Irish Republican leader of the Provisional Government of Southern Ireland Michael Collins arrives at the Colonial Office, London, in 1922
(Picture: Getty Images)A century ago today, the Irish revolutionary Michael Collins was assassinated during an ambush in rural Cork.
Events have been taking place across County Cork on Monday to remember Collins, to mark the centenary of his death.
Collins was a key figure in Ireland’s battle for independence from Britain in the early 1920s and, on Sunday, leaders of Fiana Fail and Fine Gael put their historic differences aside to attend a ceremony commemorating Collins’s death.
The two political parties have their origins in the Irish Civil War of 1922-1923.
Elsewhere, a team of forensic scientists and historians, led by former state pathologist Marie Cassidy, are re-examining the death, reports the Independent.
Despite the identity of the shooter remaining a mystery, Ms Cassidy said her group had succeeded in piecing together a better picture of the events that took place that day.
She said: “We can never say who it was, but I think we’ve got a clearer idea of where the shot came from. I think we’ve been able to say, this is what we think happened on this day.”
Here’s everything you need to know about Michael Collins on the 100th anniversary of his death.
Who was Michael Collins?
Michael Collins was born on a farm in rural County Cork in 1890, and grew up to be one of the most prominent figures in the Irish revolution, which in turn led to the partition of the island in 1921.
As a teenager, he moved from Cork to London, where he worked for the British Civil Service as a postal clerk, before returning to Ireland a decade later, to take part in the 1916 Easter Rising.
The brief rebellion against British rule was crushed. However, two years later, Sinn Fein won a landslide victory to set up a new breakaway government in Dublin.
Collins, who was by that stage an elected MP, became both a minister in the provisional government and the director of intelligence for the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
Following the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921), Collins was sent to London by Éamon de Valera in order to negotiate a peace deal.
The 1921 Anglo-English treaty created an independent Irish Free State, but it angered many republicans, as it appeared to consolidate Britain’s recent partition of Ireland.
The treaty caused a bitter split within the republican movement and, within a matter of months, the tensions boiled over into the Irish Civil War.
Collins was instated as commander-in-chief of the Free State’s new National Army, as well as chairman of the provisional government.
His tenure was short-lived, however, as he was assassinated by anti-treaty forces in his native County Cork on 22 August, 1922.
Numerous questions remain surrounding the death of Collins because the only witnesses were members of the free state army convoy and anti-treaty ambushers.
As no two stories match, and participant statements from both sides appear contradictory, unanswered questions linger about what happened that day.
