Michael Collins

From Conservapedia

For the Apollo XI astronaut, see Michael Collins (Astronaut)

Michael Collins (1890-1922) was an Irish revolutionary leader, and the main commander of the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921) and of the Irish Free State Army during the Irish Civil War (1921-1923).

Collins was born into a republican family in west Cork, in the south-west of Ireland; on leaving school he moved to London where he passed the examinations for the British civil service and in 1906 joined the Post Office. While in London he joined the local branch of the Gaelic Athletic Association, a sporting organisation closely associated with Irish republican politics, and through his GAA links was inducted into the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), a republican secret society. He returned to Dublin in time to participate in the calamitous Easter Rising of 1916; his experience of the failure of that romantic gesture was to affect his leadership of the IRA during the War of Independence, characterised by ruthlessness and professionalism.

Collins was not the nominal head of the IRA: its Chief of Staff was Richard Mulcahy and the Minister of Defence in the underground Dail Eireann (republican Irish Parliament) was Cathal Brugha. However, he was able to dominate the movement through his forceful personality, his leadership of the IRB and his role as head of intelligence in the IRA.

Collins supported the December 1921 treaty with Great Britain that saw the creation of the Irish Free State and led the newly-constituted Free State Army against dissident members of the IRA (which was supported by Eamon de Valera). While visiting Free State forces in Cork in July-August 1922 (and allegedly seeking a truce with the Anti-Treaty IRA), the column in which Collins was travelling was caught in an ambush on 22 August, and he was shot dead in the crossfire.