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Anniversary of the shooting dead of Michael Collins

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13

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    #62
    Chuchote
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,368 ✭✭✭Chuchote


    KingBrian2 wrote: »
    I'd say Collins would have shown the same level of brutality against anti treatyites that he used against the British forces when a more diplomatic tone should have been adopted not only him but similar views expressed by the Free Staters. We have to consider different times a lot more violent.

    Not really. Violence can break out very easily if you let in hate: look at what happened in the lifetime of quite young people in Biafra, Bosnia, Serbia, Syria, Kuwait…


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    #63
    KingBrian2
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,363 ✭✭✭KingBrian2


    Chuchote wrote: »
    Not really. Violence can break out very easily if you let in hate: look at what happened in the lifetime of quite young people in Biafra, Bosnia, Serbia, Syria, Kuwait…

    Incase you forgot WW1 had just taken place and men like Collins were locked up Frongach internment camp. Came out hardened even more than before.


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    #64
    lizzylad84
    Registered Users Posts: 1,421 ✭✭✭lizzylad84


    But didn't collins travel to Cork to not only inspect free state troops but negotiate a truce with anti treaty forces


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    #65
    KingBrian2
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,363 ✭✭✭KingBrian2


    lizzylad84 wrote: »
    But didn't collins travel to Cork to not only inspect free state troops but negotiate a truce with anti treaty forces

    Deep into enemy territory from a crowd that were resolute in opposing the treaty.


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    #66
    Water John
    Registered Users Posts: 21,453 ✭✭✭✭Water John


    There is no evidence of this, except that Dev was in the same general area.
    I think Collins may have been making a point in travelling to his home place.


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    #67
    Chuchote
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,368 ✭✭✭Chuchote


    Yes, Collins was going home to Cork. He also seems to have felt sort of immortal at this stage, the poor guy. The person who should have been leading the convoy and knew the winding roads of the area was sick and was replaced. They'd all lashed back a load of celebratory Clonakilty Wrestler. Collins had never been in an actual gunfight and shouted to stand and fight, then stood up in the middle of the road instead of sheltering. A whole hideous confluence of events.


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    #68
    Jesus.
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 4,794 ✭✭✭Jesus.


    Chuchote wrote: »
    Collins had never been in an actual gunfight.

    The Rising?


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    #69
    Chuchote
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,368 ✭✭✭Chuchote


    Jesus. wrote: »
    The Rising?

    Well, yeah, sorry :D

    But he'd spent the War of Independence being the boss who sent others into gunfire. What he did - deciding to 'stand and fight' and then walking into the middle of the road while bullets were whizzing - was crazily incautious.


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    #70
    Jesus.
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 4,794 ✭✭✭Jesus.


    Did he not participate in the gun-fighting a'tall?


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    #71
    Chuchote
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,368 ✭✭✭Chuchote


    Jesus. wrote: »
    Did he not participate in the gun-fighting a'tall?

    Nope.


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    #72
    Two and one
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 46 ✭Two and one


    Would Collins not be described as a terrorist?


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    #73
    Chuchote
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,368 ✭✭✭Chuchote


    Two and one wrote: »
    Would Collins not be described as a terrorist?

    He would, if you were on the other side.

    Lord Roberts (to whom the crazed people of Waterford recently put up a statue) could be described as a terrorist; in the Boer War, he penned Boer women and children in concentration camps, where 26,370 Boer women and children died, and 81% of those who died were children


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    #74
    Two and one
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 46 ✭Two and one


    Chuchote wrote: »
    He would, if you were on the other side.

    Lord Roberts (to whom the crazed people of Waterford recently put up a statue) could be described as a terrorist; in the Boer War, he penned Boer women and children in concentration camps, where 26,370 Boer women and children died, and 81% of those who died were children

    Oh yes, I wouldn't view Collins as a terrorist. It's just that more recent IRA men and women are labelled as terrorists and there's not much difference in their actions.


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    #75
    Chuchote
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,368 ✭✭✭Chuchote


    Two and one wrote: »
    Oh yes, I wouldn't view Collins as a terrorist. It's just that more recent IRA men and women are labelled as terrorists and there's not much difference in their actions.

    I don't want to get into a discussion of the modern IRA, which ends up as a distressing showering of mutual abuse, but it's important to realise that Collins, De Valera, Cathal Brugha et al were also running a massive civil disobedience campaign, allied with many county councils and city corporations, which made Ireland ungovernable and gradually set up a parallel government. It was this more than anything else that won our independence (imho).


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    #76
    Jesus.
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 4,794 ✭✭✭Jesus.


    Chuchote wrote: »
    Nope.

    What about that part in the film where he chucked turf on top of an RIC barracks?


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    #77
    Chuchote
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,368 ✭✭✭Chuchote


    Jesus. wrote: »
    What about that part in the film where he chucked turf on top of an RIC barracks?

    What about the part in the film where Broy died heroically, killed by the Tans? That would be Colonel Eamon "Ned" Broy (1887–1972)


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    #78
    Jesus.
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 4,794 ✭✭✭Jesus.


    Hmm I don't know Chucknote. Its hard to believe a Guerrilla commander of that era never got into a firefight in two years of conflict


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    #79
    Two and one
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 46 ✭Two and one


    Chuchote wrote: »
    I don't want to get into a discussion of the modern IRA, which ends up as a distressing showering of mutual abuse, but it's important to realise that Collins, De Valera, Cathal Brugha et al were also running a massive civil disobedience campaign, allied with many county councils and city corporations, which made Ireland ungovernable and gradually set up a parallel government. It was this more than anything else that won our independence (imho).

    Well it didn't win our independence!


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    #80
    Chuchote
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,368 ✭✭✭Chuchote


    Jesus. wrote: »
    Hmm I don't know Chucknote. Its hard to believe a Guerrilla commander of that era never got into a firefight in two years of conflict

    Not really. My great-aunts, who worked with him, used to describe how he'd set up an office (at one stage in one of the roads in Temple Bar almost opposite Dublin Castle) and cycle innocently to and from it, and respectable-looking people would go in to do business in there, carrying information from the Castle, the RIC and DMP stations and so on. If there was a raid, he'd go out and cycle off again, nobody suspecting a thing.

    He was the overall commander. It wouldn't have done a lot of good if he got himself killed going bang-bang at a tender full of soldiers.

    And yes, it did win our independence. Last time I voted, it was for an Irish government.


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    #81
    Two and one
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 46 ✭Two and one


    Chuchote wrote: »
    Not really. My great-aunts, who worked with him, used to describe how he'd set up an office (at one stage in one of the roads in Temple Bar almost opposite Dublin Castle) and cycle innocently to and from it, and respectable-looking people would go in to do business in there, carrying information from the Castle, the RIC and DMP stations and so on. If there was a raid, he'd go out and cycle off again, nobody suspecting a thing.

    He was the overall commander. It wouldn't have done a lot of good if he got himself killed going bang-bang at a tender full of soldiers.

    And yes, it did win our independence. Last time I voted, it was for an Irish government.

    Part independence!


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    #82
    Chuchote
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,368 ✭✭✭Chuchote


    …aaaannnd I'm out of this thread.


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    #83
    Jesus.
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 4,794 ✭✭✭Jesus.


    Good points Chuck. I didn't know about the Lord Roberts bust either. I just looked it up. Interesting.


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    #84
    Two and one
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 46 ✭Two and one


    Chuchote wrote: »
    …aaaannnd I'm out of this thread.

    Last time I checked there was still 6 counties under foreign rule! That's part independence, sorry if you don't like facts. Then again you believe the story of Collins used to ride around on his bike unnoticed, all 6'4 of him apparantly. :D


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    #85
    Water John
    Registered Users Posts: 21,453 ✭✭✭✭Water John


    Your innuendo there is that Collins was in the pay of the British. That's how daft your view is.

    On your other point, the democratic vote indicates your views are very much a minority.


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    #86
    Two and one
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 46 ✭Two and one


    Water John wrote: »
    Your innuendo there is that Collins was in the pay of the British. That's how daft your view is.

    On your other point, the democratic vote indicates your views are very much a minority.

    What you on about?

    Part of Ireland is under the rule of a foreign country. That's a fact irrespective of any vote.


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    #87
    Jesus.
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 4,794 ✭✭✭Jesus.


    Two and one wrote: »
    Last time I checked there was still 6 counties under foreign rule! That's part independence, sorry if you don't like facts. Then again you believe the story of Collins used to ride around on his bike unnoticed, all 6'4 of him apparantly. :D

    He was only around 5'10. Tall for his day alright but hardly a giant.


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    #88
    Two and one
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 46 ✭Two and one


    Jesus. wrote: »
    He was only around 5'10. Tall for his day alright but hardly a giant.

    Yeah but the myth about him that was repeated earlier usually includes that he was 6'4. To believe he cycled around unnoticed and without a care in the world is laughable.


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    #89
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Jesus. wrote: »
    Hmm I don't know Chucknote. Its hard to believe a Guerrilla commander of that era never got into a firefight in two years of conflict

    He was no military genius. His one foray as a general was at Béal na Bláth, and that could easily have been avoided in the first place had he taken the advice of people with actual military experience.

    Micks talents lay in human resource management/organising.


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    #90
    Arsemageddon
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,129 ✭✭✭Arsemageddon


    Deleted User wrote: »
    He was no military genius. His one foray as a general was at Béal na Bláth, and that could easily have been avoided in the first place had he taken the advice of people with actual military experience.

    Micks talents lay in human resource management/organising.

    You seem to be confusing strategy and tactics. Collins excelled at the former.


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    #91
    Jesus.
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 4,794 ✭✭✭Jesus.


    Two and one wrote: »
    Yeah but the myth about him that was repeated earlier usually includes that he was 6'4. To believe he cycled around unnoticed and without a care in the world is laughable.

    Ah I see. What did he do so?

    One man tells me he never fired a shot in anger and another tells me he never rode a bike!


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