MICHAEL COLLINS, the most " wanted "man in the world, the man with a hundred disguises and about a dozen doubles, and the big brain behind the Sinn Fein movement.
That was written of the Irish leader not so many months ago, and now Michael Collins, patriot still, but loyal as well, saviour of his own country, but friend of this, is dead at the moment when he was most needed.
His Best Disguise.
Until not so very long ago Collins was little more than a name to most people in this country. Then came those dramatic treaty conferences in London, when the nation waited at midnight for peace or war, and everybody knew him.
The photograph of the man who had eluded police and army alike was published in every newspaper. He was lauded to the skies on the one hand, cursed by the fanatical extremists on the other, but all the time he smiled and won his way to the head of affairs in the troubled isle. As a matter of fact, the official photograph showing him with, as the Irish described it, a "down looking" face, was the best disguise he could have wished' for.
Michael Collins, a youth in appearance, was really a sturdy, well-set-up man, full of life, and one of the most cheerful of Irish-men.
Unforgettable Eyes.
To meet him was to remember his twinkling eyes. Of him it was said that they twinkled as arrestingly as do Charlie Chaplin's feet on the film.
Even when his brain was snapping fire his eyes' held their merriment. Sometimes red reflections would glide into those eyes, and then they would almost crackle, but the twinkle was there all the time, though it was the kind that might he likened to the grin of a bear about to embrace a foe. And then would come the sunshine again.
" I have held up the British Empire, and richly have I enjoyed it," he once said half in jest and half in earnest. It is the irony of fate that, having made his peace with the British Empire, he should die at the hands of his fellow countrymen for whom he had striven so hard.
Early Days.
Collins, the son of a small farmer, was born at Clonakilty, and, like so many other yoong Irishmen, crossed to this country in his " teens." He worked for some time as a boy clerk at the Post Office Savings Bank at West Kensington, and during that period became a keen debater in the Irish clubs around Clerkenwell.
The Sinn Fein movement, however, under the quieter methods of Mr. Arthur Griffith, dead in the same cause for which Coffins has died, was rising, and " Mick," as he was known to all his friends, returned to his native country.
'The Easter rebellion of 1916 found him fighting in the front ranks of the rebels, and he was captured and deported to Stafford Gaol. Later he was returned to Ireland until the general release at Christmas.
Then began the chapter of adventures which has only just closed.
After the collapse of the Republican army he became the organiser of the Irish rebel forces, and planned the sensational escapes of more than one political prisoner.
He it was who stage-managed the escape of De Valera from Lincoln Prison. He was the brain behind Sinn Fein, and how clever was that brain our authorities know only too well.
For three years or more he was chased from one end of Ireland to the other. From house to house, from county to county, he was hunted and harried. There was a price on his head, and capture seemed only a question of time. How many disguises ho assumed, how many ruses he adopted will never be known, but they saved him not once hut dozens of times in miraculous fashion.
Once he hid in a coffin in a hospital morgue while soldiers searched the beds for him. Another time, when a Dublin house was being raided, he dropped from a hack window clad only in his shirt, and so escaped.
Time and time again he met the soldiers of the Crown, but they did not realise it.
Few knew his biding places, and they could be trusted, and a personal guard of “gunmen” dead shots every one, never left him.
Officials at Dublin Castle once entertained him, unaware of his identity, and within a month he was back again in their midst, this time dressed as a woman. That was how Collins played the game of hide and seek, and it is no exaggeration to say that he wholeheartedly loved it.
From 1918 onwards he was member of Parliament representative for South Cork, and on one occasion when asked for his address replied "The house of Parliament." He was only there once, however, and then in the 'Distinguished Strangers Gallery'.
In peace and war Collins was a brave man. Friend and foe admitted that, and when, in the next stage of his remarkable career, he came into the full light of day, he proved just as-ready to cross swords with the statesmen and politicians as he had been with the soldiers.
All the talk about " shaking hands with murder" found him still smiling. One day a fugitive with a price on his head, the next an accepted ambassador in Downing Street, that was how Collins's life was ordered.
Meeting with Mr. Churchill.
When the Irishmen and the British Ministers met round the conference table, Mr Winston Churchill, it is said, was instinctively drawn towards him.
The Colonial Secretary, spontaneously, so it seemed, put out his hand, and just as spontaneously it was grasped by Collins. And then began the deliberations which so often threatened failure, but all the time he fought for peace.
He did not succeed. In spite of all those nerve and body racking debates, those earlv morning vigils-when everything; trembled in the balance, in spite of that apparent triumphant ending when agreement was reached and the treaty signed one morning when dawn was not far distant, Ireland was to know of the horrors of that worst of all warfare, civil war. But it was through no fault of Collins.
The Strong Hand.
He returned to Ireland, the King and Queen afterwards paid their historic tribute,and all seemed well. Came the break, and for a moment the world thought that Michael Collins was not big enough for his task. Side by side with Arthur Griffith, he stood by the word he had given, but the extremists continued to force his hand until it seemed he had hesitated too long. There was a stiffening of feeling against him, and murmurings by those only too eager to assume that Collins had forgotten his
pledges.
That he had not done, and at the risk of his life, in the face of many of his countrymen, he worked for the principles embodied in the treaty.
It may be that Collins foresaw what was to happen, shuddered at the thought of it, and struggled to avert the tragedy; but it was not to be. The mine was sprung, and once again Ireland was in the throes of strife and bloodshed.
It was then that Collins, as Commander-in-Chief of the National Army, showed how true he could be. With thought only for what he considered the right, he met force with force, and conquered.
In all these days of high excitement there was, for his quieter moments, the romance of which the world only learned a few months ago, when it was announced that he was betrothed to an Irish girl, Miss Kitty Kiernan, who lives at Granard.
The wedding was arranged for this month, but a few weeks ago was postponed on account of the conditions in Ireland, and now death has made that postponement for all time.