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…
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 …
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 ….
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….
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.
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…