Irish Politician
Kevin O'Higgins. By Terence de Vere White. (Methuen. 18s.)
FOR many of the younger generation of Irishmen the memory of Kevin O'Higgins is either one of awe at the horror of his assassina- tion or of tolerant amusement at his " holy hour "—the afternoon period during which the public-houses are closed as a result of his Licensing Act. Of the older generation few regard him with anything but dislike, drifting towards hatred. Yet Mr. de Vere White has undertaken to write of him with unabashed admiration. A spoiled priest at twenty, a somewhat bibulous law student at twenty-two, Kevin O'Higgins joined the Irish volunteers when twenty-three, but a year later, during the Easter Rising, did not reach Dublin in time to take part in the fight. At the beginning of 1919 he was assistant to W. T. Cosgrave, Minister for Local Government in that early Irish Dail which the British believed they could stifle by disdain. That they could not do so was in a large part due to this Ministry with a staff of four (including the Minister) operating in back rooms of Dublin's back streets but nevertheless closely in touch with the Sinn Fein controlled County Councils. No one ever said of Kevin O'Higgins that he failed as an organiser.
The Irish Revolution was, of course, a stage built for young men. But few were so young or seized the centre of the stage so ruthlessly as O'Higgins. He was thirty when he became Minister for Home Affairs and Vice-President of the Council in the post-Treaty Dail; thirty-five when he was shot down by gunmen in Blackrock. In
Ithose five years he had probably made more enemies than any other man in Ireland. The Republicans and Irregulars hated him, for he was Minister of Justice during the Civil War and had his good share lof responsibility for the shooting of the hostages. Joseph McGrath land the Old I.R.A. and Richard Mulcahy and the I.R.B. more than ;disliked him for his prompt action when both factions were struggling for control of the Free State Army. (He summarily dismissed the leaders on both sides.)
But the enmity which O'Higgins *is bound to incur from these decisions, which he was equally bound to make, was only a part of the whole. The revolutionary movement was served by so many antipathetic characters that it is a wonder it ever succeeded at all. Cathal Brugha was jealous of Collins ; Griffith suspicious of Childers ; Stack bitter about Griffith ; de Valera prayerfully sorrowful for every- one who opposed him. It appears from these pages that O'Higgins, though he revered Collins, mistrusted Griffith's judgement of men, was intolerant of Cosgrave's indecision and suspicious of Mulcahy's loyalty. And these were all fellow members of his Cabinet.
He was, of course, mentally out of touch with almost everyone with whom he had to associate. He was not a republican. More especially he was not an army man. His dislike of the I.R.B. must have been largely due to the fact that it is a secret society, and as such repudiated by the Catholic Church to which his devotion was profound. He seems to have been one of the few Irishmen who could understand the Irish, who in return could not understand him at all. Where others were devoted to Ireland and the republic, he primarily served duty and democracy. As a result, I think, he felt himself apart, and also above, both his colleagues and his enemies. As Mr. de Vere White chronicles his devotion to his ideals, one cannot help feeling, frankly—as some of his contemporaries felt—that O'Higgins was getting too big for his boots. In the light of present Irish politics, O'Higgins's theory that a union of North and South could be brought about by the institution of a dual monarchy on the Austro-Hungarian model makes curious reading. Was he really attached to this theory, or was it a whimsy ? It is said that he could never cure himself of his delight in practical jokes. He had arrived at his idea, says Mr. de Vere White; after much deep thought and reading. However, on another occasion, O'Higgins testily answered an abstruse question in the Dail : "I haven't read a book for five. years. I haven't had the time." Whatever the sincerity of his views on the subject it could never have been practical politics at, a time when the demagogues had only to mention " the British King " to set the bombs bursting again.
The book contains several minor inaccuracies, and is not always fair to de Valera and the anti-Treatyites. Mr. de Vere White has, however, used a number of hitherto unpublished letters, and these especially show O'Higgins in a charming light as lover and husband, diffident, self-questioning and ever considerate. They brighten the grim picture of Kevin O'Higgins in those nightmare years with soft, homely flickerings. But there have been many strong men who played among their families like kittens. Perhaps the best description 'of O'Higgins was that by Bryan Cooper : " I am certain that if he woke up one morning and found that he was popular he would
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