Michael Collins: A Biography

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A chapter is devoted to Collins’s death, highlighting how immediately afterwards the myth-making was in full flow, with a statement from army headquarters suggesting “forgive them” were his last words. He was then Chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State from January 1922 and commander-in-chief of the National Army from July until his death in an ambush in August 1922, during the Civil War.

Kitty Kiernan ended up being engaged to Collins even though for a while it seemed to everyone that she was fond of Boland. A replica of the Crossley Tender in Collins' convoy on a replica of the road where it happened [125] A newspaper in Boston—a U. While the country teetered on the edge of civil war, continuous meetings were carried on among the various factions from January to June 1922.Before the new body's first meeting, Collins, tipped off by his network of spies, warned his colleagues of plans to arrest all its members in overnight raids. On second reading the closing paragraph even serves as a powerful reminder to me of how personal grudges more often than not determine the course of history whether we like it or not. A large part of the Irish Republican Army opposed the Treaty and in March 1922 voted at an Army Convention to reject the authority of the Dail, Collins' GHQ and to elect their own Executive.

Collins spent much of this period helping to organise the Volunteers as an effective military force, and concentrating on forcing the RIC – which represented British authority in Ireland – out of isolated barracks and seizing their weapons. The quality of the stylish, spiky prose is also noteworthy, though it does occasionally become overwrought and indulgent. There he fought alongside Patrick Pearse, James Connolly, and other members of the Rising leadership. Collins was determined to avoid the massive destruction, military and civilian losses for merely symbolic victories that had characterised the 1916 Rising. I signed it because I would not be one of those to commit the Irish people to war without the Irish people committing themselves to war.

It decided to proceed to a peace conference, although it was ascertained in the preliminary stages that a fully independent republic would not be on the table and that the loss of some northeastern counties was a foregone conclusion. Lyons was a member of the IRB, while Santry's family had participated in, and forged arms for, the rebellions of 1798, 1848 and 1867. He was taken prisoner and held in the Frongoch internment camp as a prisoner of war, but he was released in December 1916. He drew up a republican constitution which, without repudiating the Treaty, would include no mention of the British King. Lloyd George, the Prime Minister, sent a letter to Collins saying that the 'ambiguous position' of the Provisional Government with regard to the IRA in the Four Courts could no longer be tolerated.

Also controversial was the British retention of Treaty Ports on the south coast of Ireland for the Royal Navy.As to his authoritarian tendencies in the aftermath of the treaty and during the civil war, when he was chairman of the provisional government and then commander-in-chief of the Free State Army, the authors are somewhat sceptical of the accusation that he was contemptuous of democracy.