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Draws on sources to explore the life of Michael Collins and to ask what made him such an extraordinary and complex man. This comprehensive biography investigates Collins' life before becoming a revolutionary and takes a critical look at his rise to power and its consequences.
'It was the most providential escape yet. It will probably have the effect of making them think that I am even more mysterious than they believe me to be, and that is saying a good deal.' Michael Collins knew the power of his persona, and capitalised on what people wanted to believe. The image we have of him comes filtered through a sensational lens, exaggerated out of all proportion. We see what we have come to expect: 'the man who won the war', the centre of a web of intelligence that 'brought the British Empire to its knees'. He comes to us as a mixture of truth and lies, propaganda and misunderstanding. The willingness to see him as the sum of the Irish revolution, and in turn reduce him...
When President of the Irish Republic Michael Collins signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921, he remarked to Lord Birkenhead, 'I may have signed my actual death warrant.' And in August 1922 during the Irish Civil War, that prophecy came true - Collins was shot and killed by a fellow Irishman in a shocking political assassination. So ended the life of the greatest of all Irish nationalists, but his visions and legacy lived on. This authorative and comprehensive biography presents the life of a man who became a legend in his own lifetime, whose idealistic vigour and determination were matched only by his political realism and supreme organisational abilities. Coogan's biography provides a fascinating insight into a great political leader, whilst vividly portraying the political unrest in a divided Ireland, that can help to shape our understanding of Ireland's recent tumultuous socio-political history.
?Michael Collins is one of the most famous figures in Irish history. He became the most wanted man in the British Empire, a minister in the first Irish government and Commander-in-Chief of the army. This is an action-packed biography of a great Irish hero.
Traces the life of the man who negotiated for Irish independence and describes the political background of the times. Bibliog.
Why were both sides of the Civil War divide so evasive when it came to the death of Michael Collins? Why were they still trying to effect cover-ups as late as the 1960s? Determined to find the truth despite the trails of deception left by many of the key players, Gerard Murphy, a scientist, looked in detail at the evidence. Previous researchers have tended to concentrate on the reminiscences of survivors. Murphy instead focuses on information that appeared in the immediate wake of the ambush, before attempts could be made to conceal the truth. He also examines newly released material, and has carried out a forensic analysis of the ambush site based on photographic evidence of the aftermath recently discovered in a Dublin attic. These investigations have unearthed significant new evidence, overlooked for almost a century, that seriously questions the version of events currently accepted by historians.
The last of a manufacturing dynasty in a dying industrial town, Bill lives alone in the family mansion and works for the Truth, the moribund local paper. He yearns to write long philosophical pieces about the American dream gone sour, not the flaccid write-ups of bake-off contests demanded by the Truth. Then, old man Lawton goes missing, and suspicion fixes on his son, Ronny. Paradoxically, the specter of violent death breathes new life into the town. For Bill, a deeper and more disturbing involvement with the Lawtons ensues. The Lawton murder and the obsessions it awakes in the town come to symbolize the mood of a nation on the edge. Compulsively readable, The Keepers of Truth startles both with its insights and with Collins's powerful, incisive writing.
Michael Collins' essays and speeches spell out his vision for the future of Ireland. His overall vision is still inspiring; he saw the necessity for open trade, for investment and management, and for putting the 'national economy on a sound footing' as a priority and were written while seeking to establish democracy, liberty and stability
I want to be part of it, thought Michael. I want to be part of the song, part of the story. Listening to tales of old Ireland on a West Cork farm and fighting his corner in the school playground, a little fella with a fierce sense of injustice and an equally fierce temper vows to fight for Irish independence. 'I'd rather have a living brother than a brother who goes down in the history books as a hero, a dead hero!' says Hannie Collins. But headstrong as ever, young Michael leaves his job in London and returns to Ireland to fight in the 1916 Rising. Later, he creates a spy ring of ordinary people, in a Dublin where nothing is quite what it seems. This is the story of Michael Collins – brave hero and determined leader, loyal friend and dangerous enemy. He loved life. In the summer of1922 he was full of plans for his own future and for that of his country. But history had other plans for Michael.
Non-fiction Biography / history Ireland - War of Independence/Civil War Description: "Sigerson's work, obviously written from the heart, is a valuable contribution to the literature on Michael Collins, and should be available in any self-respecting Irish library. " - TIM PAT COOGAN A startling new perspective on Ireland's most notorious "cold case": the fatal shooting in 1922 of Michael Collins, Commander-in-Chief of newly-independent Ireland. Sigerson's controversial reconstruction of the ambush may be shocking to some: yet demonstrably fits the eyewitness accounts. This is the first re-examination of Collins' mysterious death in decades; carrying on where John Feehan's landmark edition of 1991 left off. It offers the most complete overview of the evidence ever published.