581. The Irish Civil War: The Killing of Michael Collins (Part 2)

My dear Miss Collins, don't let them make you miserable about it. How could a born soldier die better than at the victorious end of a good fight, falling to the shot of another Irishman, a damn fool, and all the same an Irishman who thought he was fighting for Ireland? a Roman to a Roman. I met Michael for the first and last time on Saturday last, and I am very glad I did. I rejoice in his memory.

I will not be so disloyal as to snivel over his valiant death. So treat up your mourning, and hang up your brightest colours in his honour. Let us all praise God that he did not die in a snuffy bed of a trumpery cough, weakened by age and saddened by the disappointments that would have attended his work had he lived. So that, ladies and gentlemen, was original authentic archive of George Bernard Shaw writing to Hanny Collins, the sister of Michael Collins, on the 25th of August, nineteen twenty two, and three days earlier, Michael Collins, surely the most charismatic of all Ireland's independence heroes, the Director of Intelligence of the Irish Republican Army, signatory to the Anglo Irish Treaty, and then the head of government of the provisional government of the Irish Free State and commander of its national army.

He had been shot dead by his former comrades at a crossroads near Baelneblor in rural County Cork. Tom, you know I'm a great fan of County Cork, and this is one of the most hotly debated moments in all Irish history, isn't it? Some people see it as a tragedy, others see it as, you know, Colin's got his just deserts, a massive turning point in Ireland's history. Well, is it? Uh, we'll discuss that, whether um Collins would have set Ireland on a a different course, but certainly it is the most emblematic moment in uh this terrible conflict which follows on directly from the Irish War of Independence, uh, and you see people who had been fighting the British turning on themselves and

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