Michael Collins

The Béal na Bláth assassination sparked the beginning of a torrent of artistic interpretations of his life and death.

[Emma Stroude's](http://emmastroude.com/) 2018 [artwork](https://www.sligogaol.ie/michael-collins) commissioned to commemorate Collins’s time in [Sligo Gaol](http://sligogaol.ie) outdid many previous representations of the man. But incoming Taoiseach [Micheál Martin](https://twitter.com/MichealMartinTD) insisted that the painting stay in place so it could be hung opposite a portrait of [Éamon de Valera](https://www.dib.ie/biography/de-valera-eamon-dev-a2472). Considering that Collins lived and died as a member of [Sinn Féin](http://sinnfein.ie), the presence of the portrait overlooks present-day political affiliation in order to fixate on [the romance of leadership](https://study.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/reference9.2.pdf). [provides](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247765383_The_Portrait_as_Leader_Commissioned_Portraits_and_the_Power_of_Tradition) an example of an effort to manipulate the portrait’s function as a symbol of jarring reconciliation. The decision to relocate his portrait alongside de Valera in order to ‘symbolise end of Civil War politics’, The graphic condenses the ambush into a melodramatic scene with 19 figures in military dress and Collins in the centre, falling after receiving a bullet to the forehead. While the graphic attempts to provide an eyewitness and reportorial dimension to the event, it does exaggerate many aspects including the number of casualties, the landscape of Béal na Bláth and the supposed logistics of the attack. [Le Petit Journal Illustré,](https://aeod.library.harvard.edu/galleries/le-petit-journal-illustr%C3%A9) which was a weekly illustrated supplement of a Parisian newspaper. [visual images vary in historical accuracy](https://www.academia.edu/39139331/Visual_History_The_Past_in_Pictures), but they still form part of the visual history of Collins. The tricolour that enveloped the body in the chapel hung on a panel that surrounded the coffin in City Hall. Although photographs themselves are not void of manipulation and are a particular interpretation of a moment of reality, they can provide [vital information](https://monoskop.org/images/a/a6/Sontag_Susan_2003_Regarding_the_Pain_of_Others.pdf) that is useful when comparing them to other visual interpretations of historical events. Many of these demonstrate the inaccuracy of visual images and how we must approach them as interpretations, not as impartial evidence.

A BRAND new suite will be unveiled as part of the historic Imperial Hotel's plans to commemorate the centenary of Michael Collins' death.

The painting is a special commission by portrait artist Mick O’Dea, and will be available to be viewed by guests and members of the public. A new portrait of the revolutionary leader will also be unveiled in the hotel on the morning of August 22nd by Collins’ grandniece Fidelma Collins and grandnephew Aidan O’Sullivan. On Sunday August 21st, two documentaries will be screened, with members of Collins family invited to view the main feature Michael Collins: The Last Days, directed by Marcus Howard.

An Post has marked the centenary of the death of Michael Collins with the release of a single sta...

It is especially fitting that this stamp will be issued by An Post ahead of the centenary of the assassination of Michael Collins on Sunday 22 August." "I welcome An Post’s issue of a single commemorative stamp to mark the centenary of Michael Collins death. Walsh, of Michael Collins in military uniform (courtesy of the National Library of Ireland.)

Micheál Martin said it was 'fitting' Collins be remembered for his role in the foundation of State.

The stamp is designed by Ger Garland and goes on general release on Thursday. An Post have also produced a commemorative envelope which carries the new stamp and a specially designed cancellation mark featuring Collins’ name in similar typeface to that on the Béal na Bláth monument. He then risked his reputation and his life by working to secure a peace settlement persuading the majority of people to support it,” he said.

Remarkably for a man of such importance, in the aftermath of his death there was no inquiry, inquest or autopsy. There is no record of any forensic or ballistic ...

Meanwhile in the north, 1922 was the bloodiest year in Northern Irish history, and the head of the British army in the north, Henry Wilson, was calling for Britain to re-invade the south. Despite his support of nationalists in the North, Collins was not an overt Catholic – his republican family background, from the United Irishmen to the Fenians to the Irish Republican Brotherhood, meant he understood the fallacy of identity politics based on religion. Collins’s decision to bomb the anti-treaty IRA’s centre of operations – the Four Courts buildings in Dublin – was a strike that had triggered the Irish civil war. Emmet Dalton, a supporter of the Anglo-Irish Treaty and a major general in the Irish military, was in Collins’s convoy that day. Others think it is disrespectful to Collins, that it goes against the Irish tradition of respecting the dead. The story really has to be about versions of the story that have emerged since then. He was certainly an effective administrator, but he was also a trained rifleman who fought in the Rising of 1916 and would have seen intense fighting in Dublin. A veteran of the first world war, O’Neill was captured by the enemy and German records show that his wounds were so severe that they left him with severe, permanent damage to his right arm. In the end there was only one fatality – Michael Collins, the Irish statesman, hero of the Easter Rising and one of the founders of the modern Irish state. The story in the first editions claimed that Collins had been foolhardy, telling his men “stop and we’ll fight ’em,” before charging off in pursuit of his attackers armed with a rifle. Collins’s aim was to broker a peace deal and end the civil war. After a spell living in New York, where he also worked in financial services, Collins returned to Ireland, where he took part in the 1916 Rising.

According to sources who have spoken with The Corkman, the affidavit was written while McPeake, a WWI veteran of the British Army serving as a machine gunner ...

This vehicle was later involved in an attack by the IRA on the Free State forces in the Múscraí Gaeltacht village of Baile Mhúirne. For the first time, the event will be broadcast live on RTÉ News Now. Mystery surrounds the whereabouts or continued existence of the affidavit written by the driver of the armoured car which accompanied Michael Collins to the Béal na Bláth ambush and which was due to be made public 100 years after the engagement which led to the death of the Free State leader.

Michael Collins' death on August 22nd, 1922 was the highest profile casualty of the Irish Civil War, which arose over the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin said: "I welcome An Post’s issue of a single commemorative stamp to mark the centenary of Michael Collins death. He was aide-de-camp to Joseph Plunkett during the 1916 Easter Rising. He had the courage to take on an Empire forcing it to the negotiating table.

According to sources who have spoken with The Corkman, the affidavit was written while McPeake, a WWI veteran of the British Army serving as a machine gunner ...

This vehicle was later involved in an attack by the IRA on the Free State forces in the Múscraí Gaeltacht village of Baile Mhúirne. For the first time, the event will be broadcast live on RTÉ News Now. Mystery surrounds the whereabouts or continued existence of the affidavit written by the driver of the armoured car which accompanied Michael Collins to the Béal na Bláth ambush and which was due to be made public 100 years after the engagement which led to the death of the Free State leader.

18 August 2022 By Elaine Murphy [email protected] A new national (N) rate stamp, designed by Ger Garland, goes on general release today (Thursday) and is ...

Michael Collins, a member of the five-strong Irish delegation who signed, was quoted as saying: “I may have signed my [actual] death warrant.” His premonition tragically came to pass less than nine months later when he died in the ambush at Béal na Bláth. It is fitting that an individual such as Michael Collins, who played such a pivotal role in the foundation of our state, should be commemorated in this way.’ With many of the roads in the area blocked, they returned via the same Béal na Bláth route, where anti-Treaty forces ambushed the group, Collins was the only fatality in As Chairman of the Provisional Government and Commander-in-Chief of the newly established Irish Army, Collins was the main pro-Treaty advocate. An Post have also produced a commemorative First Day Cover (envelope) which carries the new stamp and a specially designed cancellation mark featuring Collins’ name in similar typeface to that on the Béal na Bláth monument. Walsh, of Michael Collins in military uniform (courtesy of the National Library of Ireland).

Fine Gael is holding a €25-a-head summer barbecue in Taoiseach Micheál Martin's local GAA club in Cork this weekend as part of events to mark the centenary ...

Fine Gael is planning further events to commemorate Collins, including a €60-a-head four-course lunch at Wynn’s Hotel in Dublin next Monday. However, others said the event was proving popular. Tánaiste Leo Varadkar and a host of senior Fine Gael figures are expected to attend the Cork Fine Gael summer barbecue tomorrow on the eve of the annual Béal na Bláth commemoration which both the Fine Gael leader and Mr Martin are due to address on Sunday afternoon.

Approaching his legacy without bias is a noble aim but beyond Martin and Varadkar sharing a platform, the habits of a century will hardly be broken.

That “centrist sentiment”, ultimately shared by FF and FG, is seen by many as a positive given that it saved the state from the political extremism experienced elsewhere. Seeing the Irish revolution through the prism of “great heroic men” falls flat a century on. Instead of focusing on what he might have done had he lived, it is worth considering that the politics that evolved in this State after his death reflected his own conservatism and limitations. It was also a myth that he had an iron grip on the IRA, and the lines between politics and the military remained troublingly tangled. He was more talented than most of them, but no one person controlled the War of Independence. Is Michael Collins finally to be shared equally between the Civil War parties 100 years after his death?