Michael Collins was involved in an armed stand-off with members of the anti-Treaty IRA in his hometown of Clonakilty just days before the start of the Civil War which two months later claimed his life, new research has found.
Historian Liz Gillis has unearthed evidence from a leading Cumann na mBan activist in west Cork, Nora Doyle, who recounted the extraordinary scene that confronted her when she came downstairs in Donovan’s Hotel in Clonakilty after hearing a disturbance in the night.
“A few days before the Civil War started in Dublin ... I slept in Donovan’s Hotel and Mick Collins was home. As I was going into the hotel, Mick and his brother were near the door. I dodged in at another door as I did not want to speak to him, and I did not wish to pass him without speaking.”
Ms Doyle said she went upstairs and went to sleep in her room only to be awoken at about 2am by one of the owners of the hotel, Ms O’Donovan and a barmaid calling her to get up and come down quickly as there was a disturbance in the hotel.
“I slipped my coat on and rushed downstairs and there was Mick Collins with a revolver drawn and some IRA men with revolvers loaded and they were so drunk they could hard stand up when they were separated,” said Ms Doyle in her statement to the Bureau of Military History.
“I cried that night – I knew then he [Collins] couldn’t be sober in England – I’m stating facts for I know if there was ever a truce with England, Collins would be behind his gun and a good man he was there during the Anglo-Irish War.”
Liz Gillis, author of Women of The Irish Revolution, said Nora Doyle, who went anti-Treaty, was a credible witness who was trusted by senior anti-Treaty figures such as Liam Lynch, Seán Moylan and Liam Deasy and by pro-Treaty officers such as Tom Ennis and Seán Hales, who confided in her.
“The fact that both sides were drinking late into the night should be no surprise as by the time of the truce you had a lot of IRA men who were drinking, given what they had been dealing with in the previous two years where they were constantly on the run and the threat of being killed.
“And similarly with Collins – he was the director of intelligence, setting up the squad in July 1919 to assassinate the G Men of British intelligence and he writes to Donal Hayes in Italy in December 1919, apologising for not writing sooner but saying he has been under huge pressure.
“Remember the British were raiding and searching for him from 1919, so he was constantly on the move and there was also huge pressure on him at the Treaty talks in London in December 1921, so it’s hardly surprising he is drinking to relieve the stress when he is back in west Cork.”
It was during another visit to west Cork two months later that Collins was killed on his way back to Cork city after a tour inspecting national army posts in Skibbereen, Clonakilty and Bandon, when his convoy were ambushed by an anti-Treaty IRA party at Béal na Bláth near Crookstown.
Collins’s death in the ambush will be marked on Sunday when Fine Gael leader Simon Harris becomes only the third serving taoiseach after Enda Kenny and Micheál Martin to give the oration at the monument near where Collins was fatally wounded on August 22nd, 1922.
The Michael Collins commemoration committee said a traffic management plan will be in place and a shuttle bus will operate from Crookstown village to Béal na Bláth Cross, from where visitors can walk the final 900m as parking is prohibited on the road near the monument. The event is scheduled to begin at 3pm.
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