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 considering that Collins was killed in a gun fight in between contending sides in the Irish Civil War.


A century on, there remains a huge interest in "the Big Fella", his function in Irish self-reliance 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 earlier," states Mr Crowley, whose granny was Collins' cousin.


"But then we likewise have actually got 14 and 15 year olds who are huge Collins fanatics who come in who know what he had for his last breakfast.


"They throw some truly excellent concerns at us."


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


But the regards to the peace treaty with Britain, which he signed, were very controversial and caused a civil war which broke out in June 1922, with the IRA splitting into professional and anti-treaty factions.


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


Collins got out of his car to fight and in the weapon fight 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 new Irish Free State, along with leader of its armed forces.


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


"People ask would he have tried to produce a 32 county settlement? Would he have enabled nationalists in the northern state to have been treated the way they were?" Mr Crowley states.


"I think he was the one leader at that time that the evidence suggests had genuine interest in the northern circumstance.


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


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


In the end, although the commission suggested little transfers of land in both instructions, its suggestions were never ever executed and the border remained the same as 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 first authorities 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 believe this would have been any different had actually Collins not been eliminated.


"There has actually been a lot of speculation that the course of the civil war could have been different, that perhaps the acrimony of the executions might have been various," she says.


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


"Arguably, he had more at stake in protecting the treaty settlement due to the fact that he had actually been a signatory of the treaty.


"He revealed nothing in between June and August 1922 to suggest that he would have been any softer on the republican side than Richard Mulcahy wanted him."


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


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


But Prof Coleman states those who filled the vacuum were also capable leaders.


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


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


"So most likely, in fact, 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 left space for a variety of theories and conspiracies.


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


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


"He passed away a hero's death with a weapon in his hand, you couldn't make it up."


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On Sunday, Mr Crowley will go to the main commemorations and on Monday the centre is running a journey to several locations 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.


One of the more controversial aspects of Collins' legacy stays the reality he concurred to the Anglo-Irish Treaty.


It developed the Irish Free State but 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 verified 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 say he was a practical republican with a strategy that might in fact succeed.


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