Michael ("Mick") Collins ( ;
16 October 1890 – 22 August 1922) was an Irish
revolutionary leader, Minister for Finance and
MP for Cork South in the
First Dáil of 1919, Director of
Intelligence for the IRA, and member of the Irish delegation during the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations.
Subsequently he was both
Chairman
of the Provisional Government and
Commander-in-chief of the
National Army. Throughout this time, at least as
of 1919, he was also President of the
Irish Republican Brotherhood.
He was shot and killed in August 1922, during the
Irish Civil War.
Although most Irish political parties recognise his contribution to
the foundation of the modern Irish state, members and supporters of
Fine Gael hold his memory in particular
esteem, regarding him as their movement's founding father, through
his link to their precursor
Cumann
na nGaedhael, a name adopted in 1923 by the pro-
Treaty wing of
Sinn Féin.
Early years
Born in
Sam's Cross, West Cork, Ireland, Collins was
the third son and youngest of eight children. Most
biographies state his date of birth as 16 October 1890; however,
his tombstone lists his date of birth as 12 October 1890. His
father, also called Michael, had become a member of the
republican Fenian movement, but had left
and settled down to farming. The elder Collins was 60 years old
when he married Marianne O'Brien, then 23, in 1875. The marriage
was apparently happy and they raised eight children on their
90-acre farm, Woodfield. Michael was the youngest child; he was
only six years old when his father died. On his death bed his
father (who was the seventh son of a seventh son) predicted that
Michael's sister Helena would go on to become a nun (which she
did). He then turned to the family and told them to take care of
Michael, because "One day he'll be a great man. He'll do great work
for Ireland".
Collins was a bright and precocious child, with a fiery temper and
a passionate feeling of
nationalism.
This was spurred on by a local blacksmith, James Santry, and later,
at the Lisavaird National School by a local school headmaster,
Denis Lyons, a member of the
Irish Republican Brotherhood
(IRB).
After
leaving school, the 15-year-old Collins followed in the footsteps
of many people from Ireland, especially of the Clonakilty
area, and moved to London
.
While
there he lived with his elder sister, and studied at King's College
London
. After taking the British Civil Service
examination in February 1906, he was employed by the
Post Office from July 1906. In 1910, he moved to
London where he became a messenger at a London firm, Horne and
Company. In 1915, he moved to the
Guaranty Trust Company of New
York where he remained until his return to Ireland the
following year.
He joined the
London GAA and, through
this, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, a secret, oath-bound
society dedicated to achieving
Irish
independence.
Sam Maguire, a
Church of Ireland republican from
Dunmanway
, County
Cork
, introduced the 19-year-old Collins into the
IRB.
Easter Rising
Michael Collins first became known during the
Easter Rising in 1916. A skilled organiser of
considerable intelligence, he was highly respected in the IRB, so
much so that he was made financial advisor to
Count Plunkett, father of one of the
Rising's organisers,
Joseph Mary
Plunkett, whose aide-de-camp Collins later became.
When the
Rising itself took place on Easter
Monday, 1916, he fought alongside Patrick Pearse and others in the General Post
Office
in Dublin
. The
Rising became (as expected by many) a military disaster.
While some
celebrated the fact that a rising had happened at all, believing in
Pearse's theory of "blood sacrifice" (namely that the deaths of the
Rising's leaders would inspire others), Collins railed against it,
notably the seizure of indefensible and very vulnerable positions
such as St Stephen's
Green
that were impossible to escape from and difficult
to supply. (During the
War of Independence he ensured the
avoidance of such sitting targets, with his soldiers operating as
"flying columns" who waged a
guerrilla
war against the British, suddenly attacking then just as
quickly withdrawing, minimising losses and maximising
effectiveness.)
Collins,
like many of the other participants, was arrested, almost executed
and wound up at Frongoch internment camp
. By the time of the general release, Collins
had already become one of the leading figures in the post-rising
Sinn Féin, a small
nationalist party which the British
government and the Irish
media wrongly
blamed for the Rising. It was quickly infiltrated by survivors of
the Rising, so as to capitalise on the "notoriety" the movement had
gained through British attacks. By October 1917, Collins had risen
to become a member of the executive of Sinn Féin and director of
organisation of the
Irish
Volunteers;
Éamon de Valera
was president of both organisations.
First Dáil
Like all
senior Sinn Féin members, Collins was nominated in the 1918 general election
to elect Irish MPs to the British
House of Commons
in London. As was the case throughout much
of Ireland (with many seats uncontested), Collins won for Sinn
Féin, becoming
MP for
Cork South.
However,
unlike their rivals in the Irish Parliamentary Party, Sinn
Féin MPs had announced that they would not take their seats in
Westminster
, but instead would set up an Irish Parliament in Dublin.
That new
parliament, called Dáil Éireann
(meaning "Assembly of Ireland", see First Dáil) met in the Mansion
House, Dublin
in January 1919, although De Valera and leading
Sinn Féin MPs had been arrested. Collins, tipped off by his
network of spies, had warned his colleagues of the dangers of
arrest; de Valera and others ignored the warnings, believing if the
arrests happened they would constitute a
propaganda coup.
In de Valera's absence, Cathal Brugha was elected PrÃomh Aire ('Main' or 'Prime', Minister',
but often translated as 'President of Dáil Éireann'), to be
replaced by de Valera, when Collins helped him escape from Lincoln
Prison
in April 1919.
In 1919, Collins had a number of roles. That summer he was elected
president of the IRB (and therefore, in the doctrine of that
organisation,
de jure President of the
Irish Republic). In September he was made
Director of
Intelligence of the
Irish Republican Army, as the
Volunteers had come to be known (the organisation's claim to be the
army of the
Irish Republic was
ratified in January 1919).
The Irish War of Independence in
effect began on the same day that the First Dáil met on 21 January
1919, when an ambush party of IRA volunteers acting without orders
and led by Seán
Treacy, attacked a group of Royal Irish Constabulary men who
were escorting a consignment of gelignite
to a quarry in Soloheadbeg, County
Tipperary
. Two policemen were shot dead during the
engagement and the ambush is considered to be the first action
taken in the Irish War of Independence
Minister for Finance
In 1919, the already busy Collins received yet another
responsibility when de Valera appointed him to the
Aireacht (ministry) as
Minister for
Finance. Understandably, in the circumstances of a brutal war,
in which ministers were liable to be arrested or killed by the
Royal Irish Constabulary,
the
British Army, the
Black and Tans or the
Auxiliaries at a moment's notice, most of
the ministries existed only on paper, or as one or two people
working in a room of a private house.
This was not the case with Collins, however, who produced a Finance
Ministry that was able to organise a large bond issue in the form
of a "National Loan" to fund the new Irish Republic.
The Russian Republic, in the midst of its own civil war,
ordered Ludwig Martens, head of the
Soviet Bureau in New York City
, to acquire a "national loan" from the Irish
Republic through Harry Boland, offering
some of the Russian Crown
Jewels as collateral (the
jewels remained in a Dublin safe, forgotten by all sides, until the
1930s, when they were found by chance).
Collins
created a special assassination squad
called The Twelve Apostles
designed to kill British
agents; arranged the "National Loan"; organised the
IRA; effectively led the government when de Valera travelled to and
remained in the United
States
for an extended period of time; and managed an
arms-smuggling operation.
Collins and
Richard Mulcahy were the
two principal organisers for the Irish Republican Army, insofar as
it was possible to direct the actions of scattered and heavily
localised guerrilla units. Collins is often credited with
organising the IRA's guerrilla "flying columns" during the War of
Independence, although to suggest Collins organised this single
handedly would be false. He had a prominent part in the formation
of the flying columns but the main organiser would have been
Dick McKee, later executed by the British
in retaliation for
Bloody
Sunday. In addition, a great deal of IRA activity was carried
out on the initiative of local leaders, with tactics and overall
strategy developed by Collins or Mulcahy.
In 1920, the British offered a bounty of
£10,000 (equivalent to £290,000 pounds in 2005) for
information leading to the capture or death of Michael Collins. His
fame had so transcended the IRA movement that he was nicknamed "The
Big Fellow". Irish author
Frank
O'Connor, who participated in the
Irish Civil War, gave a different account of
the nickname. He said that it began as an ironic, even scornful,
reference to Collins' efforts to be taken seriously by others, seen
as bordering on self-importance.
Among national leaders, he made enemies of two particular people:
Cathal Brugha, the Minister for
Defence who was overshadowed by his cabinet colleague in military
matters (Collins held the cabinet post of Minister for Finance. His
military position was that of Director of Intelligence in the army,
a subordinate position to that of Brugha's as Minister for
Defence), and de Valera, President of Dáil Éireann and PrÃomh Aire
of the Irish Republic.
Following the truce in July 1921, arrangements were made for a
conference between the
British
government and the leaders of the as yet unrecognised Irish
Republic.
Other than the Soviet Union
, not a single other state gave diplomatic recognition to the
1919 republic, despite sustained lobbying in Washington
by de Valera and prominent Irish-Americans, as well as attempts (by
Irish-Americans and others) to have representatives of the Irish
Republic invited to the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference by
Seán T. O'Kelly.
In August 1921, Valera made the Dáil upgrade his office from Prime
Minister to
President of
the Republic, which ostensibly made him equivalent to
King George V in the
negotiations. Eventually, however, he announced that as the King
would not attend, then neither would he. Instead, with the
reluctant agreement of his cabinet, de Valera nominated a team of
delegates headed by
Arthur Griffith,
with Collins as his deputy. While he believed that de Valera should
head the delegation, Collins agreed to go to London.
Anglo-Irish Treaty
The
majority of the Irish Treaty delegates including Arthur Griffith (leader), Robert Barton and Eamonn Duggan (with Robert Erskine Childers as Secretary
General to the delegation) set up headquarters at 22 Hans Place
in Knightsbridge
on 11 October 1921 and resided there until
conclusion of the negotiations in December. Collins took up
separate quarters at 15 Cadogan Gardens. His personal staff
included
Liam Tobin,
Ned Broy and
Joe McGrath. Collins himself
protested his appointment as envoy plenipotentiary, as he was not a
statesman and his revelation to the British (he had previously kept
his public presence to a minimum) would reduce his effectiveness as
a guerilla leader should hostilities resume. Collins knew that the
treaty, and in particular the issue of partition, would not be well
received in Ireland. Upon signing the treaty, he remarked "I have
signed my own death warrant."
The negotiations ultimately resulted in the
Anglo-Irish Treaty which was signed on 6
December 1921, which envisaged a new Irish state, to be named the
"
Irish Free State" (a literal
translation from the
Irish language
term
Saorstát Éireann, which appeared on the letterhead de
Valera used, though de Valera had translated it less literally as
the
Irish Republic. The Irish Free State was established
in December 1922.
The
treaty provided for a possible all-Ireland state, subject to the
right of a six-county
region
in the northeast to opt out of the Free State
(which it immediately did). If this happened, an Irish Boundary Commission was to
be established to redraw the Irish border, which Collins expected
would so reduce the size of Northern Ireland as to make it economically unviable, thus enabling
unity, as most of the unionist
population was concentrated in a relatively small area in eastern
Ulster.
The new state was to be a
Dominion, with a
bicameral parliament, executive
authority vested in the king but exercised by an Irish government
elected by a
lower house called
Dáil Éireann (translated this time as
"Chamber of Deputies"), an independent courts system, and a form of
independence that far exceeded anything
sought by
Charles Stewart
Parnell or the subsequent
Irish Parliamentary Party.
Republican purists saw it as a sell-out, with the replacement of
the republic by dominion status within the
British Empire, and an
Oath of Allegiance made (it was
then claimed) directly to the King. The actual wording shows that
the oath was made to the Irish Free State, with a subsidiary oath
of fidelity to the King
as part of the Treaty settlement,
not to the king unilaterally.
Sinn Féin split over the treaty, and
the Dáil debated the matter bitterly for ten days until it was
approved by a vote of 64 to 57. In the process
Cathal Brugha remarked that Collins was not a
senior military man and yet the newspapers were describing him as
"the man who won the war". De Valera joined the anti-treaty faction
opposing the concessions. His opponents charged that he had prior
knowledge that the crown would have to feature in whatever form of
settlement was agreed.
Provisional Government
The Treaty was hugely controversial in Ireland. First, Éamon de
Valera, President of the
Irish
Republic until 9 January, had been unhappy that Collins had
signed any deal without his and his cabinet's authorisation.
Second, the contents of the Treaty were bitterly disputed. De
Valera and many other members of the republican movement objected
to Ireland's status as a dominion of the British Empire and to the
symbolism of having to take an oath to the British king to
this effect. Also controversial was the British retention of
Treaty Ports on the south
coast of Ireland for the
Royal Navy. Both
of these things threatened to give Britain control over Ireland's
foreign policy. Most of the
Irish
Republican Army opposed the Treaty, opening the prospect of
civil war.
Under the
Dáil Constitution
adopted in 1919, Dáil Éireann continued to exist. De Valera
resigned the presidency and sought re-election (in an effort to
destroy the newly approved Treaty), but
Arthur Griffith replaced him after the close
vote on 9 January. (Griffith called himself "President of Dáil
Éireann" rather than de Valera's more exalted "President of the
Republic".) However, this government, or
Aireacht, had no
legal status in British
constitutional law, so another
co-existent government emerged, nominally answerable to the House
of Commons of Southern Ireland.
The new
Provisional
Government (Rialtas Sealadach na hÉireann) was formed under
Collins, who became "
President
of the Provisional Government" (i.e.,
Prime Minister). He also remained Minister
for Finance of Griffith's republican administration. An example of
the complexities involved can be seen even in the manner of his
installation:
- In British legal theory he was a Crown-appointed prime
minister, installed under the Royal
Prerogative. To be so installed, he had to formally meet the
Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland, Viscount
Fitzalan (the head of the British administration in
Ireland).
- According to the republican view, Collins
met Fitzalan to accept the surrender of Dublin Castle
, the seat of British government in Ireland.
Having surrendered, Fitzalan still remained in place as viceroy
until December 1922.
- According to British constitutional theory, he met Fitzalan to
"kiss hands" (the formal name for the installation of a minister of the Crown), the
fact of their meeting rather than the signing of any
documents, duly installing him in office. Kissing hands was the
only mechanism of transfer then, as the relevant British
legislation only passed into law on 1 April 1922.
In his biography of Michael Collins, Tim Pat Coogan recounted that,
when Lord Lieutenant Fitzalan remarked that Collins had arrived
seven minutes late for the 16 January 1922 ceremony, Collins
replied, "We've been waiting over seven hundred years, you can have
the extra seven minutes". The same tale was repeated when
Richard Mulcahy took over
Beggars' Bush Barracks, and may be
apocryphal.
Curiously, in hindsight, the partition of
Ireland between the Irish Free
State and Northern
Ireland was not as controversial. One of the main
reasons for this was that Collins was secretly planning to launch a
clandestine guerrilla war against the Northern State. Throughout
the early months of 1922, he had been sending IRA units to the
border and sending arms and money to the northern units of the IRA.
In May-June 1922, he and IRA Chief of Staff
Liam Lynch organised an offensive of
both pro- and anti-treaty IRA units along the new border. British
arms supplied to Collins' Provisional government were instead
swapped with the weapons of IRA units, which were sent to the
north.
This offensive was officially called off under British pressure on
3 June and Collins issued a statement that "no troops from the 26
counties, either those under official control [pro-treaty] or those
attached to the [IRA] Executive [anti-treaty] should be permitted
to invade the six county area." However, low level IRA attacks on
the border continued. Such activity was interrupted by the outbreak
of civil war in the south, but had Collins lived, there is every
chance he would have launched a full-scale guerrilla offensive
against Northern Ireland. Because of this, most northern IRA units
supported Collins and 524 of them came south to join the National
Army in the
Irish Civil War.
In the months leading up to the outbreak of civil war in June 1922,
Collins tried desperately to heal the rift in the nationalist
movement and prevent civil war. De Valera, having opposed the
Treaty in the Dáil, withdrew from the assembly with his supporters.
Collins secured a compromise, the "
Pact", whereby the two factions
of Sinn Féin, pro- and anti-Treaty, would fight the soon-to-be Free
State's first election jointly and form a coalition government
afterwards.
Collins proposed that the envisaged Free State would have a
republican constitution, with no mention of the British king,
without repudiating the Treaty, a compromise acceptable to all but
the most intransigent republicans. To foster military unity, he
established an "army re-unification committee" with delegates from
pro- and anti-Treaty factions. He also made efforts to use the
secret
Irish Republican
Brotherhood of which he was president, to get IRA officers to
accept the Treaty. However, the British vetoed the proposed
republican constitution under the threat of an economic blockade,
arguing they had signed and ratified the Treaty in good faith and
its terms could not be changed so quickly. By this stage most
British forces had been withdrawn from the Free State but thousands
remained. Collins was therefore unable to reconcile the anti-Treaty
side, whose Army Executive had anyway decided in March 1922 that it
had never been subordinate to the Dáil.
Civil War
On 14
April 1922, a group of 200 anti-Treaty IRA men occupied the
Four
Courts
in Dublin in defiance of the Provisional
government. Collins, who wanted to avoid civil war at all
costs, did not attack them until June 1922, needing to know the
result of the
general
election which proved favourable to his party. British pressure
also forced his hand.
On 22 June 1922, Sir Henry Wilson, a retired British Army
field marshal now serving as Military
Advisor to the Craig
Administration, was shot dead by two IRA men in Belgravia
, London. At
the time, it was presumed that the anti-Treaty faction of the IRA
were responsible and
Winston
Churchill told Collins that unless he moved against the Four
Courts garrison, he (Churchill) would use British troops to do
so.
Michael Collins in Portobello
Barracks
In fact,
it has since been said that Collins himself ordered the killing of
Wilson in reprisal for failing to prevent the attacks on Roman
Catholics in Northern
Ireland. Joe Dolan — a member of Collins' "Squad" or
assassination unit in the War of Independence and in 1922 a captain
in the National Army — said this in the 1950s, along with the
statement that Collins had ordered him to try to rescue the two
gunmen before they were executed. In any event, this forced Collins
to take action against the Four Courts men and the final
provocation came when they kidnapped J.J. O'Connell, a provisional
government general. After a final attempt to persuade the men to
leave, Collins borrowed two 18 pounder artillery pieces from the
British and bombarded the Four Courts until its garrison
surrendered.
This led to the
Irish Civil War as
fighting broke out in Dublin
between the anti-Treaty IRA and the provisional government's
troops. Under Collins' supervision, the Free State rapidly took
control of the capital. In July 1922, anti-Treaty forces held the
southern province of Munster and several other areas of the
country. De Valera and the other anti-Treaty TDs sided with the
anti-Treaty IRA. By mid-1922, Collins in effect laid down his
responsibilities as Chairman of the Provisional Government to
become
Commander-in-Chief of the
National Army, a formal, structured,
uniformed army that formed around the nucleus of the pro-Treaty
IRA. The Free State Army that was armed and funded by the British
was rapidly expanded with Irish veterans of the British Army and
young men unassociated with the Volunteers during the war to fight
the civil war.
Collins, along with
Richard Mulcahy
and
Eoin O'Duffy decided on a
series of seaborne landings into
republican held areas that re-took Munster and the west in
July-August 1922. As part of this offensive, Collins travelled to
his native Cork, against the advice of his companions, and despite
suffering from stomach ache and depression. Collins reputedly told
his comrades that "They wouldn't shoot me in my own county." It has
been questioned why Collins put himself in such danger by visiting
the south of the country while much of it was still held by hostile
forces. What historian Michael Hopkinson describes as 'plentiful
oral evidence' suggests that Collins' purpose was to meet
Republican leaders in order to bring the war to an end. In Cork
city, he met with neutral IRA men Sean Hegarty and Florrie
O'Donoghue, with a view to contacting Anti-Treaty IRA leaders
Tom Barry and
Tom Hales to propose a truce.
Hopkinson asserts though that, although Éamon de Valera was in west
Cork at the time, 'there is no evidence that there was any prospect
of a meeting between de Valera and Collins'.
Collins' personal diary outlined his plan for peace. Republicans
must 'accept the People's Verdict' on the Treaty, but could then
'go home without their arms. We don't ask for any surrender of
their principles'. He argued that the Provisional Government was
upholding 'the people's rights' and would continue to do so. 'We
want to avoid any possible unnecessary destruction and loss of
life. We do not want to mitigate their weakness by resolute action
beyond what is required'. But if Republicans did not accept his
terms, 'further blood is on their shoulders'.
Death
The last
known photograph of Collins alive was taken as he made his way
through Bandon,
County Cork
in the back of an army vehicle. He is
pictured outside White's Hotel (now Munster Arms) on 22 August
1922.
On
the road to Bandon, at the village of Béal na
mBláth
(Irish, "the
Mouth of Flowers"), Collins' column stopped to ask
directions. However the man whom they asked, Dinny Long, was
also a member of the local Anti-Treaty IRA. An ambush was then
prepared for the convoy when it made its return journey back to
Cork city. They knew Collins would return by the same route as the
two other roads from Bandon to Cork had been rendered impassable by
Republicans. The ambush party, commanded by
Liam Deasy, had mostly dispersed to a nearby pub
by 8:00 p.m., when Collins and his men returned to Béal na mBlath
but the remaining five ambushers on the scene opened fire on
Collins' convoy. The ambushers had laid a mine on the scene, which
could have killed many more people in Collins' party, however they
had disconnected it by the time the firing broke out.
Collins was killed in the subsequent gun battle, which lasted
approximately 20 minutes, from 8:00 p.m. to 8:20 p.m. He was the
only fatality in the action. He had ordered his convoy to stop and
return fire, instead of choosing the safer option of driving on in
his
touring car or transferring to the
safety of the accompanying
armoured
car, as his companion,
Emmet
Dalton, had wished. He was killed while exchanging rifle fire
with the ambushers. Under the cover of the armoured car, Collins'
body was loaded into the touring car and driven back to Cork.
Collins was 31 years old. At the time of his death, he was engaged
to
Kitty Kiernan.
There is no consensus as to who fired the fatal shot. The most
recent authoritative account suggests that the shot was fired by
Denis ("Sonny") O'Neill, an Anti-Treaty IRA fighter and a former
British Army marksman who died in 1950. This is supported by
eyewitness accounts of the participants in the ambush. O'Neill was
using
dum-dum ammunition, which
disintegrates on impact and which left a gaping wound in Collins'
skull. He dumped the remaining bullets afterwards for fear of
reprisals by Free State troops.
Collins' men brought his body back to Cork where it was then
shipped to Dublin because it was feared the body might be stolen in
an ambush if it were transported by road.
His body lay in state for three days in Dublin City
Hall
where tens of thousands of mourners filed past his
coffin to pay their respects. His
funeral mass took place at Dublin's
Pro
Cathedral where a number of foreign and Irish dignitaries were
in attendance.
Collins' shooting has provoked many
conspiracy theories in Ireland, and even
the identity and motives of the assassin are subject to debate.
Some Republicans maintain that Collins was killed by a British
"plant". Some Pro-Treaty accounts claim that de Valera ordered
Collins' assassination. Others allege that he was killed by one of
his own soldiers, Jock McPeak, who defected to the Republican side
with an armoured car three months after the ambush. However,
historian Meda Ryan, who researched the incident exhaustively,
concluded that there was no real basis for such theories. "Michael
Collins was shot by a Republican, who said [on the night of the
ambush], 'I dropped one man'". Liam Deasy, who was in command of
the ambush party, said, "We all knew it was Sonny O'Neill's
bullet."
Commemoration
An annual commemoration ceremony takes place each year in August at
the ambush site at Beal Na mBlath, Cork. This ceremony is organised
by Frank Metcalfe. In 2009, Mary Robinson gave the oration.
There is also a rememberance ceremony that takes place in Glasnevin
at the graveside of Michael Collins.
Societies
The Collins 22 Society established in 2002 is an international
organisation dedicated to keeping the name and legacy of Michael
Collins in living memory. The patron of the society is Nora Owen,
grand-niece of Michael Collins.
In Popular Culture
Films
The 1936 movie
Beloved Enemy,
starring
David Niven, is a fictionalised
account of Collins' life. Unlike the real Michael Collins, the
fictionalised "Dennis Riordan" (played by
Brian Aherne) is shot, but recovers.
Hang Up Your Brightest
Colours, a British documentary by
Kenneth Griffith, was made for
ITV in 1973, but refused transmission.
It was
eventually screened by the BBC in Wales
in 1993 and
across the United Kingdom the following year.
An
Irish
documentary made by Colm Connolly for RTE Television in 1989 called The Shadow of Béal na
Bláth covered Collins' death. A made for TV film,
The Treaty, was produced in 1991
and starred
Brendan Gleeson as
Collins and
Ian Bannen as
David Lloyd George.
In 1996, Michael Collins became the subject of a film by
director Neil
Jordan titled
Michael
Collins.
Liam Neeson played the
title role, and
Julia Roberts played
Collins' fiancée,
Kitty Kiernan.
Brendan Gleeson played the role of
Collins' aide
Liam Tobin.
Alan Rickman played Éamon de Valera. Michael
Collins' great-grandnephew, Aengus O'Malley, played the part of a
student in a scene filmed in Marsh's Library. Although the film
received praise for bringing Collins' story to a wide international
audience, Irish historians criticised it for its lack of historical
accuracy.
In 2005
Cork Opera
House
commissioned a musical about Collins.
It had a
run in 2009 in Cork opera house and is now having a run in the
Olympia
theatre
in Dublin.In 2007 RTE produced a documentary
entitled
Get Collins.
It
centered around the Intelligence war which took place in Dublin.
Songs
Irish-American
folk rock band
Black 47 recorded a song entitled "
The Big Fellah" which was the first track on
their 1994 album
Home of the
Brave.
It details Collins' career, from the
Easter Rising to his death at Béal na
mBláth. Irish
folk band
the
Wolfe Tones recorded a song titled
"Michael Collins," also about Collins' life and death, although it
begins when he was about 16 and took a job in London. Celtic metal
band
Cruachan recorded a song also
titled "Michael Collins" on their 2004 album
Pagan, which dealt with his role in the
Civil War, the treaty, and eventual death.
See also
Notes
- Dwyer, page 12
- Coogan, page 9
- Examining Irish leader's youthful past - from
the BBC
- Coogan, p. 46
- O'Connor, Frank. The Big Fellow: Michael Collins and the
Irish Revolution, Picador USA, New York (1998), page 37.
- Coogan, pp. 108-112
- Mackay, James. Michael Collins: A Life, p217
- Two Irish
Gaelic titles correspond to the term "Irish Republic":
Saorstát Éireann (which literally meant "Free State of
Ireland") and Poblacht na hÉireann. Irish language purists
preferred the former title, which came from "real", previously
existing Gaelic words, unlike the latter, a specially Gaelicised
word).
- Debate on the Treaty between Great Britain and
Ireland... from University College Cork
- Yale Book of Quotations, p. 165
- Dublin Castle History, chapter 16
- Hopkinson, Michael. Green Against Green, the Irish Civil
War, pp.83-87
- Mackay, James. Michael Collins: A Life, p260
- Dwyer, T. Ryle (2005) The Squad, Dublin,
pp.256-258
- Coogan,
Tim Pat. Michael Collins p.331
- The Politics of the Irish Civil War by Bill Kissane
(ISBN 978-0199273553), page 77
- The Green Flag: The Turbulent History of the Irish National
Movement‎ by Robert Kee (ISBN 978-0140291650), page 739
- p. 122, Tom Garvin (2005) 1922: The Birth of Irish
Democracy. Gill & Macmillan Ltd.
- Barrett, Suzanne (1997) " Michael Collins - Irish Patriot: 1890-1922
Commander-in-Chief, Irish Free State Army"
- Hopkinson, Green against Green, p176
- Hopkinson, Green against Green, p177
- Hopkinson, Green against Green, p 177
- Coogan,
Tim Pat. Michael Collins p.281
- Ryan, Meda The Day Michael Collins Was Shot p.125
- Ryan, Meda The Day Michael Collins Was Shotp. 125,
145
- Ryan, Meda The Day Michael Collins Was Shot p117
- Green, Dana (2004) " Michael Collins: A Beloved Irish Patriot".
Military History Online
- Ryan, Meda The Day Michael Collins Was Shot p.145
- ibid.
- Cork Opera House
- http://www.rte.ie/tv/hiddenhistory/getcollins.html Get
Collins
- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1227857/ Get Collins IMDB
References
- Beaslai, Piaras, Michael Collins and The Making of the New
Ireland. 2 vols. Dublin: Phoenix. 1926.
- Collins, Michael, The Path to Freedom. Dublin: Talbot Press. 1922.
- Coogan, Tim Pat, Michael Collins: The Man Who Made
Ireland. Palgrave Macmillan. 2002.
- Dwyer, T. Ryle, Big Fellow, Long Fellow: A Joint Biography
of Collins and De Valera. St. Martin's Press. 1999.
- Hart, Peter, Mick: The Real Michael Collins. Penguin.
2007.
- O'Connor, Batt, With Michael Collins in the fight for Irish
independence. London : Peter Davies. 1929.
- O'Connor, Frank, The Big Fellow: Michael Collins and the
Irish Revolution. Clonmore & Reynolds. Revised edition,
1965.
- Talbot, Hayden, Michael Collins' Own Story. London: Hutchinson.
1923.
- Taylor, Rex, Michael Collins. Hutchinson. 1958.
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