Michael Collins: His Childhood, Family & Early Influences

 

Michael Collins has been the subject of more biography than any other figure from the Irish revolutionary period. Yet his multiple biographies tend to deal extensively with the last third of his life while confining his formative years to the periphery…

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What if Collins had lived?

An article exploring the hypothetical ‘What if?

The titular question is probably the one encountered most in question and answer sessions at Michael Collins House. It has no definitive answer and any attempt to discuss its vagaries must be less of an exercise in history, and more of a flirtation with clairvoyance …

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Collins, Women and Gender Dynamics

The women who helped shape and influence Michael Collins

The current and welcome upsurge in the writing of women’s history has started to make new demands of more traditional parts of the discipline. The central character of Michael Collins House Museum is not a woman. But he, like everybody else, was shaped and heavily ….

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Ned Broy

The story of one of Collins inside men in the DMP G Division

Eamon “Ned” Broy was born into a farming family on the edge of the Bog of Allen in Ballinure near Rathangan Co. Kildare. In later life he recorded his youth as having been influenced by the pervasive power of local landlords …

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Michael Collins in the British Media

As the Irish War of Independence began to escalate the British media clamoured to get a new angle or scoop on the Irish story. A relatively unknown West Cork man, a leader of the ‘Sinn Fein army’ slowly began to become a focus of much of their attention…

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Collins, Commemoration, Conciliation & Conflict

The Role of the Beal na Blath commemoration in the thawing of Civil war Politics

As Ireland seems to move towards a historic coalition government between the political descendants of our civil war belligerents, it is worth noting a forgotten event that attempted to reconcile those two factions….

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Collins in the british media part ii

Up until the truce of July 1921 Collins was a bit of an unknown entity to the media. He had been cast as a mystery figure, an indefinable force, an unknown quantity. ….

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Beloved Enemy

Hollywoods first homage to Michael collins

Long before Neil Jordan brought Liam Neeson’s portrayal of Michael Collins to cinemas, Brian Aherne lit up the screen as the Irish freedom fighter, Dennis Riordan. The Riordan character was undoubtedly based on Michael Collins…

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Michael Collins: The Films Critics

In 1996 the release of the film ‘Michael Collins’ directed by Neil Jordan brought the story of Michael Collins to a worldwide audience and cemented his status, for many, as one of Irelands greatest hero’s…

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When Michael Collins Met Fianna fáil

Memory, Legacy, and Oratory in the Houses of the Oireachtas 1927 – 1932

When Michael Collins’ life was cut short at just the age of 31 Ireland lost one of its most recognisable and senior political figures….

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Collins’s Closest Friends- Joe O’Reilly

If no man is an island, neither was Michael Collins. Like all of us, Collins had many friends and/or colleagues…

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THe Burning of Cork & The Propaganda War

The Burning of Corks role in the changing the press viewpoint

Almost two weeks after the Kimichael ambush, and three weeks after Bloody Sunday, an IRA ambush at Dillon’s Cross on the northside of Cork city was the spark for one of the War of Independence’s most notorious reprisals – the Burning of Cork.

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Twelve Dark Days

Tom Barry’s Twelve Dark Days in the Context of the wider Guerrilla Campaign.

The Upton ambush was a serious reversal for the West Cork IRA and came at a time when the county’s IRA units were coming under increasing pressure from an acceleration of British military activity in all of its regions…

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Michael Collins & the Easter Rising

Michael Collins Role in the 1916 Easter Rising

The months and weeks before the Easter Rising of 1916 saw a few Irish Republicans returning from various parts of Great Britain and among them was a 25 year old Michael Collins.

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