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, desires to ask, according to its Tim Crowley.


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


A century on, there stays a huge interest in "the Big Fella", his function in Irish independence and his long-lasting legacy.


"A lot of our visitors are middle-aged and some have parents and grandparents who were included 100 years back," states Mr Crowley, whose grandma was Collins' cousin.


"But then we also have actually 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 really good concerns at us."


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Collins was a key figure in the fight for Irish independence and was director of intelligence of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) throughout the War of Independence with Britain, which lasted from January 1919 up until July 1921.


But the terms of the peace treaty with Britain, which he signed, were exceptionally controversial 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 fight and in the weapon battle which followed he was shot dead.


He was 31 years of ages.


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


To this day individuals question what may have been if he had endured and gone on to lead the new state.


"People ask would he have attempted to bring about a 32 county settlement? Would he have enabled nationalists in the northern state to have been treated the method they were?" Mr Crowley states.


"I think he was the one leader at that time that the evidence recommends had real interest in the northern situation.


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


He believes Collins would have been more powerful when it concerned the Boundary Commission, which was meant to select where the brand-new border in between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland should lie.


In the end, although the commission recommended small transfers of land in both instructions, its suggestions were never ever carried out and the border stayed the same as it remained in 1921.


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The civil war left a bitter legacy in Irish society, particularly the execution of lots of anti-treaty fighters by the new provisional federal government.


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


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


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


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


"Arguably, he had more at stake in defending the treaty settlement since 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 crucial figure in the fight for Irish independence.


Other prominent 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 changed by WT Cosgrave who was probably the most knowledgeable political leader in Sinn Féin," she says.


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


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


There is still no arrangement on who fired the deadly shot that killed Collins, which has actually left space for a variety of theories and conspiracies.


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


"People are amazed by the truth he died the way he did," he states.


"He died a hero's death with a gun in his hand, you couldn't make it up."


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On Sunday, Mr Crowley will go to the main ceremonies and on Monday the centre is running a trip to several areas related to Collins, consisting of 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 consented to the Anglo-Irish Treaty.


It created the Irish Free State however within the British Empire and with the British King as head of state, who Irish TDs (MPs) were needed to swear an oath of obligation to.


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


"Some individuals say to us that Michael Collins was not a republican politician," Mr Crowley says.


"But I would say he was a pragmatic republican with a strategy that could in fact prosper.


"He was the sort of leader who only occurs for a country once in a thousand years."