One of my favorite things to do is research. I could spend years doing research. I have made trips to Ireland specifically to research a special subject. I love finding out about the real people who walk around the stories historical fiction writers must know as intimately as they know their fictional story characters. When the author does her research correctly the real people who created the historical fact in the first place will seem to actually step out of the pages of history and speak to the writer.
One trip to Dublin is a particularly vivid memory. I spent several days doing research on Michael Collins, the "Big Fella" and commanding officer of the Irish Army during the revolution. I read everything I could get my hands on at night and during the day I walked his foot steps throughout County Dublin. I went to his grave at Glasnevin Cemetery and read the inscription. I browsed historian's journals trying to figure out who killed him or indeed if it was possible to know who killed him. Collins was murdered in an ambush just a few miles from his home near Cork but it has never been definitively been proven who did it. This fact is something that will be very important at the end of a book I have been working on for more than ten years. In the end, I felt baffled, confused and angry that someone had done such a horrible thing to such a great patriot and national hero of the Irish Revolution.
After a particularly frustrating morning digging through books and searching for clues I decided to go to the national art gallery and meet him face to face. The rain that washed the streets of Dublin just made me feel more sad and depressed that this great hero of Irish history had been murdered in the prime of his life.
Suddenly I realized, I was mourning the death this man who could have given a young country the guidance and leadership it so desperately needed. I wanted to see who the people in his life were. They were all on display on the walls of the national gallery. I spent a couple hours wandering the rooms and getting to know Maude Gonne and Harry Boyle. Douglas Hyde sat stately and decisive. Even Emon De Valeria stood proudly for a portrait. I searched all the main rooms without joy. Then I went back and searched them again. No where could I find the portrait my heart and spirit needed to see to put this hero to rest. Finally, nearly in tears, I approached a solemn guard standing in a doorway and summoned all the control I could muster to calm myself before I plaintively asked in a fearful voice, "Where is the death portrait of Michael Collins?"
He looked into my eyes with curiosity. For me, it was as if Collins had been dead no more than a few days and I was a mourner who had missed the funeral and only wanted some assurance, proof that someone so full of life and vitality was not dead at the prime of his life. I felt for all the world like I knew him and now all my worst nightmares had come true. The security guard calmly explained to me that the portrait had been at a special exhibit at Queens University in Belfast until the previous day. It had not been re-hung in the gallery yet because it was being acclimatized in the back and would not be completed unpackaged for several days. My face must have mirrored my disappointment and he quickly told me that he would speak to the curator for me and see if there was any possibility that I could go in the back and view the portrait in its protective crate. I thanked him profusely and nearly begged him to please speak to the curator.
A few minuted later I saw the object of my desires. It was still wrapped in clear plastic and held in a sturdy crate of wooden strips but nothing could diminish the majesty of the man or the love of artist who painted his portrait in death. Here was one of the most moving and powerful paintings I had ever seen. It was painted by one of Collins closet friends who was also an artist. Collins lay in state with all the dignity of a king rather than the son of a poor dirt farmer. The portrait had been completed painted between the time that Collins died and the time he was buried. The pain in the hand and the heart that filled the paint brush expressed itself in this picture of a man much beloved by friend and stranger alike.
As I stood there looking at the portrait tears ran down my face. The curator seemed to understand as he handed me his handkerchief to dry my eyes. Finally I looked up at him standing there beside me. He simply nodded without saying a word. That nod told me that he understood too and he would never think me foolish for mourning a man who had died more than 75 years before. Later I took a bouquet of flowers back to Glasnevin and placed them on his grave. Before I turned to leave I heard myself say, "Thanks Mick. Thanks for being just who you were."
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