Evasive Manoeuvres: An Examination of an Account of the death of Michael Collins

Ascendant

An article looking at some of the circumstances in the death of Michael Collins at Béal na Bláth, 22nd August 1922, specifically how some of its participants on the anti-Treaty side chose to record it years later:

Evasive Manoeuvres: An Examination of Florence O’Donoghue’s Account of the Death of Michael Collins

The main focus of the article is a document written by a committee of seven men who met in the Metropole Hotel, Cork, in 1964 in response to an upcoming book on the Civil War by Eoin Neeson.

All but one of the seven had been involved in the IRA ambush at Béal na Bláth on a Free State Army convoy in which Collins was killed. The odd man out, Florence O'Donoghue, had been an intelligence officer in the Cork IRA during the War of Independence. Though he had chosen to remain neutral in the Civil War, his sympathies were with the Anti-Treatyites, and he was willing to assist his former comrades in drawing up an open document that would put across their side of the story.



There were clearly mixed feelings amongst the Anti-Treatyites to the death of Collins and the role their side had had in it. Tom Barry recalled his fellow Anti-Treatyite prisoners getting down on their knees in prison to pray upon news of Collins' death. This may, however, been restricted to the Cork IRA - Todd Andrews believed that they had a "sense of collective guilt" over the whole affair, unlike the less reverential Kerry prisoners.

It was perhaps this sense of guilt that motivated the seven men who met in 1964 to cast their role in the controversial ambush in the best possible light and one that attributed the least amount of responsibility on themselves.

Collins, according to their document, was not singled out to be killed. The ambush on his convoy had been intended to be just another run-on-the-ambush, not an assassination.

More questionably, it was argued that the ambushers had only attacked to avoid being cornered by the advancing convoy, essentially making the ambush a defensive measure.

This was not something mentioned in any of the other Anti-Treatyite accounts, first or second hand, of the ambush, not even in Liam Deasy's - one of the seven men in 1964 - when it came to writing his own account of the ambush in his memoirs in 1973.



Michael Collins lying in state

Water John

I haven't read the doc you posted. Will do so.
Some on the anti treaty side blamed the person who reported the convoy passing earlier. This they felt, because most knew it would probably return the same way because of so many roads blocked, put them in the position of having to carry out the ambush.
This may be as a result of guilt after the event.
The spin that he possibly was shot by one of his own convoy comes from that reasoning.
There was, on the convoy's side a clear military error in not driving on and not stopping.

tac foley

The life and death of Michael Collins has fascinated me since I sat on my dad's knee and heard all about it - as far as HE knew about it. A fellow Co Cork man, he worshipped his memory.

I'll read this 'new' version of the events that took place at Béal na mBláth with great interest.

The most certain thing is that Ireland - if he had lived - would have been a much different place in the 20's and 30's, and for that reason, a different place today. No nation needs a civil war, that will throw it's legacy of hate and distrust down the years, as Ireland's has done to this day.

tac