Who shot Michael Collins.

saabsaab

Also this source politics.ie

'Dalton's family signed an affidavit saying that he killed Michael Collins. There is a copy of it and related documents in the 'O'Mahony Papers' in the National Library. https://www.nli.ie/pdfs/mss lists/130_SeanOMahony.pdf

Here are the file numbers.

On the same site

'Dr. Leo Ahern said there was only one large entrance wound and no exit wound. No forehead wound was found. Dr. Michael Riordan also examined the body and agreed with Ahern. One large, deep entrance wound with part of the head blown off was the conclusion. Dr. Christy Kelly confirmed Riordan’s appraisal, Dr. Gerard Ahern spoke of Kelly telling him about the wound and Dr. Cagney told the same story. Gogarty, the embalmer, said he thoroughly checked for forehead wounds and found none.'

thefa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119512588#Comment_119512588

One of the most bizarre attempts to smear Dalton occurred in 1987.

An elderly Dublin pawn shop clerk, Joe Dalton, swore an affidavit with a solicitor, the late Larry Murphy, claiming to be Emmet’s nephew, and stating that “Uncle Emmet” told him he shot Collins “with a Luger pistol”. According to Murphy, Joe had IRA or republican “tendencies”.

A copy of the affidavit is in the National Library archives and figured in a recent academic study of Collins.

The problem is that County Monaghan-born Joe Dalton, who led a frugal, reclusive bachelor life and died in 1988 at age 73, was not related in any way to Emmet, and there is no indication that they ever even met.

But he is still described as a “nephew” in a library catalogue.

Ah here. We can all do that.

“Ryan concludes from her evidence:

"Michael Collins was not shot by a bullet from a Mauser pistol.

Michael Collins was not killed by a ricochet bullet. Michael

Collins was shot by the Republican who said, 'I dropped one man.

Author James MacKay corroborates her conclusion in Michael Collins: A Life:

"Shortly after admission, the dead leader was examined by Dr. Patrick Cagney who had served with the Royal Army Medical Corps during the First World War and was an authority on gunshot wounds. He had no hesitation in concluding that Michael had died from a wound inflicted by a Lee-Enfield.303 high-velocity rifle. The bullet had made a neat hole on entering the skull at the hairline, but had torn away a substantial part of the bone and brain before exiting behind the ear. The size of the exit wound, to the untrained eye, gave rise to several myths that endure to this day.”

sarahmichaelcollins website.

Did you know that the doctors at Bethesda Naval Hospital missed the exit wound in JFKs throat? The tracheotomy done to him confused them.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119507899#Comment_119507899

Somehow a "current affair" 🤣

Notmything

Fwiw a "dum dum" bullet will do a lot more than cause a 2in gash as suggested in one of the posts.

saabsaab

Some say Collins was going to expose a British plant (code name Thorp) in the Government when he returned.

Count Dracula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119517118#Comment_119517118

There were plenty of people who benefitted from his killing. Rumours about moles in government are interesting, although what are you implying if this were true?

Who was the plant, has this ever been exposed?

I think it is lazy to assume he was as popular a man as he is made out to be today. Begrudgery was invented long before the Civil war. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. He is sometimes almost beatified as our only martyr, but the reality is that fighting the Brits somehow led us to fighting each other...again. He had his fair share of dissenters on both sides, I would not be as brash to name them, even the ones I have heard. But he stood on many toes to be the boss.

People forget the nature of the times. The war in Europe resulted in Ireland being flooded with arms, rifles and guns were as common a feature post 1918 as mobiles and lap tops are today. Every second house was armed.

People underestimate the perception of betrayal felt by Irish people when he compromised over the six counties and the oath of allegiance. He was asking families butchered, burned and raped by the Tans to turn the other cheek. That did not sit well, nationwide, never mind Cork city or county? People were fuming, many were lining up to pull the trigger.

I would never rule out friendly fire either, not deliberate, but at twilight it would be near impossible shooting into a hill with the sun dropping away. I also always question how he was the only body after the ambush? That armoured shooter should have had a machine gun rattling away in all directions, catch a bullet a centre metre thick off one of those and it is all over. He was mad to leave his car as well, someone reckoned he was jarred, but I think that is an insult.

The Cork irregulars lured him down there on the promise of talks and killed him. All units were trained to operate in secrecy, the Sonny O'Neill story might be true, but any of them could have done him. I still am astonished he was the only fatality.

Why did they take the same route home? Sloppy stuff.

Pussyhands

Would have been interesting to see Collins live to an old man. Similar to Dev only dieing in 1972. Someone so prominent in the foundation of the state being alive so relatively recently is mad to think, similar to Tom Barry.

Kermit.de.frog

Time to move on OP

Cumhachtach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119517625#Comment_119517625

Hop off.

SEPT 23 1989

Some Tacky crime style show on RTE

is this how we celebrate our history now?

Cumhachtach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119517722#Comment_119517722

The centenary of Collins' death was never going to be a celebration.

In fairness they're trying something different, it's only half way through. See will we hear anything new.

saabsaab

RTE1 showing Cold Case Collins now.

saabsaab

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119517562#Comment_119517562

The 'plant' wasn't exposed. It was said that his papers concerning the matter were destroyed either by the plant or thiose in Government that may have wanted him out of the picture.

Cumhachtach

The state of Liam Deasy😅

Cary Elwes!

Dyr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119517622#Comment_119517622

I always reckoned Collins had the charisma, political inclination and temperment to become Irelands version of Franco. He was already making decisions as CIC that the government were having to rubber stamp after the fact.

Ignacius

Has anybody said Maggie Simpson yet?

trashcan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119517722#Comment_119517722

Some of the dialogue is so cringey. Use of idioms like “ last time I checked” and “We’re done here” so 21st century. Not the way people would have spoken in 1924.

Count Dracula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119517622#Comment_119517622

This is the thing though, he would have had more opportunities to maybe phuck things up even worse?

It is like everyone thinks Cobain or Bill Hicks were geniuses? They only worked for a few years, nothing to judge them on.

Seán Lemass kept himself in the game and we should all be grateful, he literally built the country single handed ... with the help of Thomas Kinsella and Tommy Whitaker.

You can't run a country from your grave.

saabsaab

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119517824#Comment_119517824

Maybe a De Gaulle or even a Mussolini?

Count Dracula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119517779#Comment_119517779

Who are " those in government" ?

Cumhachtach

Collins was very used to doing things his way from a young age. Once Dev went to the US for 18mts in the WoI, that was that. He had his hand in everything. Made a lot of enemies by encroaching on others' brief, like Brugha.

Gobshites like O'Higgins wanted a blue flag with a crown on it for Ireland. There were a lot of very different men cobbled together on all sides.

saabsaab

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119517898#Comment_119517898

Senior members of the provisional governemnt of the 'free state' at the time.

Count Dracula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119517625#Comment_119517625

I also figured that the search for truth was something that you never found very interesting.......

Cumhachtach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119517940#Comment_119517940

Deleted

Count Dracula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119517923#Comment_119517923

Like who ?

Far more likely to have been plants on the army council of the irregulars tbh.

Sinn Féin members in the provisional government, who had British interests, were more likely to have been keen to end the war. Killing Collins never achieved that ?

Cumhachtach

I enjoyed that. Those responsible much as expected. Nice not to mention Sonny O’Neill. In the twilight and confusion, no one knew for sure. I'm sure the man has relatives in the area too.

saabsaab

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119518002#Comment_119518002

Collins wanted, according to some, to support a guerilla war in the north followed by an invasion at the earliest opportunity with a chance of success.

Cumhachtach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119518087#Comment_119518087

He was supplying arms to Aitken etc I believe.

Joeseph Balls

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119518086#Comment_119518086

They mentioned the Emmet Dalton theory though, albeit basically ruling it out at the end. Would have been interesting to investigate the Sonny angle though...

Cumhachtach

Sonny O’Neill must have lived a hard life believing what he did. I must look at his death mass card in TP Coogan's book again. He lived to relative old age.

All so sad. But shur that's the way. Collins might have died of a heart attack at 40 etc. No guarantee he was going to live 30 years more, solve partition and so on.

Maybe his best work was done 1916-22.

saabsaab

Cold Case Collins was interesting, especially about his cap*. They showed a previously unoticed entry point in the cap that indicates a shot from above and from the side. Of course he could have turned his head and was hit from the front or he was shot from the side while he was looking forwards.

*Some say it isn't his cap but one used to cover his head at the time.

Count Dracula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119518087#Comment_119518087

Hillarious.

You will be telling me he had a quare one in Carraig Mhór next?

saabsaab

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119518152#Comment_119518152

Maybe he did?

hekker

I grew up in West Cork, my family were close with the Hales family. The conclusion they reached in the programme is in line with what we've always been told and of course people know who was responsible. People just don't talk about it, it was a war time situation and they were particularly brutal times in Cork. Apparently that's his cap alright. It's missing its badge which was supposedly given to Sean Hales.

Cumhachtach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119518120#Comment_119518120

They did about Dalton alright.

I felt they left it at one of the irregulars as they couldn't pin it on Sonny. And it wouldn't be fair on his descendants.

Very interesting with Collins' grandniece. The men apologising to her grandfather. The family know the full story. Shot by neighbours.

Joeseph Balls

Was it an off the cuff last minute ambush in your opinion?

You probably won't say, but O'Neill?

They must have been tough times for everyone

Joeseph Balls

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119518178#Comment_119518178

Does Dalton not have descendants?

I agree about the niece. You did get the feeling of let sleeping dogs lie sort of thing. Maybe they know, and understand, and that's fair enough.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119518087#Comment_119518087

There was a good article in the Sunday Indo just gone suggesting that Collins was a somewhat troubling figure (and this was by no means a hatchet job on him). The writer was suggesting that by July 1922, he was more akin to the head of a military dictatorship or a 'generalissimo' with perhaps way too much individual power and it's not at all certain that he would have switched to being a purely democratic figure.

Cumhachtach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119518181#Comment_119518181

Once they asked for directions at Longs to Bandon. Ambush on. Came back the same way. Probably, 75%, Sonny O’Neill in my opinion.

It's very sad. I don't know what Collins would become, or Ireland. How he'd mellow with age. People forget Collins was a devout Catholic too. So the RC may still have been prominent. Though hard to see as much as under Dev.

Cumhachtach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119518199#Comment_119518199

I don't know, probably. But Dalton was a high profile army general, and exonerated tonight.

Sonny was an ordinary foot soldier.

Count Dracula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119518165#Comment_119518165

I can't see it to be honest. There would not be enough polish going around for his boots.

He was all about appearances, from what I can see.

He dressed like Hitler, Stalin or Mussolini.

Cumhachtach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119518205#Comment_119518205

O'Higgins, Minister for justice labelled Collins a blasphemous pasty fcuker! Collins had more in common with regards to the North etc with the anti treatyites than a lot of the less republican members of the Cumann na nGaedheal government.

That Bruton, Flanagan element that always existed in that party, later Fine Gael. Wanting to return to the Commonwealth, commemorate Tans etc.

In many ways Collins found himself on the wrong side. Because he felt he could achieve the Republican ideal through pragmatism. A pity so many of the anti treatyites couldn't see his logic. At the end of the day even men like Dan Breen took the oath on becoming a TD.

wotzgoingon

I have no idea who shot Michael Collins but I do know who shot Biggie Smalls.

I'll repeat that I know who shot Biggie Smalls.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119517824#Comment_119517824

If that is indeed the case, it might suggest that the new state accidentally stumbled into being a peaceful parliamentary democracy months after his passing. The new leader W.T. Cosgrave was primarily a longstanding politician (even though he had participated in the 1916 Rising) and was not a military figure.

Cumhachtach

Collins was a wild, in ways childish man. Wrestling the lads for 'a bit of ear', bite their ear!

He had to grow up quickly, as most did then. Off to London at 15. A lot of rough edges compared to Griffith or Dev.

Imagine Leo wrestling Simon Harris for a bit of ear🤣

Cumhachtach

So many interesting things about Collins. His father 75 when he was born. Youngest of 8. His dad 60 married his mam age 23. He had a farm in Woodfield. The father was a scholar, taught by a hedge school master. Proficient in Greek, Latin. A scholar of maths and astronomy. Michael learning fenian tales from the local Blacksmith at Sam's Cross.

SafeSurfer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119518132#Comment_119518132

The examination of the hat was something new and interesting.

Surprised that in an almost 2 hour programme from our national broadcaster they could find no room for people of colour in either the dramatic reconstructions or discussion panel.

Will have to wait for the 150th anniversary perhaps.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119518268#Comment_119518268

Getting involved in a gun battle with the ambushers was crazy stuff for the effective head of state, especially for someone with no military experience. An actual army general would normally keep his head down and simply be issuing orders to his men.

Cumhachtach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119518283#Comment_119518283

Appalling. And the trans community didn't get a look in tonight or on the Rose of Tralee.