Aspiring heroes should be advised that an early grave is always helpful for the creation of a posthumous reputation. Had Michael Collins, for example, survived to stout middle age, he would undoubtedly have proved a less attractive subject for the film-maker Neil Jordan. And a recent BBC television documentary about Eamon de Valera shows just how tough posterity's judgment can be on people who outlive their heroic youth. Those who enjoy adulation during their long careers must prepare for revisionist hostility after their deaths.
The only alternative to such antipathy appears to be neglect, the fate until recently of Richard Mulcahy, who died in 1971, 10 years after he had retired from active politics. Historians will be familiar with Mulcahy and his role in the creation of the State, but - perhaps because he lived to be 85 - he has received less public attention than some of his revolutionary contemporaries.
Park in Clonmel
Last month, however, two events occurred which suggest he will now be better remembered, and honoured, than hitherto. One of these was the formal opening by President McAleese of the Richard Mulcahy Town Park in Clonmel, Co Tipperary. On an 11-acre site donated by the local corporation, members of the Mulcahy family have created a wonderful riverside park including a large meadow and arboretum, as well as playground and waterside terrace. Aside from the name, Richard Mulcahy is remembered here only by a small bronze portrait bust incorporated into a stone boulder. The self-effacing nature of this tribute seems to be typical of the man who was also commemorated last month in the private publication by his son, Dr Risteard Mulcahy, of a family memoir.
Naturally, much of the book is taken up with recording Richard Mulcahy's views on his military and political colleagues such as Collins - whose funeral oration he delivered - de Valera, Arthur Griffith and Cathal Brugha. Interesting as these are, they have already been examined by Maryann Valiulis in her 1992 biography Portrait of a Revolutionary: General Richard Mulcahy and the Founding of the Irish Free State. What particularly stays with the reader of Risteard Mulcahy's book are the more personal insights into a father who has been described as a hero to his family.
But the work avoids being a hagiography; instead, it tends to confirm the impression enjoyed during his lifetime of Richard Mulcahy as an unambitious man devoted to his country. In September 1923, he was described by The Irish Times as "a philosopher" whose character was a "curious mix of gentleness and relentless purpose".
40 years in Dail
This was just after he had been returned to the fourth Dail to represent the Dublin North-East constituency with a vote of 22,203, a figure not reached by any candidate before or since that election. Except for two short breaks of less than a year each, Mulcahy remained a member of the Dail for almost 40 years, giving politics his undivided attention after he retired as Commander in Chief of the Army in May 1923. In several of the photographs included in the memoir, Mulcahy is shown in the company of other soldiers, who all seem to be much bigger in build than he. The same Irish Times feature commented that he was "a strange amalgam of dreamer and man of decisive action". As an indication of his ability to translate dream into reality, Risteard Mulcahy notes that even at the height of the Civil War, his father was already laying down plans to establish an army school of music.
Throughout his life, it seems, Mulcahy maintained the frugal habits of his youth. "Dad's needs were modest," remembers Risteard Mulcahy, "and he was easily satisfied in matters of food, clothing and service." The family lived in Rathmines and, thanks to grounds running to two-and-a-half acres, were almost self-sufficient. For many years, Mulcahy's wife Min managed a large vegetable garden and orchard, plus a poultry farm of 100 or more hens, a number of ducks and one or two dairy cattle. Risteard Mulcahy recalls not just having to bring fresh milk daily to his cousins but also sometimes leading a cow through the city centre on the way to a cattle market north of the river; on one occasion, the animal stopped to relieve herself outside Bewleys on Grafton Street.
Both Richard and Min Mulcahy were deeply religious: he attended 7 a.m. Mass every day at the local church in Rathmines before returning home for breakfast; she went to a later service in the morning. No fewer than five of his siblings joined religious orders and, like them, "his spirituality was quiet and serene and never obtruded on others, even his own family."
Reconciliation
It has been noted by historians before that none of Richard Mulcahy's children became involved in politics, although many of them had distinguished careers in other fields. Risteard Mulcahy says his father "discouraged any discussion of politics in the house or at the table while we were young." In fact, "his anxiety was to bring about a reconciliation after the Civil War and to ensure that the next generation should not be affected by the divisions which had occurred" within his wife's family.
Need division have been the only option had the next generation of Mulcahys chosen to stand for election? After all, as the substantial attendance in Clonmel last month showed, this is a clan whose members obviously relish each other's company. By discouraging political engagement among his offspring and thereby surrendering the opportunity to perpetuate his name in the field of politics, Richard Mulcahy may unwittingly have assisted in his own posthumous neglect. The new park and memoir will go some way to remedy that.