The Enduring Legacy Of Michael Collins 100 Years On

21 August 2022
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Luke SprouleBBC News NI


"What if Michael Collins had lived?"


That is the question every visitor to the Michael Collins Centre and Museum in Castleview, County Cork, wishes to ask, according to its joint creator Tim Crowley.


Monday marks 100 years since Collins was eliminated in a gun battle in between contending sides in the Irish Civil War.


A century on, there stays a huge interest in "the Big Fella", his role in Irish independence and his enduring legacy.


"A great deal of our visitors are middle-aged and some have moms and dads and grandparents who were involved 100 years back," states Mr Crowley, whose granny was Collins' cousin.


"But then we also have got 14 and 15 years of age who are substantial Collins enthusiasts who can be found in who know what he had for his last breakfast.


"They throw some actually great questions at us."


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Collins was a key figure in the battle for Irish self-reliance and was director of intelligence of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) throughout the War of Independence with Britain, which lasted from January 1919 till July 1921.


But the terms of the peace treaty with Britain, which he signed, were exceptionally questionable and led to a civil war which broke out in June 1922, with the IRA splitting into pro and anti-treaty factions.


Collins was commander-in-chief of the pro-treaty forces, which became the new Irish National Army, but on 22 August 1922 while he was taking a trip through his home county of Cork his convoy was assailed by anti-treaty fighters.


Collins got out of his car to eliminate and in the weapon battle which followed he was shot dead.


He was 31 years old.


At the time of his death he was chairman of the provisional government of the brand-new Irish Free State, in addition to leader of its armed forces.


To this day individuals wonder what might have been if he had made it through and gone on to lead the new state.


"People ask would he have tried to bring about a 32 ? Would he have allowed nationalists in the northern state to have been dealt with the way they were?" Mr Crowley says.


"I believe he was the one leader at that time that the proof suggests had real interest in the northern circumstance.


"In his mind the treaty was simply the beginning."


He believes Collins would have been more strong when it pertained to the Boundary Commission, which was intended to select where the brand-new border between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland need to lie.


In the end, although the commission suggested small transfers of land in both instructions, its suggestions were never ever executed and the border remained the like it was in 1921.


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The civil war left a bitter tradition in Irish society, especially the execution of dozens of anti-treaty fighters by the new provisional federal government.


The very first official executions were performed in November 1922 and they continued till May 1923.


But Prof Marie Coleman, professor of 20th Century Irish history at Queen's University, Belfast, does not think this would have been any various had Collins not been eliminated.


"There has been a great deal of speculation that the course of the civil war might have been different, that perhaps the acrimony of the executions might have been different," she states.


"I see nothing to suggest that Collins would have prosecuted the war any differently.


"Arguably, he had more at stake in defending the treaty settlement because he had actually been a signatory of the treaty.


"He showed nothing between June and August 1922 to recommend that he would have been any softer on the republican side than Richard Mulcahy was after him."


Collins' killing came just 10 days after the death of Arthur Griffith - another key figure in the fight for Irish independence.


Other popular leaders such as Éamon De Valera were now on the anti-treaty side.


But Prof Coleman says those who filled the vacuum were likewise capable leaders.


"Griffith was replaced by WT Cosgrave who was most likely the most knowledgeable political leader in Sinn Féin," she states.


"Collins was changed by Richard Mulcahy, who had been the chief of staff of the IRA during the War of Independence.


"So probably, in fact, he understood more about running the army than Collins would have done."


There is still no arrangement on who fired the fatal shot that eliminated Collins, which has left area for a variety of theories and conspiracies.


Mr Crowley says the occasions of Collins' last day are the most popular part of the museum and centre which he runs, with visitors always keen to inquire about who was responsible for his death.


"People are interested by the reality he passed away the way he did," he states.


"He passed away a hero's death with a gun in his hand, you could not make it up."


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On Sunday, Mr Crowley will go to the official ceremonies and on Monday the centre is running a journey to several places connected with Collins, including the scene of his death at Béal na Bláth where they will hold a minute's silence at the time Collins was shot.


Among the more questionable aspects of Collins' tradition stays the fact he concurred to the Anglo-Irish Treaty.


It produced the Irish Free State but within the British Empire and with the British King as president, who Irish TDs (MPs) were needed to swear an oath of allegiance to.


It likewise confirmed the partition of Ireland and the creation of Northern Ireland.


"Some people say to us that Michael Collins was not a republican," Mr Crowley states.


"But I would state he was a practical republican with a plan that could really be successful.


"He was the sort of leader who only occurs for a nation as soon as in a thousand years."