581. The Irish Civil War: The Killing of Michael Collins (Part 2)

0:10My dear Miss Collins, don't let them make you miserable about it. How could a born soldier die better Than at the victorious end of a good fight Falling to the shot of another Irishman A damn fool But all the same an Irishman Who thought he was fighting for Ireland A Roman to a Roman I met Michael for the first and last time On Saturday last And I'm very glad I did I rejoice in his memory I will not be so disloyal as to snivel Over his valiant death So treat up your mourning And hang up your brightest colours in his honour Let us all praise God that he did not die in a snuffy bed of a trumpery cough, weakened by age and saddened by the disappointments that would have attended his work had he lived.

0:55So that, ladies and gentlemen, was original authentic archive of George Bernard Shaw writing to Hannie Collins, the sister of Michael Collins, on the 25th of August 1922. and three days earlier, Michael Collins, surely the most charismatic of all Ireland's independence heroes, the Director of Intelligence of the Irish Republican Army, signatory to the Anglo-Irish Treaty, and then the Head of Government, the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State and Commander of its National Army. He had been shot dead by his former comrades at a crossroads near Bail-Nablor in rural County Cork. Tom, you know I'm a great fan of County Cork, and this is one of the most hotly debated moments in all Irish history, isn't it?

1:37Some people see it as a tragedy. Others see it as, you know, Collins got his just desserts. A massive turning point in Ireland's history. Well, is it? We'll discuss that, whether Collins would have set Ireland on a different course. But certainly it is the most emblematic moment in this terrible conflict, which follows on directly from the Irish War of Independence. And you see people who had been fighting the British turning on themselves. And it's a moment in Irish history that is much less commemorated in Irish memory for obvious reasons, because all the romance, all the poetry of the War of Independence, it gets dissolved and crushed and ends up with this kind of squalid moment where the great hero of the Irish War of Independence is lying dead in his own county.

2:28Well, I think getting two Oxbridge Englishmen to talk about the Irish Civil War is madness. So the great news is that we're still in the four courts in Dublin, which is where the civil war started. So if you hear Laurie's rumbling past, that is why. But the most exciting thing, we are joined by a great friend of The Rest is History, distinguished journalist for the Irish Times, the author of a brilliant book on the assassination of Sir Henry Wilson, Great Hatred, our pal Ronan McGreevy. Ronan, welcome back to The Rest is History. Thank you so much, Starlink. So let's remind ourselves what's been going on.

2:59I'll attempt to summarise the world's most complicated historical question in about 40 seconds. So there's been a huge split over the Anglo-Irish Treaty, a split both in the Irish nationalist elite and in the Irish Republican Army in the early months of 1922. And anti-treaty IRA men have occupied the building we're in right now, the Four Courts. And Dominic, do you know what the Daily Mail said about this? They said that this sort of thing must stop. Yeah, they were right. Which I think is a very fucking fine. I think Arthur Ted approached the complexities of Irish history. So the anti-treaty IRA men have been in this building.

3:34The trigger comes when Sir Henry Wilson, as we talked about last time, is assassinated in Belgravia in London. The British, particularly Lloyd George and Churchill, effectively deliver an ultimatum to the provisional government. And we ended last time with these howitzers on the bridges outside where we are now being brought up. British guns opening fire and shelling the building. So Ronan, take us through the story. What happens next? Because the fighting lasts for three days, I think, in this building. So the fighting lasts for three days in the forecourts. First of all, they had to find some people to operate the guns.

4:09And this is an interesting part of the Civil War, is that there's a huge number of former British soldiers in the National Army. So initially they hadn't embedded the guns down properly and the shells were flying way over the forecourts. Don't they hit the British headquarters on the other side? Yes, they did, yes. And they were very, very inaccurate. But then eventually they did find their range and they started to, at really point blank range, started to make holes in the walls here. And it was a very dangerous thing that they were doing. I mean, they were basically storming the building. But on the third day, just when the garrison inside, their situation is hopeless, they're not able to escape, the Public Records Office, which is on the site here, is blown up in a massive explosion.

4:55Public Records Office is the Irish National Archive. It's the archive going back to the 12th century and everything in there is destroyed. The census going back to the first part of the pre-famine census going back to 1821. Chancery records, grants of land, payments made to spies, payments made to headhunters, the records of the various chief secretaries to Ireland, centuries of Church of Ireland parish records, everything goes up in this massive conflagration. And there's a famous quote in Ernie O'Malley's book. Ernie O'Malley was one of the anti-treaty and he was talking about this white rain that was coming down, this paper that was coming down on top of the people of Dublin.

5:42So basically the archives were destroyed. That's the most famous thing about the battle for the forecourts. It lasts three days. The garrison surrenders and the provisional government hopes that's the end of it. But the anti-treaties decide to fight on. So the fight moves to O 'Connell Street, which is the site in 1916 where the GPO is located. And the whole of the west side of O 'Connell Street had been very badly damaged in the 1916 rise. And so now it was the turn of the east side, northeast side, where there was a whole hotel complex, which was the Dublin IRA was located. And so, again, the 18 pounders are opened up and there's about 80 people killed in Dublin in this time period.

6:31And so the battle for Dublin is fairly quick and decisive. And so the anti-treaty rebels take to the countryside. So to remind people, the IRA had split. On the one hand, you have Michael Collins and Richard Mulcahy and people like that who are commanding what's now called the National Army, fighting for the provisional government. On the other hand, you have, I guess, De Valera. Yeah. And the other, the IRA irregulars, their commander is a guy called Liam Lynch. That's right. Who's about 30, 31, very young. He's 27, I think. 27, Craigie. So at that point, actually, if you look at the numbers, the anti-treaty people seem to have the up.

7:05There are more of them, right? Yes. And they think they're going to win. That's right. So in March 1922, the anti-treaty IRA said that 80 % of their members are anti the treaty. And they have over almost 13 ,000 men under arms. and only seven of the 16 IRA divisions from the War of Independence are on the side of the Free State Government. So this looks like a fairly perilous position for the Free State Government. However, the Free State Government have the support of the British and the British have an unending arsenal of weapons that they have accumulated from the First World War. And within like two months, they've given the Irish 40 ,000 rifles.

7:49And can I ask, do the Treatyites fight harder than the British had done with these weapons? Well, they absolutely did. And because they were fighting, I mean, most of those who had been involved in the black and tanzical asilaries were mercenaries. They really didn't have a stake in this. It was mostly for money. But the provisional government, the pro-Treaty forces were fighting for their survival. And they were fighting for the survival of an infant state that was like threatened to be stillborn. And this state, Eamon de Valera, who is the elected president, I mean, he's against what the state embodies.

8:26Large sections of the army, the IRA, are against it as well. So what is the constitutional situation? Who is in command of the army and who is in command of the government once de Valera and large numbers of the IRA have arranged an opposition to it? Well, the provisional government is seven members, famously described by Kevin O 'Higgins as seven, eight young men sitting in the building with wild men screaming through the keyhole and with one administration gone and another one not formed. So they're in a very precarious situation, but their situation is strengthened by the June 1922 election on the 16th of June.

9:06Bear in mind, this is only six days before Wilson's assassinated, in which the anti-treaty side are routed. They only get less than 22 % of the vote. Most people in Ireland want to get on with their lives. They don't care about the oath. They don't care. They've had eight years of war going back to the start of the First World War, want to get on with things. So, and the British government grasped this fact and Lloyd George and Churchill are telling the provisional government, you have the mandate to govern, get on with it. And specifically to Michael Collins, right? Yes. Because Churchill in particular thinks Michael Collins is someone that the British government can negotiate with.

9:42And am I right that on the 1st of July, Collins announces that he is going to take over as commander in chief of the army? Yes. He's also in the government. Yes. And I know that this will sound maybe a provocative thing to say in the context of our Irish listeners, but I am reminded of Cromwell, a revolutionary against monarchy, whoever throws a monarchy, and then faced with divisions among parliamentarians and military opponents, makes himself essentially in command of both the military and the… Just for people listening who can't see the pictures, Ronan has just had to be physically restrained from doing injury to Tom.

10:24I mean, is there any justice in that comparison? I think basically the Irish civil war has been framed as a battle between Democrats and those who don't support democracy. So, as I explained, there have been three Democratic votes in favour of the treaty. But the anti-treaty was decided, and Dominic talked about this before, Emma de Belayero said, the people have no right to do wrong, right? So Collins, on the 1st of July, as you say, he becomes commander-in-chief. He's in the government as well. He has basically, the government assumes dictatorial powers. The parliament that's elected in June, it doesn't sit until September because there's a civil war on.

11:07I mean, you could have the same, you could say as well, why isn't Zelensky being, you know, why is there elections in Ukraine? You can't have elections when there's a war going on. There's a civil war going on. So, yeah, he does assume a huge amount of power in that time period. But I suppose one way in which he's, I mean, one of the many ways in which he's not like Cromwell, but a very salient one, is he hasn't actually had any military experience, has he? No, and we can talk about that when it comes to the circumstances in which he's shot. But certainly the National Army starts to recruit very quickly.

11:40So any disadvantages they had in terms of men and material is gone very quickly. I mean, they basically, not unlike the First World War, they have, they set up recruiting stations and there's a huge response. And of course, there's a lot of, because the Ireland have participated inside the UK in the First World War, there's a lot of ex-servicemen who are unemployed and looking for a job. So let's look at the course of the war a little bit. And something that strikes me as a big problem for the anti-treatyites, or the irregulars, as they're called, is that if you support the treaty, if you're on Michael Collins' side, you know exactly what you want.

12:14You want the treaty, you want the free state, you just want to crack on and get it with your lives. If you're anti the treaty, your goals are a little bit more nebulous, aren't they? You're not exactly for anything. You're for the nebulous idea of an Irish, independent Irish Republic. Do you think that political issue is a big problem for them in terms of winning the war, the anti-treatyites? Yes, it is, because a republic's not on offer at this stage. And most people are, as I've said before, they're really ground on by the War of Independence, the Easter Rising, and they just want to get on with their lives.

12:48And you're right, they have framed it in the sense of being against something as opposed to having a different offering. And they're talking about a republic, but the British are not going to grant a republic. De Valera knows this. So he comes up with this idea called document number two. He comes up with this idea, and this is as nuanced as the differences between them. He talks about external association. He draws, because he's a mathematician, he tries to explain it with all these kind of pie charts and that. But essentially what it means is that the Free State is associated with the Commonwealth, but not part of the Commonwealth.

13:21And therefore, the British monarch is not the head of state and there's no oath of allegiance. Which is kind of genius, isn't it? I mean, it kind of works, but nobody, none of his enemies, whether they're British or pro-treaty, are going to accept that kind of formulation. Well, exactly. And fast forward to 1927, when he's forced to take the oath of office, he says, it's just a piece of paper. If he only had said that in 1922, he could have avoided the Civil War. So on the Civil War, the anti-treaty strategy, effectively, is to hold the South and West. Liam Lynch, who we mentioned, has this dream of a Munster Republic.

13:54He thinks basically if we can hold the South and West, then all that will be left is this treaty rump and that will become unviable. Is that ever realistic that he can do this, have this Munster Republic? No, it's not. And this is the problem. You see, this war, they're making it up as they go along. I mean, no matter what anybody says, neither side is prepared for a war. So they haven't made any contingencies. So Liam Lynch talks about setting up a fast net between, in a line between Limerick and Waterford and everywhere south of that line is the Munster Republic. But that's quickly breached in July and August 1922.

14:32There's a new book by an Irish Army officer called Gar Prendergast when he talks about this and how quickly they were able to overwhelm the garrisons in both Waterford and in Limerick. But there's also fighting. There's actually two armies fighting each other in Kilmallock, County Limerick. So the extraordinary spectacle of these guys were fighting together a year previously and they're fighting over open territory in County Limerick. But the odds are all against the anti-treaty side once the war gets underway. And then in the coup de grace, really, for the sort of conventional operations of the war is the amphibious landings that the National Army have at twice in Cork and once in Kerry.

15:13And again, are they helped there by the British? Yes, they are. The commandeer are a couple of ferries and they have a British Royal Navy escort into the bays in Cork. So obviously the British are on the side of the National Army. They want the National Army to win. The reason why they decide to take to the sea to attack the Munster Republic is because all the roads and railways have been destroyed and there's a huge amount of physical destruction in the war done by the IRA. So with the capture of Cork City, which is I think the 10th of August, that's the last great sort of dramatic set piece of the Civil War.

15:48So actually it's been done and dusted very quickly in a matter of weeks. Well, apparently two-thirds of those killed in the Civil War die in its first three months. But here's the interesting thing. The Civil War doesn't end there. The anti-treatyites think, well, we can now just revert to a guerrilla campaign. That's right. So they were going to do to the Free State what they had done to the British. They were going to set up ambushes. What they call nowadays an asymmetrical war. So this is, instead of sort of taking their beating, so to speak, They retreat to the countryside. A lot of them are now doctrinaire Republicans.

16:22They're not going to give up no matter what happens. And even though there are peace feelers out there, and we're talking about Emma de Valero, at that time was thinking that maybe the game was up. But the reality is that the war was going to continue on. Where is he at this point? Where is de Valero? Funny enough, he's actually, when we come to the assassination of Michael Collins, he's actually in Cork. He's very close to where Collins is. But de Valero is kind of sidelined at this stage. I mean, he lights the match, But the conflagration goes off without him. And he's basically ceded control to the militarists at this stage.

16:55As to a degree, Michael Collins has too. Because Collins is a man from Cork, from the southwest of Ireland. He's a man who has sponsored kind of shadowy guerrilla warfare, who has taken on the forces of the British crown. And now he finds himself facing rebels around County Cork. He's fighting a guerrilla war. he's using guns and ammunition supplied to him by the British. I mean, he must find this very, very painful. It's painful for all of them. It's really a surreal thing to have people that, you know, were your comrades in arms. And within the space of a year, you are killing people who are your own flesh and blood, really.

17:36And it splits families. There are families on both sides of the divide as well. So Collins wants the war ended. I mean, this is one of the questions we ask him when he goes down south in August 1922. Was he trying to bring an end to the civil war? So why do you think he goes to Cork in August 1922? Well, he goes to Cork for three reasons. The first one is he wants to inspect the garrison salary there. He wants to see what's happening. The second reason is that he has heard on the grapevine that the anti-treaty side who had been occupying Cork had taken a huge amount of money in revenues from customs and so on.

18:17Of course, he'd been the finance minister. Yeah, he wanted to get the money back. And there's questions whether he was there to try and bring bang heads and bring sides together. You hear conflicting reports about that, but he does write to W.T. Cosgrave on the 21st of August, the day before he's bailing the block. He says, you know, the people don't want us to parlay or they don't want any compromise with the irregular, as they're called at that stage. And he's also down there to, he wants to meet his own people. You know, he's a Corkman through and through. He has, and you'll see on his final day, he's calling in and seeing his family he hasn't seen for a long time.

18:56Right. Well, after the break, we'll get on to the events that day and we will go through Collins' movements and his fate. And then we'll ask what happens at the end of the Civil War and how it's remembered. And we'll do that in a few moments. See you then.

19:12Welcome back to The Rest is History. Ronan, it is the 22nd of August 1922, and Michael Collins has returned to his home county in Cork. Take us through the events of that day. So being the sort of energetic man that he is, he's up at 6.30 in the morning. They leave the Imperial Hotel in Cork, and it's a very big contingent. He's staying in the Imperial Hotel. Yes, I know. And there's a Michael Collins room there. Oh my God. The optics of that are very bad. So he's basically going around with a very large escort in an open top Leyland touring car with a man by the name of Emmett Dalton, who is the general who takes Cork.

19:57And he's only 24 years of age in August. So he's a very busy day ahead of him. He's going to meet some of his commanders in the southwest. He's also going to meet some friends. he's going to try and meet some of the people who are pro-treaty. And the thing about this is even though we know that the conventional war is over, this is still very much anti-treaty territory. And it's a provocative gesture on the part of Collins to go into this part of West Cork. But as far as he's concerned, this is his home county and he's not going to be kept out of it. And he's alleged to have said there are many apocryphal statements, so I can't vouch for this, but he's apparently said, they'll never shoot me in my own county.

20:38So he goes off and it's an absolute marathon day. And it's beset with a lot of problems. There's a lot of roads that are blocked or trees that are down. One of the cars breaks down and needs to be fixed. And in the morning, they go past this pub called Long's Pub, which is at a crossroads just outside a place called, which will live in infamy in Irish history, is called Bail Neblah. And he is spotted there by a sentry attached to the anti-treaty site, entirely by coincidence. There's a meeting that day that the anti-treaty site have in Long's pub and somebody spots Michael Collins, but by the time they spot him, he's gone.

21:24So the opportunity is lost for them to ambush him then. He then goes on. He goes, he goes, visits the old homestead. He goes to visit his cousins in Caharbeg. He goes out as far as Skibberine, which is a long way. And this is with a big contingent of men. He meets his commanding officers at the Eldon Hotel. And then on his way back, he stops at Sam's Cross, the Four Alls public house, and he buys drinks for everybody. It's the most infamous or famous drinking session in Irish history. He visits his brother, Johnny, and there's a drink taken. We don't know how many, but the question is then, is he a little bit sozzled?

22:06Right, he's had a couple of pints. He's had a couple of pints in the Four Alls public house. He's visiting his brother, Johnny. He's in very good form and he thinks they're in the clear and they're going to go back to Dublin and he's going to resume his activities the following day. But meanwhile, while he's been, you know having a few pints and whatnot these anti-treatyites have made their plans haven't they because they know he's probably going to come back the same way yes and that is something that every army officer will tell you'd never come back the same way if you're if you're in enemy territory but he has no choice because they yeah because all the roads yeah so they're going to build a blah which is it's ideal ambush territory right there's a bend in the road it's very steep on both sides of the road.

22:53And there is a watch for him. And most of them have cleared off by about 8.30 as he passes the way. We think it was around 8.30. It was certainly twilight. And what happens next is that the anti-treaty men who were left, it's not a huge amount of them, start fighting. And Emmett Dalton, who is a former British Army veteran of the First World War, tells Collins that they should drive like hell. But Collins overrules him. Collins gets out of the car and start shooting back. And what happens next is still a matter of conjecture, but there's only one fatality in this incident. That's Michael Collins.

23:30He shot through the head. And that's it. He's one bullet, one fatality. We believe the bullet was fired from about 150 metres away. So whoever shot him must have been a trained marksman. There's a guy called Sonny O 'Neill, who a lot of people think it might have been. Yes, so he is the chief suspect, And he's named in a documentary in 1990 by one of the men who was part of the IRA intelligence. But there's a guy called Paddy Colovan who's done his own research on this. And he has a stage play called The Murder of Michael Collins. And he said it couldn't have been Dennis Sonny O 'Brien because Dennis Sonny O 'Brien wasn't a marksman.

24:09And he had been in a German prisoner of war camp and he had 40 % loss of movement in his trigger finger. So was it the mafia or the Cuban? So his theory is that he was shot by someone on his own side. His own side? At the behest of the British. With respect to Paddy, he's a friend of mine. He won't let me say this, but I'm not inclined to go with that theory. But the autopsy, there was no inquest. There were so many things that were done that have given rise to speculation over the years. But I believe that he was shot by the anti-treaty side. It was a terrible tragedy. And isn't the broader theory that we mentioned how Collins, despite being commander in chief, had never actually fought in a gun battle, that in a sense he's kind of playing soldiers here?

24:55Yes, Emmet Dalton, who fought at the Battle of the Somme, who's a very interesting guy in his own right, and had been beside another lost leader of Ireland, Tom Kettle, who was killed at the Battle of the Somme. Tom Kettle had been talked about as the first leader of a home rule Irish parliament. So Emmet Dalton says if he had known, if he'd ever been in scrap, he would have kept his head down. That's what he says. So Collins' reputation is on getting others to do his bidding for him. So, and of course he'd had, I mean, that's why those pints are crucial, right? that he's had a couple of drinks and perhaps his judgment is slightly impaired and you're a little bit more foolhardy than you would otherwise be.

25:31So here's the question with Collins. Collins is probably, with de Valera, he's one of the single best-known men in modern Irish history. Does it matter that he was killed in August 1922? In other words, when you think about the trajectory of Irish history after the Civil War, what happens in the 1930s and 40s and so on, You know, would Michael Collins' existence have changed all that? Does it really matter that he was killed? I mean, the most famous possibly pseudo comment on this, and you quote it in your book on Henry Wilson, is the quotation from supposedly Eamon de Valera, which ends Neil Jordan's film on Michael Collins, which came out in 1996.