Notes

Born in Sam's Cross, near Clonakilty, County Cork, Michael Collins was the third son and youngest of eight children. The Collins family were a close, warmly supportive family of overachievers. Part of an ancient clan, widely spread over County Cork, they had a rich intellectual life and republican connections that can be traced back to the 1798 rebellion.

Collins' father, Michael John, was a farmer by profession. A mathematician in his spare time, he had been a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) movement. On his death bed, his father predicted that his daughter Helena (one of Michael's elder sisters) would become a nun. She later did, known as Sister Mary Celestine, based in Whitby. He then turned to the family and told them to take care of Michael, because "One day he'll be a great man. He'll do great work for Ireland." Michael was six years old when his father died.

There are a number of different explanations for the origin of his nickname, "The Big Fellow". The most authoritative comes from his family, stating that he was so called by them while still a child. It was certainly established by his teens, long before he emerged as a political or military leader.

At the age of thirteen he boarded at Clonakilty National School. During the week he stayed with his sister Margaret Collins-O'Driscoll and her husband Patrick O'Driscoll, while at weekends he returned to the family farm. Patrick O'Driscoll founded the newspaper The West Cork People and Collins helped out with general reporting jobs and preparing the issues of the newspaper

After leaving school at fifteen, Collins took the British Civil Service examination in Cork in February 1906 and was then employed by the Royal Mail. In 1906, he moved to the home of his elder sister Hannie (Johanna) in London where he became a messenger at a London firm of stockbrokers, Horne and Company. While living in London he studied law at King's College London. He joined the London GAA and, through this, the IRB. Sam Maguire, a republican from Dunmanway, County Cork, introduced the 19-year-old Collins to the IRB.
He was also a member of Sinn Féin. In 1914 he became an Irish Volunteer and was second in command to Joseph Plunkett in the GPO but did not take part in the fighting. After the Rising, Collins, as a prisoner of war was sent to Stafford (England) and to Frongoch (Wales) where his qualities as leader emerged. He became a Sinn Fein MP; President of the Supreme Council of the IRB in 1919; a signatory of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921; and Chairman of the Provisional Government and Commander-in-Chief of the National Army, Irish Free State.

Collins considered the Treaty only as a means towards obtaining a 32 county republic and signed it with ‘great reluctance’. He subsequently wrote: “I tell you this—early this morning I signed my own death warrant.” He was killed in an ambush in Co Cork on August 22, 1922 in Beál na Blath.

Collins’ funeral was held on August 28. The Irish Independent reported it as the “greatest procession of sorrow ever seen in Dublin: a cortege three miles long”.