Michael Collins: A Biography

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Michael Collins ( Irish: Mícheál Ó Coileáin; [1] 16 October 1890 – 22 August 1922) was an Irish revolutionary, soldier and politician who was a leading figure in the early-20th century struggle for Irish independence. Collins, Richard Mulcahy, and Eoin O'Duffy decided on a series of seaborne landings into republican held areas, which re-took Munster and the west in July–August. De Valera, whose legacy will always be linked to that of Collins’, is a heavy presence in the book, but I was surprised to see that the main anatagonism was not at first between De Valera and Collins, but between Collins and Cathal Brugha, who reminded me a little of Cato the Younger to Collins’ Caesar.

When Asquith introduced his bill for Home Rule for Ireland in 1912, he sparked a decade of turbulence and violence for Ireland and her people. Along with Julius Caesar, Ahmad Shah Massoud and probably Trotsky*, Collins has shaped and influenced my perspective on politics ever since I was introduced to his larger-than-life story through Neil Jordan’s 1996 biopic.

This led to his appointment as financial advisor to Count Plunkett, father of one of the Easter Rising's organisers, Joseph Plunkett. He looks at Collins's 10 years in London working for the post office and financial institutions (1906-1916), noting that, through the experience, he came to know the British well.

The Supreme Council of the IRB had been informed in detail about every facet of the Treaty negotiations and had approved many of its provisions, and all but one voted to accept the Treaty – the single exception being Liam Lynch, later Chief-of-Staff of the anti-Treaty IRA.

Individual English activists, including clergy, made private overtures which reached Arthur Griffith. No state gave diplomatic recognition to the Irish Republic, despite sustained lobbying in Washington by de Valera and prominent Irish-Americans and at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Many of Collins' associates warned him not to go, that he was being set up as a political scapegoat. 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. In 1920, following Westminster's prominent announcements that it had the Irish insurgents on the run, Collins and his Squad killed several people in a series of coordinated raids, including a number of British secret service agents.

In the 1918 general election Sinn Féin swept the polls throughout much of Ireland, with many seats uncontested, and formed an overwhelming parliamentary majority in Ireland. About the same time, Tom Barry's 3rd Cork Brigade took no prisoners in a bitter battle with British forces at Kilmichael. In spring 1922, Collins, along with other IRB and IRA leaders, developed secret plans for a guerrilla offensive in Northern Ireland. The legislature's support for the armed struggle soon after became official, with the Dáil ratifying the IRA's claim to be the army of the Irish Republic. The execution of major players of the rising like Thomas Clarke, Patrick Pearse and James Connolly, created a vacuum that had to be filled by younger figures like De Valera and Collins.On 27 June they arrested anti-Treaty IRA officer Leo Henderson as he was enforcing the Belfast Boycott by seizing cars. Kitty Kiernan ended up being engaged to Collins even though for a while it seemed to everyone that she was fond of Boland. Negotiations to prevent civil war resulted in, among others, "The Army Document" published in May 1922 which was signed by an equal number of pro- and anti-Treaty IRA officers including Collins, Dan Breen, and Gearóid O'Sullivan.

De Valera was widely acknowledged as the most skillful negotiator on the Dáil government side and he participated in the initial parlays, agreeing the basis on which talks could begin.

Born in Clonakilty, County Cork, in 1890, Collins joined Sinn Féin at age 18 and later took part in the 1916 Rising.