Who shot Michael Collins.

After many years a consensus emerged around Sonny O’Neill. But then there is the missing post mortem, the head wound so large that meant Collins cap was filled with blood and brain matter, the suspicions of Dalton as spy or blue on blue, McPeake the defector’s defector. Start your engines.

TheValeyard

Sonny O'Neil is the primary suspect. But know one will truly ever know.

And I say that because (I'm sure some here have) if you read the reports from those claiming to be there that day, it comes off as chaotic and hazy.

Cumhachtach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058259919/who-shot-michael-collins

Will have a watch of Collins 'Cold Case' with Marie Cassidy Wednesday night.

Sonny O'Neill is very much Tim Pat Coogan pushed.

I still blame Rhy Myers. And he was probably drunk😉

Subzero3

Pat short in Fr Ted.

buried

They could exhume the remains, examine the body, seeing as how there is no autopsy report or reason for the death certificate issued. They could quickly establish the range of the fatal bullet shot. Bit suspicious the authorities do not want to do so, seeing as how they have glorified the man for their own ends.

Dr. Bre

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119507471#Comment_119507471

I thought that was JR

Itssoeasy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119507458#Comment_119507458

Well sonny o Neil stated he “dropped a man” in the aftermath of the ambush when I don’t believe any of the ambush party knew that Collins had died, and given that Collins was the only person to die, it’s not that much for people to have put 2+2 together.

My understanding is that while there wasn’t a formal autopsy done that night in shanakiel hospital there was a doctor from the mercy sent for and he did record his observations of the wound in the hospital. One thing I’ve never understood is why they carried him upstairs in that hospital when there were rooms downstairs.

Mullinabreena

Isn't there a conspiracy theory that he was murdered by his own side. 4 or 5 guys attacked him and his 25 bodyguards and know one injured but a ricocheted bullet just hit him in the head. I think they believe he was making moves to invade the North behind the scenes or something along those lines.

Brucie Bonus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119507487#Comment_119507487

One man represents Dev's party, the other wanted to commemorate the RIC/Tans. I don't think there's one of them should be claiming his legacy.

brokenangel

I got a photo and all

Cillian Murphy or Jonathan Rhy?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119507443#Comment_119507443

And lots of lying to protect those who were there from reprisals. Not just a bullet to their own head but hopes of a livelihood in later life. Always going to be messy.

Subzero3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119507502#Comment_119507502

Ya your right. Thought I heard him saying "fader, I killed midal cawlins".

saabsaab

Sonny wasn't even at the ambush site at the time. Stated in a book on the subject by former Irish Army Captain John M Feehan.

The Shooting of Michael Collins: Murder or Accident Mercier Press, c1981. ISBN0946645035.

no official inquiry into Collins’s death, no records of an autopsy, and no death certificate!

Itssoeasy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119507548#Comment_119507548

he wasn’t there that night ? Well why would he have lied and said he.

saabsaab

'Art historian and performer Paddy Cullivan has uncovered new evidence to suggest that Sonny O'Neill could not have been the shooter.

O’Neill is mentioned in a 1924 Free State intelligence report as a “first-class shot”, but there is no evidence Cullivan says to suggest that he ever operated as a sniper either for the British army or the IRA. Had he been a sniper, he would have been deployed as one in the War of Independence.

Moreover, Cullivan has uncovered documentation from the German archives which shows that when O’Neill was repatriated as a prisoner-of-war in 1918 he had a severe wound to his right arm. O’Neill was captured in 1918 while serving with the Royal Irish Regiment (RIR) in the war.

Disability pension

He had been in the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) before the war and reapplied to join afterwards but was rejected on the grounds of his disability. He also received a disability pension from the British army after the war.

Documentation found by Cullivan in the British archives show O’Neill was judged to have had a 40 per cent disability to his right arm at the time he allegedly shot Collins.

In his two-part documentary The Murder of Michael Collins, Cullivan says O’Neill’s disability alone would have ruled him as the sniper.

The distances involved is another factor, Cullivan believes, in ruling him or another anti-Treaty ambusher as the assassin. According to witnesses on both sides at Béal na Bláth the ambush party were 150 metres (450 feet away) and the shot was taken at twilight when visibility was low.

By comparison Lee Harvey Oswald was 100 metres (300 feet away) when he shot former US president John F Kennedy in Dallas on November 22nd, 1963 and he needed three shots to hit the president.

Cullivan states that for a disabled man like O’Neill to have hit Collins with a single shot to the head from a distance of 150 metres in poor visibility was like “winning the Euromillions lottery twice in the same week”.

saabsaab

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119507565#Comment_119507565

Some of the ambush party said he wasn't there at the time of the shooting. Why indeed?

Cumhachtach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119507506#Comment_119507506

Sonny may have thought he dropped a man. I know a sniper at that distance would generally know.

Hard to see any differently really. Why were the state reports on Collin's death destroyed by Desmond Fitzgerald in the Phoenix Park before FF came to power in 32🤔

Itssoeasy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119507616#Comment_119507616

Okay. In fairness meda Ryan goes into huge detail about the ambush itself in her book and the whole thing was chaos with people not knowing where their colleagues were so imo because they said he wasn’t there might not be them knowing where he was. It’s weird that it the convey were a couple of minutes late getting to the ambush site then it would never have happened as the ambush party(what was left of it) were leaving and I know some ran back once they heard gunshots.

it’s amazing to think that 100 years ago right now this was all playing out.

saabsaab

See attched IT article on the subject..

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/who-killed-michael-collins-new-evidence-casts-doubt-on-chief-suspect-1.4653243

Itssoeasy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119507706#Comment_119507706

I has actually been told that there was evidence that sonny o Neil due to an injury would’ve had difficultly taking the shot but I hadn’t heard he’d gotten a pension because of it.

AllForIt

Cliff Barnes and Sue Ellen were the primary suspects but turned out it was Kirsten, Sue Ellen's sister.

If like me you have an interest in the highways and byways of history it’s important to understand weaponry and training. A little taster follows which might help with the rather loose term of “sniper”.

https://www.historicalfirearms.info/post/43102565094/the-mad-minute-marksmanship-training-in-the

walshb

..

Galwayguy35

The programme on Wednesday should be interesting but whether it will tell us anything we don't already know remains to be seen.

And the Lee Enfield rifle of the era at www.greatwarforum.org and look up Nathan Greenfield

Itssoeasy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119507616#Comment_119507616

In that IT article you posted it’s says sonny o Neil was at the ambush. That’s the thing though as time passes memory’s fade.

And another point I’d forgetten was that it’s believed it was a ricochet bullet killed Collins so could sonny O Neil have missed badly and his shot bounced up and hit Collins.

Itssoeasy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119507833#Comment_119507833

A few people by the sounds of it.

The disability thing isn’t of great relevance if you have a round in the chamber of a bolt action rifle. All you have to do is the trigger. A rifle propped on a piece of the bank, a figure 100-150 meters away: a trained soldier might have aimed at the chest and hit the head. It’s not the gotcha Mr Cullivan thinks.

The One Doctor

You know this happened 100 years ago, right? Bit late to argue 😉 ver the details.

Whether Collins was assassinated or not makes no difference to anything now.

Miadhc

https://www.thejournal.ie/michael-collins-centenary-beal-na-blath-ambush-battlefield-assessment-5842792-Aug2022/

serving Commandant in the Irish DF gives his take on it. He doubts the friendly fire claim.

Decent analysis.

thefa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119507487#Comment_119507487

Not suspicious at all really. Exhuming a national hero’s 100 year old body to satisfy some theorists would be a bit distasteful. It wouldn’t achieve anything else.