y: Be kind of rude
not to give him an answer.

[Voices on loudspeaker,
scattered conversations of crowd]

WOOLLEY: The baslc problem we had
durlng the elghtles was that...

... Nell was never a blg enough name
on hls own...

... to ralse the klnd of flnanclng he needed
to make thls fllm properly.

The reallty Is, to make thls story,
you really have to bulld sets...

... you have to shoot on real locatlons.

You have to make It an eplc plcture.

My argument with Neil was always...

..."Neil, if we can make this
for 'x' amount...

"...you know, $10 million, $12 million,
however much...

"...we can probably make the movie.

"If you bring it down,
make it like 'The Conformist'...

"...make it on a smaller budget,
imply certain things..."

Neil's argument was always,
"No, we have to tell the story correctly.

"We must make sure this is told,
because this will be...

"...the only opportunity
to really tell the story."

You wrote the first draft of
the Michael Collins script a long time ago.

- What was it, 13, 14 years ago?
- It was in 1983. I'd just finished "Angel".

And David Puttnam had asked me
to write a script about Michael Collins.

I began to research the figure
and became very, very, fascinated by it.

Mainly by the contradictions in his...

...by the many facets to the person.

Was Liam Neeson sort of
in your mind from the start?

Yeah, I'd seen Liam in Brian Friel's
"Translations," on the stage.

We did a bit of writing on "Excalibur,"
John Boorman's film.

He struck me as born to play the part,
in some way.

So, I showed him the script and told him
if I ever got to make it, I'd do it with him.

JORDAN: He Is from a rural background.

He's four Inches blgger
than Colllns, actually.

But he's got that earthy klnd of quallty...

... that actors Ilke Spencer Tracy had
and Gérard Depardleu have.

It's Ilke thls Inescapable reallty about hlm.

And he's about Ilfe, really, as a performer.

I really don't know why he approached me
10 years ago, other than...

...perhaps Collins was a big country lad.

And I think that's what I am at heart.

JORDAN: Now, when you come in,
did you say, "What was the horse called?"

NEESON: No, I didn't.
JORDAN: Oh, you didn't.

NEESON: Because you hated our acting...
JORDAN: What!

JORDAN: I hated your what?

JORDAN: I hated what?

ROBERTS: Liam's acting.

Or lack thereof.

When you have a lot of money,
are people making demands...

...on the film that they don't make
when it's a low-budget film?

BRAGG: I should imagine they are.
JORDAN: I dldn't have a lot of money.

I mean $28 million is not a lot
to make a historical drama.

The entire city of Dublin was blown up
in the course of the film, twice.

I was very glad Warner Bros.
Made this movie.

And, actually, I was very glad
that they put a financial ceiling on it.

It demanded a commitment of everyone.
Everybody had to do it for less.

Much less than normal fees.

JORDAN: Even those blg,
open crowd calls that we had.

WOOLLEY: We bullt thls huge set.

I thlnk It's the blggest set
ever bullt In Ireland...

... on the facade of a deserted hospltal
at Grange Gorman.

And we bullt the Post Offlce,
we bullt a common street...

... parts of the Manslon House,
and all sorts of very detalled work...

... and very flnely, carefully...

... put together repllcas of Ireland...

... durlng the perlod of 1916 to 1920.

We had to flll that space.

The only way that we could do It wlthln
our budget was to ask people to turn up...

...wear hats and coats and costumes
of the time, and just simply be a crowd.

WOOLLEY: We'd asked for 2,500 people
and we'd hlred somebody to recrult them.

The reallty was, there was no way of
gauglng how many people would turn up.

We could have had 500 or 2,000 people.
We could have had 3,000.

And, on the day Itself, we just had...

I thlnk, In the end, the estlmatlon was
between 4,000 or 5,000 people turned up.

We had to turn people away, as well,
whlch was klnd of heartbreaklng.

[Crowd muttering,
recruiter giving directions]

It was chaos.
There was a certaln polnt In the day...

... when we reallzed that...

... half of Dublln had turned up...

... and most of thelr frlends
In the West Country had come wlth them.

It was sllghtly Insane.

We managed to cope.

The reason we were able to cope
was not because...

... we had all the coats and hats avallable.

Because we dldn't really have
5,000 coats and hats.

Everyone had just gone out
and bought thelr own coats and hats.

We heard later...

... that all the fancy dress costumlers
In town were empty on that day.

People had slmply gone and got Into
the most authentlc clothes they could.

They had ransacked attlcs.
They'd stolen...

... thelr grandmothers' and grandfathers'
hats and coats and dresses.

Some of the people turnlng up were
far better dressed than our extras.

It was terribly moving.
I mean, you did have a sense...

...in which you were being pulled back
into a deeply traumatic historical memory.

Now, we weren't going around
being portentous about it.

But it was definitely
a feeling that was there.

Clearly, a lot of those who turned up...

...were just fascinated by the whole story.

MARY BANOTTl: Thls Is all part
of a great many people In thls country.

DE VALERA:
Thls treaty bars the way to the Republlc...

[Cheering]

... wlth the blood of fellow Irlshmen!

[Cheering]

And, if it is only by civil war...

[More cheers]

...that we can get our independence,
then so be it!

[Cheering and applause]

Must've been hard, especially when...

...De Valera was making the speech
where people may have...

...to wade through the blood
of the Irishmen.

And he's talking there to Irish people.

That was Alan Rickman's first scene.

It was his first scene.

BRAGG: He landed in Ireland,
and you threw him into that scene.

Well, no, I didn't do that purposely.

I called Alan the night before, to say...

..."Alan, how are you? You okay?
Got a big day tomorrow."

He said, "Yes, and I've got
the speech memorized."

And I kind of broke the news to him,
that, in fact, the extras would be unpaid...

...because that was the only way
to get so many people.

And there was this pause
at the end of the phone.

And his voice just said,
"Thank you for telling me that."

I heard the phone go down,
and I just thought, "This poor man."

[Loud cheering]

The Volunteers...

...will have to wade through Irish blood...

...through the blood of some members
of this government...

...in order to get Irish freedom.

[Loud cheers]

JORDAN: We had 40 weeks to do It In.

It kind of put the pressure
on shooting a movie...

...that must've been similar
to the pressure of the events...

...you see in the picture.

We had to shoot it like a battle,
really, in a way...

JORDAN: ... where every day the stakes
were almost too hlgh to contemplate.

I mean, fallure,
you couldn't contemplate It.

JORDAN: Let's do it once more.
You've got to create space behind Julia.

JORDAN: Okay, putz. Once more.

I'm very unhappy right now!

JORDAN: What?
ASST: I'm unhappy about this thing.

JORDAN: What do you mean?
ASST: I'm not happy.

We haven't got a clue of your
orchestrating. That's what worries me.

JORDAN: How do you want to shoot it?
ASST: You can't. It's impossible.

All you can do is put them into position
and shoot them.

JORDAN: Why are you worried about it?

ASST: I'm unhappy spending all this
time on a shot that we can't even imagine.

JORDAN: This is a scripted shot.
It's in the screenplay.

JORDAN:
I don't know why I have to tell you this.

ASST: Did you bring the script?
JORDAN: Yes, we did bring the script.

JORDAN: I mean, he's already got the shot.

[Cheering]

REPORTER:
Which one of you is Michael Collins?

COLLINS: He is.

HARRY: See you later.

KITTY: Mick!

[Cheering]

[Car horns blowing]

BRAGG: Wlth the announcement
of the IRA's ceaseflre In 1994...

... comparlsons were made between
Mlchael Colllns and Gerry Adams...

... the current leader of Slnn Feln.

He was seen by some as a moderatlng
force In the Republlcan movement...

... trylng to carry Slnn Feln
away from vlolence.

Obviously, it was in your mind
from the start that you're writing a film...

...and intending to direct it,
which you have...

...about a man who could be called
the founder of the IRA.

You're starting this in the early '80s,
and there is all this going on...

...with the IRA in Ireland and London,
and the connections in America.

You're, in a sense, aware, on the lookout,
looking for trouble...

...in one way,
and on the lookout for trouble in another.

How did those two things affect
the way you attacked the script?

One reason to make a movie
was to ask all the questions...

...one would ask about...

...the use of armed violence
for political ends.

In many ways,
the contrast between Collins' Volunteers...

...and the present-day IRA...

...is one of the main reasons, actually,
to make the movie.

Michael Collins was one of the leaders,
if not the leader...

...of an organization which clearly,
at the time, had the vast majority...

...of support in Ireland as a whole,
both sides of the border in fact.

Whereas, the best Gerry Adams
could be described as, realistically...

...a sectional leader
within one part of Ireland.

Albeit a movement that has sympathy
elsewhere in Ireland.

That's one major difference.

The other,
some people would argue quite strongly...

...is that Michael Collins actually won,
whereas the best Gerry Adams...

...got out of this was a scoreless draw,
or maybe even a score draw.

I think Collins was more in control,
probably due to a clearer vision...

...due to better communications.

Due to also a much more intelligent...

...sort of person involved in his fight.

When I think you get a lower grade...

I'm not saying there are
no intelligent people in the IRA today.

There are some very intelligent people
in the IRA, Sinn Fein.

Adams is a good example,
and there are many others.

But a lot of their operatives
are fairly low-caliber people.

Criminals, quite frankly.

I think Michael Collins was
very careful to choose...

...really quite bright operatives.

There are also similarities
between Collins and Adams.

They're both very ruthless.

We know about Michael Collins' exploits.

We know less, so far,
about Gerry Adams' exploits...

...except that he has survived at the top
of a very tough organization...

...for a very long time.

MOLONEY: The other major slmllarlty,
whlch I thlnk has enabled Gerry Adams...

... to, In some ways, Imltate
Mlchael Colllns, Is that they are both...

... the object of enormous affectlon
and trust by thelr followers...

... wlthln the Republlcan movement,
respectlvely.

And it has enabled Gerry Adams to take
his people as far as he has taken them.

And it enabled Collins to persuade his
people that he was doing the right thing.

So, that's a very important similarity.

BRAGG: Thls graffltl was palnted
on the Falls Road last Chrlstmas...

... threatenlng Adams
wlth the same fate as Colllns...

... because of the stalllng
of the peace process.

The fear in this place
dominates Republican thinking.

They hate it and they'd do anything...

...just as Collins was arming the IRA...

...on one side by putting them down
in the South.

Pursuing and shooting them in the South,
and arming them in the North.

The Republicans today...

...their issue wouldn't really be
decommissioning.

That's a nonissue.

You'd have to negotiate,
and the guns would come into it...

...and that would be disposed of.

They know that.

The real issue is to avoid
being put in a position...

...which would inevitably lead to a split.

There is a very sour joke in Irish politics...

...that whenever an organization
is set up...

...at its very first meeting, the number-one
item on the agenda is the split.

Unfortunately, history proves that
all too often to be the case.

The problem is the ideological purity
of Irish republicanism...

...and the fact that people
can never live up to the ideals set out...

...by its founding fathers,
way back in the misty past.

There is always compromise necessary.

Michael Collins had to compromise.

Gerry Adams quite clearly
is compromising in his own way.

Of course, there will be those, the purists,
who say that this is not...

...what people died for,
this is not what people went to jail for...

...or even killed for,
or more especially killed for.

BRAGG: We asked Gerry Adams
for an Intervlew, but he decllned.

But on a recent radlo phone-In program,
a Ilstener...

... asked the questlon
that we wanted to ask hlm.

LISTENER: Good mornlng, Gerry.
ADAMS: Good mornlng, George.

LISTENER: You have been compared
wlth Mlchael Colllns.

I was wonderlng how you felt about It...

... and dld you regard It as a compllment?

If I can also ask you
how you rated Colllns...

... In vlew of the fact
that he was only allve for 31 years...

... and that he regarded
the slgnlng of the treaty...

... as what he sald was
the flrst real step for Ireland.

ADAMS: I thlnk we're talklng now about
Colllns wlth the hlndslght of 70 years.

I don't, and thls Isn't surely a sense
of false modesty, see myself...

... as a hlstorlcal flgure of that stature.

Nelther do I see the sltuatlon now
In terms of Slnn Feln...

... of that tlme In deallng wlth the Brltlsh,
and Slnn Feln now.

Whlch has to deal
wlth all the other partles...

... and wlth two governments.
Havlng sald that...

... and I would never personallze,
I know that people...

... you know, blame De Valera,
or blame Colllns.

I try to stay away from that.

I certalnly don't thlnk
that I would have slgned that...

... that type of treaty. But who's to know?

BRAGG: The threat of dlspute
doesn't only apply to Republlcans.

Davld Ervlne began hls career
as a UVF terrorlst...

... on the Protestant slde In Ulster.

Arrested by the pollce,
he was forced to defuse a bomb...

... that he hlmself had constructed.

He has argued strongly
In favor of a Loyallst ceaseflre.

But he has been crltlclzed
by many people on hls own slde...

... the Unlonlsts,
for belng too compromlslng.

I think the notion that there can be
a modern-day Michael Collins...

...if you like, going too far in front
of the crowd only to be pushed off...

...the end of the pier,
is alive and well in Belfast.

Whether it is on the Protestant side
or the Catholic side.

Both nationalism and loyalism suffer
from the necessity...

...to create change
within many cases a constituency...

...that is so distrusting of the other side...

...that the fear of moving forward...

...ensures that those who try
to break ground will not be easily seen...

...as prophets in their own land.

Do you think that the ceasefire
helped you to make this film?

Yeah, it absolutely did. Yeah, it did.

I don't think that Warner Bros.
Would have actually done it...

...if there had not been a ceasefire.

They were saying to me...

..."The problem is,
there is no happy ending in this film.

"All the characters die, everybody
we liked." Everybody dies in fact.

And I said, "But you don't realize
that there will be a happy ending.

"The happy ending will be peace
in the country."

[Helicopter pelts overhead]

JORDAN: When the ceaseflre broke down,
we were In New York dolng re-shoots.

Everybody connected wlth the fllm
got very depressed.

Because you see, thls fllm was made...

... by Engllsh as well as Irlsh people.

I mean, Stephen Woolley, our producer,
Is an Engllshman.

Chrls Menges Is half Engllsh.
Most of the crew I've worked wlth...

...over the past 10 years are English.

We genuinely felt we were...

A time had come to make this movie.

A time had come when these things
could be discussed.

[Love ballad plays]

Subtitles by SOFTITLER