Irish history set by simple twist of fate
MICHAEL Collins was 16 years old when Sam Maguire first shook his hand.
Like so much of Maguire’s life, we have to imagine how the relationship between boy and man grew into a bond as Collins became ‘The Big Fellow’ and commanded Ireland’s forces in the War of Independence. Maguire, in turn, became his top intelligence officer in Britain.
We can picture them that first evening in 1909, in Barnsley Town Hall, with Maguire sitting amongst the Supreme Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and inviting the young chap from Cork to become one of them.
‘I call upon you, Michael, to take the oath of the Brotherhood, knowing full well its meaning, and knowing full well the consequences should you fail us,’ he might have said.
How quickly the years fastforwarded on them both.
They saw a Treaty born, and a country divided. They also lived through a fragile peace holding between Ireland and Britain.
Until June 22, 1922, when their country was led towards a Civil War faster than anyone suspected possible.
On that day, Field Marshall Sir Henry Wilson, the most formidable British Army officer of his generation, was shot down outside his home in Belgravia in central London.
Ned Dunne and Joe O’Sullivan, friends and subordinates of Maguire’s, were responsible – the two men went on to lose their lives on the scaffold at Wandsworth prison three months later.
The British government shook with fury following the death of Wilson.
Six days later, Collins’ hand was forced and Dublin’s Four Courts was shelled.
If Maguire had determined to stand down Dunne and O’Sullivan, commander and volunteer respectively of the London battalion of the Irish Republican Army, the story of Irish history, and Michael Collins’ life, might have read a little differently.