Michael Collins (Irish leader)

Michael Collins

Michael Collins in Irish Mícheál Seán Ó Coileáin; (16 October 1890 – 22 August 1922) was an Irish revolutionary leader, Minister for Finance in the Irish Republic, Director of Intelligence for the IRA, and member of the Irish delegation during the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations, both as Chairman of the Provisional Government and Commander-in-Chief of the National Army.

Sourced

• When you have sweated, toiled, had mad dreams, hopeless nightmares, you find yourself in London's streets, cold and dank in the night air. Think — what have I got for Ireland? Something which she has wanted these past seven hundred years. Will anyone be satisfied at the bargain? Will anyone? I tell you this; early this morning I signed my death warrant. I thought at the time how odd, how ridiculous — a bullet may just as well have done the job five years ago.
  • Liam, Cathal (2006). Blood on the Shamrock: A Novel of Ireland's Continued Struggle for Freedom 1921-1924. St. Padraic Press, p. 194.

• Now as one of the signatories of the document I naturally recommend its acceptance. I do not recommend it for more than it is. Equally I do not recommend it for less than it is. In my opinion it gives us freedom, not the ultimate freedom that all nations desire and develop to, but the freedom to achieve it.
  • Regarding the Anglo-Irish Treaty during a parliamentary debate (Dáil Éireann - Volume T - 19 December, 1921 (DEBATE ON TREATY))

• How could one argue with a man who was always drawing lines and circles to explain the position; who, one day, drew a diagram [here Michael illustrated with pen and paper] saying 'take a point A, draw a straight line to point B, now three-fourths of the way up the line take a point C. The straight line AB is the road to the Republic; C is where we have got to along the road, we canot move any further along the straight road to our goal B; take a point out there, D [off the line AB]. Now if we bend the line a bit from C to D then we can bend it a little further, to another point E and if we can bend it to CE that will get us around Cathal Brugha which is what we want!' How could you talk to a man like that?
  • Referring to Eamon de Valera in conversation with Michael Hayes, at the debates over the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921
  • Michael Hayes Papers, P53/299, UCDA
  • Quoted in Doherty, Gabriel and Keogh, Dermot (2006). Michael Collins and the Making of the Irish State. Mercier Press, p. 153.

Unsourced

• In my opinion it gives us freedom, not the ultimate freedom that all nations desire ... but the freedom to achieve it.
  • On the Treaty in debates.
• Yerra, they'll never shoot me in my own county.
  • To Joe O'Reilly just prior to his journey to West Cork in August 1922.
• Nothing additional remains to be said. That volley which we have just heard is the only speech which it is proper to make at the grave of a dead Fenian.
  • Oration at the graveside of Thomas Ashe