Michael Collins: A Biography

Product Information

This pact agreed that new elections to the Dáil would be held with each candidate running as explicitly pro- or anti-Treaty and that, regardless of which side obtained a majority, the two factions would then join to form a coalition government of national unity. In 1921 General Macready, commander of British forces in Ireland, reported to his government that the Empire's only hope of holding Ireland was by martial law, including the suspension of "all normal life". In a departure from his usual role, de Valera adamantly declined to attend, insisting instead that Collins should take his place there, along with Arthur Griffith. When President of the Irish Republic Michael Collins signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921, he remarked to Lord Birkenhead, 'I may have signed my actual death warrant. Michael Collins has exercised an enduring fascination since his untimely death in 1922 at the age of thirty-one.

These were re-printed with additions in Rex Taylor's 1961 book, Assassination: the death of Sir Henry Wilson and the tragedy of Ireland. In mid-1919, he was made Director of Intelligence for the Irish Republican Army which now had a mandate to pursue an armed campaign, as the official military of the Irish nation. More than 500 people were killed, more than 8,000 workers were driven out of their jobs, and more than 10,000 became refugees – mostly from the Catholic minority (see The Troubles in Northern Ireland (1920–1922)). 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.

For the first time all the strands of the adventure with its cast of disparate characters are woven together, resulting in a riveting account. Provisional government [ edit ] Michael Collins addresses a crowd in Skibbereen on Saint Patrick's Day, 1922. Unlike their rivals in the Irish Parliamentary Party, Sinn Féin MPs had announced that they would not take their seats in Westminster but instead would set up an Irish Parliament in Dublin.

In addition, Britain's efforts at a military solution had already resulted in a powerful peace movement, which demanded an end to the unrest in Ireland. Now standing in the open, he fired a couple of shots and as he was once more working the bolt of his rifle he was struck in the head by a bullet believed to have been fired by one of the ambushing party – Denis "Sonny" O'Neill, a former British Army sniper. NumerousA policeman was shot dead in Belfast and in reprisal, police broke into Catholic homes nearby and shot residents in their beds, including children (see McMahon killings). He was a member of the London GAA, through which he became associated with the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Gaelic League. He argued that the Provisional Government was upholding "the people's rights" and would continue to do so. He expressed the belief in January 1920 that “people who are very busy are never so busy that they cannot do something extra”. Arrangements were made for a conference between British government and the leaders of the yet-unrecognised Republic.

Collins also conducted a series of meetings, regarding the possibility of peace talks in Cork on 21–22 August 1922. His father, Michael John (1816–1897), was a farmer and amateur mathematician, who had been a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) movement.To be so installed he had to formally meet the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland Viscount FitzAlan the head of the British administration in Ireland. Coogan has written extensively on this period, and has documented the conflicts which accompanied the the Easter uprising and the Civil war. Shot while he crossed the pavement from a parked taxi to the door of his house, Wilson suffered six wounds - two of them fatal - to the chest. Collins was the only fatality sustained in the ambush, although another member of his party suffered a neck wound. Let me preface this review by saying that I have long admired Michael Collins as a statesman and an organisational genius.

In the ensuing War of Independence, he was Director of Organisation and Adjutant General for the Irish Volunteers, and Director of Intelligence of the IRA.Collins, Dick McKee and regional commanders such as Dan Breen and Tom Barry oversaw tactics and general strategy. In addition, the force which by the will of the electorate he was obliged to lead had been re-organised since the Truce. He had refused the delegates' continual requests for instruction, and in fact had been at the centre of the original decision to enter negotiations without the possibility of an independent republic on the table. Society ladies Moya Llewylen Davies and Lady Hazel Lavery were conduits between Collins and the British Establishment and active participants in his work of espionage.