100 years ago: eyewitness describes the death of Michael Collins

In the rush to go on a short holiday, I missed posting this first-hand account of the death of Michael Collins, the hero of the fight for the freedom of Ireland. During the War of Independence he was Director of Intelligence of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and a government minister of the self-declared Irish Republic. 

He was then Chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State from January 1922 and commander-in-chief of the National Army from July until his death in an ambush in August 1922, during the Civil War.

John O’Connell, the interviewee in this video, was a private in the Free State army, travelling in the convoy that was ambushed on 22 August 1922, when Michael Collins was killed. He was travelling in the Crossley Tender which was one of the three vehicles ambushed when the convoy met a road block at Béal na Bláth.

 

Michael Collins died without seeing the realization of his dream of a united Eire, free of the hated British oppressors. Indeed, the day has not yet come. Ireland remains divided. But the fight continues, albeit at the ballot box rather than in the streets. 

Up the IRA! Sinn Féin!