Michael Collins (16 October 1890 – 22 August 1922) was the Chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State from January to 22 August 1922, preceding W.T. Cosgrave. Collins was formerly a leader of the Irish Republican Army and a freedom fighter, but he supported the peace treaty with the United Kingdom after the Irish War of Independence, and he was killed by Anti-Treaty IRA irregulars during the Irish Civil War as he traveled to his home of County Cork.
Biography[]
Collins in 1919
Born in Woodfield, Coolcraheen (near Clonakilty), County Cork to a Roman Catholic farming family, and the youngest of eight children, Michael Collins became a member of the revolutionary Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1909 while living in London. He returned in Ireland in 1916 to take part in the Easter Uprising against British rule. Arrested and interned with most of the rebels after the Rising's failure, they were released under public pressure by 1917, most ready to continue their insurrection.
Displaying great charisma, Collins became both a political and military leader of the Irish republican independence movement. In the guerrilla warfare waged against the British authorities from 1919, he helped to found the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and ran a National Loan to fund the as yet unrecognized Irish independent state as well as counterintelligence operations. His hit squad targeted British spies and suspected informers. The squad assassinated 13 people, including 11 British intelligence officers, on 21 November 1920. The date became known as "Bloody Sunday". The British retaliated later that day at a Gaelic football match in Croke Park. "Black and Tans" and Auxiliaries were sent to carry out a cordon and search operation. Without warning, the police opened fire, killing or fatally wounding 14 civilians (including one player) and wounding at least sixty others.
When a truce was declared in July 1921, Collins led negotiations with the British government, agreeing to the treaty that gave southern Ireland its own Dominion Status (Home Rule government under the British Monarch) but left six counties in the heavily Protestant province of Ulster under direct British rule. The British also retained access and use of Irish ports. After the anti-Treaty IRA rejected the treaty, in June 1922, Collins attacked their headquarters in Dublin with artillery borrowed from the British, precipitating civil war. While acting as commander-in-chief of the government forces Collins still hoped for a compromise, but on 22 August he was ambushed and shot dead at Béal na mBláth, 12 miles from Clonakilty in his native county.
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