On Tuesday 20 April 2010 at Mealy’s Auctioneer’s rooms, Kilkenny, lot 604 was sold for €21,000 (plus fees). This item is described in the catalogue as: ‘THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF’S CAP BADGE Collins (Michael) An original Irish Army bronze Cap Badge with inscription Óglagh na hÉireann/FF reputed to have been removed from General Michael Collins’ vehicle at … Read more
The cap with jagged tear, minus badge and diamond, now located (but not on display) in the National Museum, Dublin, is the cap that Michael Collins wore when he was shot. It was sent there ‘from Mr Cosgrave’s office’ on 27 January 1923 ‘as being that worn by Collins at the time of his death’. … Read more
On that Tuesday morning, 22 August, the convoy lined up outside Cork’s Imperial Hotel’s military quarters as Michael Collins began his last journey. Emmet Dalton, National Army military operations director, saluted and spoke briefly to him before both mounted the Leyland vehicle. Collins jotted in his notebook: ‘Left at 6.15am—Macroom, Bandon, Clonakilty, Rosscarbery, Skibbereen’. As … Read more
Sir,—In his letter in the last issue (HI 19.3, May/June 2011) James Fitzgerald is quite correct to state that Martin Corry was merely the captain of the Knockraha company of the IRA. As such, he was a minor figure in the conflict in Cork. He is also correct to state that the company had a … Read more
The term ‘revisionist’, now a slur, has been used in recent years to attack historians and their works, and is frequently, although not exclusively, used by non-academics to assail ideas with which they disagree. Jeremy Smith traced the revisionism of War of Independence historiography to the 1940s, when academic historians began to study the war … Read more