The ‘idol of Ireland’ is assassinated
Republican leader Michael Collins is killed in a shoot-out with anti-treaty forces
Early on Tuesday 22 August 1922, Michael Collins left Cork’s Imperial Hotel to visit his troops in rural West Cork. The Irish Civil War was just two months old, but Collins’s Free State army manifestly had the upper hand. Some speculated that he was hoping to strike a deal with his adversaries in the IRA, who opposed the treaty that had secured only partial independence from Britain. Given that West Cork was an IRA heartland, many thought Collins was inviting a sniper’s bullet. But he was more optimistic. “Don’t suppose,” he said, “I will be ambushed in my own county.”
Some time before 8pm, Collins’s convoy was on its way back through the hamlet of Béal na Bláth when anti-Treaty men opened fire. His friend Emmet Dalton shouted to keep driving, but Collins yelled: “No, stop and we’ll fight ’em,” and began firing back. What followed was a few confused moments of shouting and shooting. Then the firing stopped and Dalton heard a cry: “Emmet, I am hit.”
In Dalton’s words, they “rushed to the spot, fear clutching our hearts”. In the lane was their “beloved chief… a gaping wound at the base of his skull. We immediately saw that he was almost beyond human aid; he did not speak.” A few moments later, Collins was dead. “How can I describe the feelings that were then mine, kneeling in the mud of a country road,” wrote Dalton, “with the still bleeding head of the idol of Ireland resting in my arms.”