FROM THE ARCHIVES:There was little detail in the next day's Dublin newspapers about the shooting of Michael Collins at Béal na Bláth on the evening of August 22nd 1922, but the next day's Irish Timeshad this account by an anonymous special correspondent in Cork. – JOE JOYCE
KILLED IN ambush by a Mauser bullet; shot dead by his countrymen – such has been the fate of Gen Michael Collins, bulwark of the Free State.
It is impossible to write coherently of this latest and greatest of our national tragedies. A few hours ago I was describing his triumphal tour of outposts, and I saw him yesterday leaving his headquarters amid the acclaims of a people who idolised him. Just now I have seen the lid closed on his coffin, and his remains borne in mournful procession through dense lines of sorrowful citizens. All happening within a few hours, it seems like a horrid nightmare.
In the cheeriest of spirits, the Commander in Chief, accompanied by Maj-Gen Dalton and other officers of the headquarters staff, including Comdt Gen O’Connell, Col Comdt Dolan, and Lieut Conroy, set out in an open Leyland touring car to resume his tour of inspection of positions won and consolidated in southwest Cork. A motor cyclist scout preceded the party, and behind were an armoured car, the Slieve-na-mon, and a Crossley tender, with a dozen picked soldiers, men who had often proved their fighting merit.
A short distance west of the hamlet of Bealnablath a volley of shots rang out. With cruel ill-luck, the touring car became disabled, and was the target for a hurricane of rifle and machine-gun fire. Some members of the party suggested abandoning the car and getting through on the tender, but Gen Collins decided to face the attackers, who were pouring a withering fire from a rocky eminence two hundred yards away. Assuming command of his men with characteristic courage, he shouted: “If they want fight, let them have it.” He could have escaped, but . . . He would not run away, although hopelessly outnumbered, but would face his assailants like a lion at bay.
His courage, however, proved his undoing.
The rapid interchange of fire lasted upwards of half an hour, and the little force was still intact, with the exception of the cyclist scout, who was wounded in the throat. The ambushers began to yield. It looked as if the attack had been repulsed with trifling loss, but it proved otherwise. The cars, even the armoured car, were riddled with bullets, and the ammunition was running low, but the battle seemed won.
Just at its close, however, a bullet struck Gen Collins at the back of the skull, and he fell. It was obvious that he was mortally wounded, but he fired away until he became too weak to clasp his rifle, which fell from his grasp.
Generals Dalton and O’Connell ran to his assistance, and recited an Act of Contrition into his ears. His life was ebbing away, but he bore himself like a hero. “Forgive them,” he faintly whispered: “Let the Dublin Brigade bury me.”
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