Mick Clifford: Michael Collins — 'the man who won the war' — showed grit from an early age

The sun had yet to set on Britain’s empire. Its armed forces had a few short years earlier been the main component in winning World War I. 

In attempting to quell the Irish resistance, the British government had sent in a brutal paramilitary force, the Black and Tans, who were given free rein to spread terror. Yet in the end, the empire’s agents had to concede that its oldest conquest would not be defeated. There would have to be a settlement that involved some measure of independence for John Bull’s other island.

The result was astounding, and the central figure in fashioning a historical victory was Michael Collins. 

Arthur Griffith would describe him as “the man who won the war”. He served as Director of Intelligence for the IRA which prosecuted the war and the Minister for Finance in the provisional government, which had been convened in defiance of British rule. All of this he had achieved by the age of 30.

Collins was born on 16 October 1890 in Woodfield outside of Clonakilty. He was the youngest of eight children. His father, Michael John, was 60 when he married 23-year-old Mary Anne O’Brien in 1876. The marriage was by all accounts happy.

When Michael was seven his father died. At the age of 15, Michael immigrated to London and joined the post office. 

In London, he became immersed in the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). One report suggests that he was introduced to the secret organisation by fellow west Cork man, Sam Maguire.

In January 1916, Collins went to Dublin in anticipation of a Rising. Despite his youth, he was quickly spotted as a revolutionary with potential and was appointed Aide de Camp to Proclamation signatory Joseph Plunkett, at whose side he fought in the GPO during Easter week. Afterwards, his status grew among the detained Rebels in Stafford Jail and Frognach. By the time he was released in December of that year he was a leading figure in the movement.

In 1917, he was put in charge of finances, a role, according to UCC historian Gabriel Doherty, that was ideal in preparing for the conflict to come.

“When he’s in charge of finances he goes around the country, meeting families of those still in prison, making judgments as to their needs. He forms an impression of the strength of support there is and puts a network in place. He was scrupulous in his conduct with finances and the energy he displayed and his general demeanour marked him out as somebody who would go far.” 

Most wanted man in Ireland

In the general election of 1918, he was elected in the Cork South constituency and appointed Minister of Finance by the first Dáil. From there, his activities grew into the status of legend. 

For over two years he evaded the British even when he was the most wanted man in Ireland. His intelligence network was vital in negating the threat of the enemy, culminating with the shooting dead of fourteen British agents and spies on the morning of 21 November 1920.

That afternoon, the British force took out their revenge at a football match in Croke Park, killing 14 people and injuring up to 60, in what became known as Bloody Sunday.

Through it all, Collins maintained his focus and following soundings from the British, a ceasefire was called and came into effect on July 11, 1921. The result represented a massive leap towards a form of independence for Ireland and Collins had been central to achieving it.

His stock was at its highest, his appeal as widespread as it would ever be, his followers united in a manner that would never again be achieved.

The second date of note in Collins’ life fell five months later on December 6, 1921. Early that morning in London he applied his signature to the Anglo-Irish Treaty. 

This was the reality that was about to split romantic Ireland. The Republic, proclaimed on the steps of the GPO five and a half years earlier would not be achieved. Ireland was not going to break from the empire and establish a country where the Irish people would enjoy “the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible”.

Collins’ status rendered him the de facto head of the delegation that sat down to negotiate with the British cabinet. He was sent, many would say manipulated, by Eamon de Valera, who himself knew that the mythical Republic was never on the table. 

Collins didn’t want to go, but neither would he shirk what he considered his duty. In the end, he signed because he knew there was no alternative that didn’t involve further death and destruction without any corresponding achievement.

“My view is that he took the position (in the treaty negotiations) after weeks and months of talking face to face with the British,” Mr Doherty says.

“They had gone as far as they could in terms of getting concession. The chances of getting a Republic with no ties to Britain was not on the cards. He also knew that if you go back to war you are not going to beat the British and you’re going to have exactly the same decisions to make, exactly the same compromises at a future date.”

On signing the document, Lord Birkenhead turned to Collins and mused on the fact that this treaty would be considered a concession too far on the empire for many in British politics. 

“I think I have just signed my political death warrant,” Birkenhead said.

Collins replied: “I have just signed my actual death warrant.” 

Mr Doherty is in no doubt that Collins knew that having achieved more for Ireland than had ever previously been done, a degree of freedom that would have been unthinkable just a few short years ago, it wasn’t going to be enough.

Remember, that just before signing, the delegates had been back to Dublin and people like Cathal Brugha made it abundantly clear that they weren’t going to accept the text as it was and given what had happened over the previous five years, Collins must have known there was a danger that this would rebound on him. 

The third date in Collins destiny is June 28, 1922. At around 4.30am that morning, he ordered the National Army to begin shelling the Four Courts, where anti-treaty forces had been holed up. 

He was at that point head of the provisional government and commander in chief of the national army. As such he was far and away the most powerful figure in the nascent free state.

For six months he had tried to avoid a violent split. He, and others on the anti-treaty side, made repeated efforts to find a path out of the impasse. 

Along with the political head of the anti treatyites, de Valera, he had signed up to a pact for the election a few weeks previously that effectively acted as a plebiscite on the treaty. Around three-quarters of the voters in the 26 counties backed the decision to accept the British offer. Many among the military wing did so largely because they trusted and admired Collins.

Meanwhile, the anti-treaty forces were preparing for war. And the British were in Collins ear telling him he would have to take them on.

Then, on June 22, Sir Henry Wilson, former head of the British armed forces in Ireland and subsequently a rabid unionist, was shot dead in London. The British blamed the anti-treatyites. 

Ironically, the actual order to assassinate Wilson may have come from Collins the previous year prior to the truce. Now Lloyd George was telling Collins either he gets the anti-treatyites out of the Four Courts or the British will.

So it was that the Civil War began. One can only imagine the anguish Collins felt as he ordered that guns be turned on the comrades with whom he had fought so closely, with whom he had dreamed and lived, just a short time earlier. The trajectory of his own fate was now set firmly in motion.

The outcome of the Civil War was determined within weeks under Collins’ command. The anti-treaty forces were hunted from Dublin, and within weeks chased out of the southern cities of Cork and Limerick. Their continued existence now depended on their ability to strike occasionally, but there would be no take over of the state by de Valera’s comrades.

On August 21, Collins travelled to Cork and stayed in the Imperial Hotel. The following day he set off for his own area of west Cork, finally arriving in Clonakilty. 

On the way back to the city, the convoy was ambused by anti-treaty forces at Béal na Bláth, the mouth of the flowers. Collins was the only casualty. 

Some speculated that his lack of frontline combat contributed to a degree of carelessness on his part during the exchanges of fire. The Big Fellow, as he was known, was dead within minutes of being shot in the head. The Lost Leader was born into immortality.

There has been a century’s worth of projection, speculations, what if-ism about the kind of Ireland that Collins would have fashioned had he lived. 

Fine Gael claims him as theirs, yet there is little in Collins public life that suggests he would have found a comfortable home in that party. Fianna Fáil has its own icon, founder Eamon De Valera, so have always kept their distance from Collins.

Sinn Féin always regarded him as having sold out on the people of the North, a charge that does not stand up to any kind of rigorous scrutiny.

Mr Doherty mentions an alternative history which has been pushed by some over the decades.

“There are theses that what he might have done is become a kind of generalismo character, of which there were few prevalent at the time.

"There have been comparisons with Polsudski in Poland who was a military figure involved in getting that country’s independence around that time. He took part in politics and retired and when he saw things were going in the wrong direction he launched a coup. 

"Then he took a back seat but let it be known that if things went wrong again he might step in. Some speculate that Collins might have had such kudos that if he lived he may have been tempted to go into a role like that.” 

So goes the what ifs. What did happen was that the State that grew out of the Anglo-Irish treaty was one of the very few which got its independence in the early 20th century and managed to retain its status as a democracy thereafter. There was much that was wrong with the country that evolved.

Some big mistakes were made economically. The dominance of the church stifled political thought and ensured that those who didn’t conform to its strictures were treated appallingly. Yet, would things have been any better had the military intervened, or, for instance, a communist uprising occurred?

Ultimately, Michael Collins’ legacy is that he was the leading figure in bringing a large section of the Irish people to what was a promised land. 

Like Moses, he didn’t make it himself, but he did more than anybody else to ensure that after eight hundred years, the destiny of a large chunk of the island would no longer be determined in London.