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What coincidences history throws up?. A young fellow of eight years of age who had never even been to Cork City, not to mind anywhere else, reading on the pamphlet called “Scissors and Paste” which took its name from the way the salient points that Griffith was trying to put across, were pasted on a hard board background.

34 years further on, Arthur Griffith, who was undoubtedly the most under-regarded patriot of our country, was able to say in the closing weeks of his life, “I have no ambition that my name go down in Irish History, but if it does, I want it to be associated with the name Michael Collins. For he is the man who carried on the struggle, and after having brought it to a successful conclusion, faced the realities of the facts at that time”.

An estimated half a million people lined the funeral route to Glasnevin cemetery for the funeral of
President Arthur Griffith

Michael Collins finished his formal schooling at 12 years of age, but he was to read every play that Shakespeare wrote, the entire works of Thomas Hardey and Sir James Barrie and many other books that this great old man, his father, had collected in their home in Woodfield. Knocknagow, which he cried over, was an inspiration for him, so that he would try and ensure that its likes would not happen again in a ffiture generation.

He had also read at the age of 12, books such as The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. This basic groundwork of economic thought is still valid to-day, and was in fact the text book when I did my final accountancy exam on economics. I think you xvill accept how unusual it was for a young fellow from Sam’s Cross, Woodfield, to have read it at 12 years of age and had made notes on the side of the book of the relevant items therein to similar countries such as ours.

After leaving the National School, he went on and did further studies to equip himself for the English Civil Service. That was the only job outlet in those days, for they would all have to go away in turn with the exception of Johnny, my thther, his eldest brother. Michael went at the age of 16 to the Post Office in London in 1906. In his very first week over there his mother died, but sadly he had no money with which to return home for his mother’s funeral. He, along with his sister Hannie and their second cousin Nancy O’Brien went to Mass for their mother at Brompton Oratory. This was the very same church to which he went tn attend daily Mass during those Treaty negotiation days fifteen yean later.

Collins threw himself into the Gaelic League in London. He joined the Geraldines Hurling and Football Club and soon became its Secretary. He was enrolled into the IRB by the man whose name is now famous on the All- Ireland Football Trophy, - Sam Maguire. But I believe one of the greatest benefits he had in London at that time was his sister Hannie who lived in Kensington Gardens. She had preceded him by several years and was now gaining promotion in the British Civil Service. She took the words of her father to heart and right to her dying day, she too was a voracious reader. Collins went to many plays in London and widened the scope of his reading.

He attended three hour classes to improve his reading of English on three nights a week, and also took classes about conferring one’s thoughts to paper in a concise fashion. He wrote essay after essay, His second cousin Nancy O’Brien, who also worked in the post office, was astonished at the improvement in expressing himself and in putting his thoughts together in writing. He would give her essays to constructively criticise and she, who was the same age as himself would ask, “What is this all about Michael ? “.

“Nancy” he said, “If I am to ever lead my country to freedom I will want to know how to express myself how to put words on the overriding conviction I have, that instead of being a victim of happenings, I will cause things to happen. I will then practice for as long as it takes me to express myself clearly without notes, because in speaking from a written script, the heart isn’t in the words. The nuances of the word, and the inspiration in the words come from the heart and they have to be expressed through that most errant organ, the tongue”. These are extraordinary expressions for a man of 17 and 18, and that is what he gave himself unswervingly to do.

Often he would have liked to gone out with the lads, or to have gone with Nancy O’Brien and his sister Hannie to the plays, but Collins was keeping an eye on developments back home in Ireland. He was securing and bringing his potential slowly to its fuller development.

When word of the rising came he returned to Dublin and was Aide de Camp to James Plunkett in the GPO in 1916. I don’t know, how many people have read his comments on it, - “It was the greatest bloody fiasco that we ever were engaged in. There was courage, there was patriotism but there was bloody all else. There was no organisation”.

At the Funeral of Arthur Griffith

After this, yet another abortive rising, Collins who was now 26 was incarcerated in the grounds of the Rotunda Hospital, which was even then, and still is, one of the most famous Maternity Hospitals, not only in Ireland, but perhaps in the world. Collins was there for a couple of weeks. His second Cousin Nancy O’Brien had in the meantime been transferred back to Dublin on promotion. When she found that the prisoners were going to be shipped from Dublin Docks to Frongoch prison, to Brixton and other Jails, she thought she would seek him out on their way down the Quays to Alexander Basin from where the ships would depart.

In her own words, “There was never a more dejected, down-hearted and dispirited looking group of men”. They were pelted with rotten eggs and tomatoes by the women of Dublin City. Understandably so, for there was no employment for them in the Dublin of the time, and they were dependent on the money coming back from the Front from their husbands and sons fighting with the British Army. They regarded these youngsters as a crowd of pups.

Through all the despondency and the dejection she heard the familiar whistling of The Banks of My Own Lovely Lee. She found Michael ebullient, and full of the joys of Spring. “What has you so good humored? “she asked Michael as she walked alongside him. “I have twelve names here Nancy and after six weeks I know we’ll be ready for the next round. And we will win the next round with men of integrity and commitment”.

“Michael” she said, “you’ll soon be 26 and should you not be thinking of your future?. Will you be able to get back into the Civil Service?” He put his arm around her and said “Come here Nancy girl, where can you do better conceptual thinking than in the grounds of the Rotunda Maternity Hospital?”!.

These were prophetic words and they were to become reality in a very short while. As he was marched down the Quays he thought of the fiasco of the GPO Rising and was determined that next time things would be planned differently. There would be no sitting target, no static positions where the Helga could come up the Liffey and blast the hell out of us.

“We were like lambs to the slaughter. ‘Noble’ they called it. ‘Shameful’ I’d call it”. Surely by this stage of the twentieth century, these true hearted genuine Irishmen should have learned from the mistakes of the past and ensured that they would never find themselves in such a position again.