The wee road around Beal na Blath in Cork resembles a typical rural Irish road, but it a spot which radically changed the course of the island’s history - the effects of which are still felt a century later.
It was on that lonely road that on 22nd August 1922 during the Irish Civil War between the Anti-Treaty IRA and the Pro-Treaty Free State forces that one of Ireland’s leading terror strategists turned government minister - Michael Collins - was shot dead in an ambush by the IRA.
Collins was one of the republican strategists who transformed the Irish Volunteers, who had been heavily defeated in the Easter Rising of 1916, into a guerrilla - or terrorist - force known as the IRA which sparked the War of Independence in 1919.
Also known as the Tan War because of the military tactics used by the United Kingdom’s Black and Tans Army unit in Ireland against the IRA and civilian population, the debate still rages as to whether it was the Tans who brought republicans to the negotiating table, or Collins’ IRA tactics which forced the British to the table.
Ironically, Collins signed his own death warrant when republicanism’s political strategist Eamon de Valera sent Collins to London as the head of the republican delegation to negotiate what became known as the Anglo-Irish Treaty - a treaty which not only divided Ireland politically, but also sparked the equally bloody Irish Civil War.
Indeed, that civil war saw more IRA members executed by their fellow republicans in the Free State forces than by the Black and Tans during the earlier War of Independence.
And while the death of Collins one hundred years ago today effectively began the process which ended the civil war, it also bought Northern Unionism valuable time politically and militarily to establish its fledgling Northern Ireland Unionist-controlled state.
Last year, Northern Ireland celebrated its centenary as a nation of the UK. That may not have been the case had Collins survived the Beal na Blath ambush in 1922.
Collins recognised the Anglo-Irish Treaty could not deliver a 32-county, all-Ireland democratic socialist republic. Ironically, like getting rid of the modern day Northern Ireland Protocol, Irish Unity would also have to be achieved in stages.
The Anglo-Irish Treaty delivered 26 of those 32 counties, but a terror war against Northern Unionists would deliver the other six before the new Northern Ireland would ‘find its feet’ politically and militarily.
Had Collins lived, once he had crushed the Anti-Treaty IRA, he would have formed a new IRA to attack Northern Ireland from within. Indeed, depending on the level of resources he could muster from Irish America, could he have equipped the Free State army to actually invade Northern Ireland?
Then again, would the British have allowed Collins’ indirect IRA campaign or a Free State invasion of the North to take place? Would the Tans return to Ireland to unleash even bigger brutality on the nationalist population than during the War of Independence?
With the death of Collins, there was no one within the ranks of the Free State forces or Pro-Treaty political establishment with the working knowledge to even launch a terror campaign against Northern Ireland.
The priority of Dublin’s Dail Eireann political establishment after the end of the Irish Civil War was to try and heal the bitter wounds created by that bloodbath, thereby ensuring the fledgling Irish Free State - like Northern Ireland - found its feet.
For Collins to attack Northern Ireland - whether by terror tactics or a full-scale invasion - could have backfired dramatically with Unionists countering by invading the South and expanding the number of counties comprising the new Northern Ireland.
Yes, had Collins lived there would have been a second civil war in Ireland - the original civil war which was boiling up in 1914 between the Irish Volunteers and Ulster Volunteers had the Great War not erupted; a war which saw Unionists and nationalists fight - and die - side by side in the trenches of Europe against Germany.
Whilst there has always been a debate as to who fired that fatal shot which killed Collins in 1922, the blame has always fallen on an Anti-Treaty IRA sniper.
Ultimately, that sniper did Unionism a favour. By eliminating Collins, there would be no threat of a Free State invasion of Northern Ireland, either by IRA terror or direct military action by the Free State forces. That factor allowed Northern Unionism to secure the new state using the recently formed Royal Ulster Constabulary, and especially its use of the B Specials.
Not even the IRA’s flirting with Hitler’s Nazis during World War Two or the IRA’s disastrous border campaign of 1956-62 could shake the political stability of Northern Ireland.
It would take three decades of the Troubles to shake those foundations, but in spite of Sinn Fein electoral successes on both sides of the Irish border, Northern Ireland remains part of the UK.
Today (22nd August) will see republicans of various shades all trying to claim Collins as one of their own. In reality, he was the best republican Unionism ever had!
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Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online. |
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