"Give us the future, we’ve had enough of your past.
Give us back our country… to live in – to grow in – to love.”
- Michael Collins
The life and times of Michael Collins
Michael James Collins was born into a farming family in the townland of Woodfield, near Clonakilty in Co. Cork on the 16th October 1890. He attended his local village National School at Lisavaird as a young boy and later in his early teens he attended evening classes in Clonakilty boy’s national school.
In July 1906 Collins emigrated to London, and took up a position as a clerk in the Post Office Savings Bank.
In his spare time Collins became involved with Irish organisations including the Gaelic Athletic Association in London and was sworn into the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB): an organisation dedicated to establishing an independent democratic republic in Ireland. He later joined the Irish Volunteers which would later become the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
In January 1916 Collins in order to avoid conscription into the British Army to fight in the first World War, left London and returned to Ireland.
Beginning on the 24th of April 1916 an armed rebellion, against the British government, was mounted by a group of Irish republicans in Dublin during Easter week; they declared an independent Irish republic. As a captain in the Irish Volunteers, Collins fought in the GPO, the rebel headquarters. After five and a half days of fighting the rebels surrender Collins was arrested, was transported to Stafford prison in England and later to Fron-goch internment camp in northern Wales.
Collins was released from Fron-goch and returned to Ireland and Clonakilty at Christmas 1916.
In February 1917 Collins was back in Dublin and appointed secretary of the Irish National Aid Association; his role was to provide financial aid to relatives of Irish political prisoners and those killed in the Easter Rising.
Throughout 1918 and 1919 Collins also became involved with the political party Sinn Fein and the IRA, setting up an intelligence network, propaganda machine and arms-smuggling network.
In late 1918 a general election was held in the United Kingdom and seventy-three Sinn Féin candidates were elected in Ireland, including Michael Collins as MP for South Cork.
On the 21st of January 1919 instead of taking up their seats in the House of Commons in London, the Sinn Féin MPs set up their own parliament in Dublin called Dáil Éireann and Collins was appointed Minster for Finance.
On the same day at Soloheadbeg in Tipperary, the IRA shot two policemen dead. This action marked the beginning of the Irish War of Independence.
Collins soon became Director of Intelligence and Director of Operations within the IRA. The IRA set out to make Ireland ungovernable for the British by organising a campaign of shooting policemen and burning police barracks. They targeted the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and the Dublin Metropolitan Police.
In 1920 two special forces were sent into Ireland by the British to strengthen the failing RIC. They were former British soldiers and officers and were known as the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries. Through their indiscipline and cruelty, they alienated themselves from the civilian population and created further problems for the British government.
At 9:30am on Sunday the 21st of November 1920 in an operation organized by Collins and other IRA officers IRA men, in various locations around Dublin city centre, shot dead twelve British officers. That afternoon, fourteen civilians died in a reprisal attack by British forces on a Gaelic football match in Croke Park in Dublin, the day afterwards became known as Bloody Sunday.
Tom Barry’s 3rd Cork Brigade flying column of the IRA ambushed a patrol British Auxiliaries on Sunday the 28th of November 1920 at Kilmichael in mid county Cork. Eighteen British died and three IRA men also killed.
On Saturday the 16th of October the Essex Regiment of the British army burnt the Collins family homestead in Woodfield.
The Irish War of Independence ended when the Anglo-Irish Truce came into effect on the 11th of July 1921.
Collins went to London in October 1921 as part of the Irish delegation to negotiate a peace settlement with the British government and on the 6th of December the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed in London. Collins was one of the signatories of the Treaty.
The agreement provided for the establishment of the Irish Free State in twenty-six of the thirty-two counties of Ireland, with the British retaining control over six counties in the north eastern corner of the island.
From December 1921 into January of 1922 the Dáil Éireann parliament, in Dublin, debated the Treaty. During the bitter debate the Dáil split along pro-treaty and anti-treaty lines, but the Treaty was eventually, narrowly, ratified by seven votes.
On January 11th 1922 Michael Collins was appointed Chairman of the new Provisional Government of the Irish Free State.
With Sinn Féin and the IRA split over the Treaty, on the 14 April 1922 an anti-treaty IRA faction took over the Four Courts complex of buildings in Dublin and set up a garrison.
A general election was held on the 16th of June 1922 in the twenty-six counties, which would later become the Irish Free State. Pro-treaty candidates won the majority of support from the public in the vote.
In Dublin on the 28th of June 1922 after a period of instability in the South of Ireland the anti-treaty IRA garrison in the Four Courts was shelled by the pro-treaty National Army (later known as the Free State Army) on the orders of Michael Collins. This action marked the beginning of the Irish Civil War.
Michael Collins resigned as Chairman of the Provisional Government on the 12th of July 1922 and became Commander-in-chief of the National Army
On Sunday the 20th of August 1922 General Collins left Dublin and headed south to Co. Cork on a tour of inspection.
During the tour of inspection in West Cork on Tuesday August 22nd, Collins and his convoy visited the following places in this order: Macroom, Béal na Blá, Bandon, Clonakilty, Skibbereen, Sam’s Cross and then back to Clonakilty and Bandon. While traveling from Bandon to Cork city Michael Collins died in action at about 8pm during a skirmish at Béal na Blá with Anti-Treaty IRA forces, who were dismantling an ambush when the Collins convoy came upon them.
Michael Collins was buried on Monday the 28th of August 1922 in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, following a huge Military funeral.