Who shot Michael Collins.

I disagree. What if those (or at least some of those) responsible for the founding of the State were involved in killing a colleague? What if a British agent carried out such a killing? A rewrite of the History at least.

Florence O'Donoghue was head of intelligence of the irregulars and would certainly have had a fair idea where Collins and his entourage were heading to. He chased with the hare and hunted with the hounds and it is highly likely that he had direct contact with Collins or the ability to do so as they were both active in the intelligence units since the War of independence. You are talking cloak and dagger stuff anywhere south west of the Golden Vale.

Chief of Staff of the irregulars was Liam Lynch, he was from around Fermoy triangle south west of the Galtees and Knockmealdowns, he definitely gave the nod to ambush, any connections with Dev would leak from there. Lynch literally called the shots and was most certainly Devs eyes and ears and the rest. He was the boss, in saying that he was on the same IRB council as Collins, knew him personally, so it just goes to highlight how cutthroat and nasty it got.

Motivations are anyone's guess? Lynch was a real mountain bandit and a brilliant Guerilla , knew all the tricks. In saying that i can't be positive he knew all that more about deep west Cork, but as CofS he definitely knew who did , as would have Florrie O'Donoghue.

It was chaotic stuff, radio silence, orders on one page notes that could bee eating by commanders. The fact that Dev was local could possibly have been a trope to lure Collins? But we will never know.

Trigger pullers from West Cork were widely in abundance. Any decent pheasant shooter would be able to target someone from a suitable position, anyone in that ambush Brigade would have been carefully selected by Lynch. I wouldn't rule out friendly fire either, but I would not be as cynical as arguing it was deliberate. All Irishmen who got caught up in that phuckfest of a war were literally scrapping for their lives and they all knew it. Collins being down there was bordering on lunacy, but I reckon he thought he was meeting irregulars for talks. i just doubt he would have had traitors in his circle.

It is not entirely fair of me to implicate Florrie O'Neil , he may not have been involved and he was progressive about uniting IRA members on both sides. But for sure he knew them all and whilst his intention may not have been to see Collins ambushed he certainly knew where he was, where he was going and most importantly what he was led to believe by both Anti and pro treaty commanders, it was his job to know and he was respected and trusted by both sides. As I said there were no shortage of decent soldiers to pull the trigger and Lynch modelled them all. Lynch would have been all over that operation I reckon.

It was ugly nasty stuff.

Are you sure. In some cases it may be possible to find answers even decades later especially if the body was embalmed. See below..

'The body of civil rights activist Medgar Evers, who was assassinated in 1963, was exhumed during the much-delayed murder trial of Byron De La Beckwith in 1994. And U.S. President Zachary Taylor’s corpse was disinterred in 1991—141 years after his death—to determine whether he had died from arsenic poisoning. No evidence of poisoning was found, and the coroner in charge of the autopsy concluded that Taylor had died of gastroenteritis.'

I agree. But he certainly had massive sympathies with irregulars and was the intelligence boss for Cork and most likely the rest of Munster and had a direct link over Mount Eagle and connections in Kerry. Tom Barry gave the oration at his funeral.

Given his opposition to the war I get how it is hard to envisage. But my angle on this is that he may not have had much of a choice over whose ears he was feeding. The best intelligence commanders have to balance lines of communication and that means sacrificing knowledge to everyones' beak. It is murky rancid stuff and whilst I am not convinced he was motivated by assassinating Collins he would have known where is was going and had the ability to warn or dupe either side. So he may have not had the option and had his hand forced by the worse of two evils. I hope I am not implying he was directly involved but his connections to Cork irregulars just cannot be ignored. Tensions were seriously high at the time.

Put it this way, he knew where and what Collins was up to, so either one of his immediate officers betrayed him and fed the information to the ambush unit, or he fed it himself. Either way he knew at some point what was potentially going down and either chose to ignore it, didn't believe his info would be detrimental or had a leaky unit. it is one of these. Spies could be shot on the spot by either side, he may not have had the option.

Very interesting post. I understand what you mean, he had the info on Collins' movements. Being close to so many anti Treaty men that information could have come out in some way. Despite O'Donoghue's respect for Collins, personally he might have been angry with him too.

On an aside, a few historians I know think Collins may have been well under the influence that night, maybe causing him to leave the armoured car.