Tomorrow, 22 August, is the 101st anniversary of the death of Michael Collins. If you (like us) are not up on your Irish history, you may not know much about him. Aside from the 1996 film starring Liam Neeson (not popular here, incidentally). We keep coming across mentions and memorials of him. And a few weeks back we saw his grave during a visit to Glasnevin Cemetery. So we thought it was time to say a bit more about him.
Michael Collins was born in County Cork on 16 October 1890, the youngest of eight children. His father, also named Michael, had married at the age of 60 a woman 37 years his junior. He was 74 when his last child was born, and died when Michael was six years old. Michael’s mother, Mary Anne (neé O’Brien) took over the running of their 90-acre (36-hectare) farm. Already as a child he had the nickname, ‘The Big Fellow’, which he carried with him into adulthood.
He left school at the age of 15 and worked in London and then in New York. In 1916 he returned to Ireland, joining an accounting firm in Dublin. Since 1909, he had been a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, a secret society whose goal was Irish independence (his father was also a member). Soon he began to work with other organisations committed to the same goal.
He fought at the Easter Rising in 1916, at the General Post Office on O’Connell Street. The Rising fell within six days. Collins was taken prisoner and moved to the Frongoch internment camp in Wales. By the time the prisoners were freed in December 1916, Collins had made connections with ‘physical-force republicans’ and become an accomplished organiser. Within a year, he became a member of the executive of Sinn Féin. (This organisation still exists, but has seen many splits over the years including up to today).
In the 1918 general elections, Collins was elected as MP for Cork South. Like many, he refused to take his seat in the House of Commons in London. He instead worked to set up an independent Irish parliament – which no government at the time recognised – and declared Irish independence at the beginning of 1919. This marked the beginning of the Irish war of independence, which lasted until 1921. Each side engaged in assassinations on opposing leaders. Collins himself had set up a special unit called ‘The Squad’, whose aim was to kill British agents and informers.
A truce was arranged. Collins, unwillingly, went as part of the delegation sent to London to negotiate terms. The Anglo-Irish treaty, signed on 6 December 1921, provided for the Irish Free State, with a status equivalent to Australia or Canada. The King of England remained its head of state. It also provided for Northern Ireland’s withdrawal from the Free State. These results were far from what many wanted – a unified Ireland entirely independent of England – but the Irish parliament narrowly approved the treaty, 64-57.
Dissatisfaction with the treaty led eventually to the Irish Civil War from June 1922 to May 1923 between the provisional goverment of Ireland and the Irish Republican Army. Many who had been close friends and allies during the war for independence now found themselves on different sides. For reasons that are perhaps obvious, this struggle remains a painful, almost taboo, subject today. The divisions that came to the fore then have receded but not disappeared.
During this period Collins was in a difficult position, trying to reconcile the pro- and anti-treaty IRA factions. He was also under increasing pressure from the British to subdue the anti-treaty faction that had taken over the Four Courts buildings in Dublin. His forces were successful to a point, in that they eventually took control of Dublin, but the anti-treaty forces dispersed to other parts of the country. By August 1922, however, most of the violence had died down. Collins decided to visit Country Cork, his home, despite advice against it. (It remained a stronghold of anti-treaty forces.) There on 22 August, he was shot and killed in an ambush. The details of what happened that day remain unclear; eveywitnesses gave contradictory testimony.
Ireland’s full independence had to wait for almost another thirty years, until 18 April 1949, when the country finally left the British Commonwealth and became an independent country.
