Michael Collins and the Women Who Spied For Ireland (19 page)

Collins as commander-in-chief knew now that he was acting from a position of strength: ‘Any further blood is on their [the Anti-Treatyites] shoulders. The onus is placed unmistakably on their shoulders,' he wrote.
22

That Saturday morning Lady Hazel Lavery telephoned Elizabeth, Countess of Fingall and asked if she thought Sir Horace Plunkett would like her ‘to bring Michael Collins over to supper'. A number of important people had been invited to dinner at Kilteragh House, residence of Sir Horace Plunkett, who was the founder of the cooperative movement.

The countess replied that she was sure Sir Horace as well as George Bernard Shaw who had also been invited would be ‘interested in the idea of meeting the rebel leader'.
23

In Portobello Barracks that same morning Michael Collins was feeling unwell. As he sat down to breakfast beside Richard Mulcahy he was ‘writhing with pain from a cold all through his body; and yet he was facing his day's work for that Saturday, and facing his Sunday's journey.'
24

While he attended to some preliminaries in his office he got a telephone call from Lady Hazel Lavery inviting him to the Plunkett dinner. He gladly accepted. Shortly afterwards he left the barracks. He had a few calls to make and dropped in briefly on his friends, the Leigh Doyles, in Greystones, where with Kevin O'Higgins and others he had been a regular visitor. Kitty often stayed there when visiting Dublin. She would come again at the weekend, and he would meet her on his return from his army tour of inspection. He asked them ‘to take care of her' – afterwards this would have ominous significance, as neither would ever see him again. On the way he had picked up a picture of himself in uniform which had been taken recently on Portobello grounds. He gave them a copy; he would sign it when he returned from Cork. Now he was in a hurry. Kitty had written that she had got a wire to go to her sister Chrys in Belfast who had had a baby though it wasn't due until ‘end of August or later ... Picture my disappointment,' she wrote. ‘I intended going to town this week ... I've got a feeling that I'll be lonely this time and not interested'.
25

Back in his office he dealt with a vast amount of correspondence. There were also last-minute decisions to be made regarding his next day's journey. Although he was not in top form physically he got through a tremendous volume of work, including a large number of letters.

Later in the evening, having checked with Joe McGrath that everything was in order for his early morning start, he was ready to relax for a few hours. According to Sir John Lavery, Hazel was anxious that Horace Plunkett and Michael Collins should meet. She took Collins ‘the same evening alone. I was a little anxious,' Sir John wrote, ‘but for some reason did not go'.
26
Lennox Robinson, who was also there, afterwards wrote to Lady Gregory: ‘He came in Lady Lavery's train, or rather she in his, for she is his abject admirer'.
27

That night prior to his southern tour, Collins signed his name in the visitor's book at Kilteragh House, in the now familiar manner, Mícheál Ó Coileáin – the Irish version. Because he was quieter than usual he did not impress Countess Elizabeth – ‘not at all an eloquent man, and my recollection of the dinner is that it was very quiet, and almost dull.'
28

The writer, George Bernard Shaw, met him that night ‘for the first and last time'. He was ‘very glad' he did. ‘I rejoice in the memory,' he wrote afterwards to Lady Lavery.
29

The guests, who included W. T. Cosgrave, left early because Michael Collins had to leave early for his journey south. They went ‘for a drive in the mountains,' according to Sir John Lavery – ‘a car with an escort followed them'. As they returned to the Kingstown Hotel where the Laverys were staying, they were ambushed. ‘Half a dozen shots were poured into the car.'
30

On their arrival at the hotel Sir John examined the car with an electric torch: ‘It seemed a miracle that no one was hurt, for there were six people in the car, sitting close together.' Collins' slight illness caused him to make light of the ambush; he was complaining of a pain in his side and thought it might be ‘his appendix'. After some persuasion he accepted Sir John's offer of a hot-water bottle which he placed under his tunic. He smiled and said, ‘The pain is gone'. With a ‘God bless you both,' he jumped into the car which sped off into the night. That was the last time that Lady Hazel and Sir John saw Michael Collins alive.
31

When he reached Portobello Barracks, Mick told Joe O'Reilly how badly he had been feeling. O'Reilly made a hot drink with oranges and took it to his colleague in bed.

‘God that's grand!' said Collins with glee.

These words of gratitude encouraged O'Reilly, who on impulse bent down to tuck him in for the night. Not used to such personal touches, Collins gathered his strength and shouted, ‘Go to hell and leave me alone!'
32

‘If only this thing was over I'd feel quite happy but I'm afraid I might lose you before I've really had you,' Kitty had written at the beginning of August as she recalled the first anniversary of their going-out together.

Mick had cherished the peace of the Truce period, following the hair-raising days of the War of Independence, when he could spend week-ends in Granard, attend Horse Show week and spend some days with Kitty. Now he longed for those days again, despite their having been laced with the anxiety of winning her love. More and more he had to depend now on Kitty's letters and on her coming to Dublin – ‘but you will write, won't you? When are you coming up again? You said next week. And it's next week now. It is you know. And when are you coming?' he pleaded on 8 August. He had to be himself, in control; if his tasks scooped from his rest-time it wasn't important because ever since childhood he would endeavour to give his best.

Kitty – you won't be cross with me for the way I go around. I can't help it and if I were to do anything else it wouldn't be me, and I really couldn't stand it. And somehow I feel the way I go on is better. And please, please do not worry.
33

Kitty agreed she'd ‘try not to worry tho' it's hard not to,' as she was ‘as fond' of him ‘as ever', she said. She had gone to see him that weekend and she ‘never felt before' that she was ‘such pals' with him. His communication with Kitty was now all done in the haste of his tumbling schedule. When he complained that she didn't write often enough, she put the blame on the post, ‘I wrote on Tuesday and since, but it takes two days to get to Dublin, damn it. I am sorry as I'd love you to get my letters in time. I was delighted with even your
little
note, and am longing to see you. Years and years since Saturday!' she wrote on 15 August.
34

Kitty intended travelling to Dublin after she had visited her sister Chrys in Bangor. She longed for one of ‘those long chats' when they would plan their future, a future with children, with hope, with love. Because of the troubled times the date of their planned June wedding had come and gone. But the day would not be far off, Mick felt.
35

His cold was only incidental, his duty as commander-in-chief of the army of the Provisional Government was now his priority. Having drunk O'Reilly's hot orange, he would have a good, though short, night's sleep and be ready to tackle the demanding journey and review of troops in many barracks.

Michael Collins woke early on Sunday 20 August, 1922. He dressed hastily. He and his convoy went through Limerick on to Mallow, to Cork. He stayed in the Imperial Hotel, where he met his friend Emmet Dalton and his sister Mary Collins-Powell. The following day, Monday 21 August, he was engaged in government business in Cork, then travelled to Cobh and later Macroom on army inspections. That night he again stayed at the Imperial Hotel. The next morning, 22 August, he and his party left the hotel at 6.15 am for his inspection tour of army barracks in west Cork. He visited his home area, Sam's Cross, and met his favourite aunt, his brother, cousins, friends and family members. On his way back to Cork City, travelling by the only route open to him, he was ambushed and shot dead at Béal na mBláth.

(A detailed account of the last three days of Michael Collins' life and an analysis of the way in which he met his death and of subsequent events are contained in my
The Day Michael Collins Was Shot)

Notes

On Wednesday morning 23 August, Elizabeth Countess of Fingall was sitting with Bernard Shaw's wife beside the fire in the study at Kilteragh House where Michael Collins had dined with them just a few nights previously. Suddenly the door opened and Hazel appeared ‘in deep mourning'.

‘I knew it before I saw the papers,' she said, ‘I had seen him in a dream, his face covered with blood.'

On Thursday morning, Lady Hazel and Countess Elizabeth went to view the body at the chapel of the Sisters of Charity at St Vincent's Hospital. Tall candles burned at his head and feet while four soldiers ‘guarded him in his last sleep. Michael Collins lay in full uniform, and to him death had given her full measure of beauty and dignity, increased by the effect of that white bandage round his head, which hid the wound made by the bullet that had killed him. His face had taken on an almost Napoleonic cast,' said Countess Elizabeth. When she whispered to one of the soldiers, ‘Where had he been hit?' he responded by touching the back of his own head.

The two young women with tear-stained faces stood for some time in silent prayer and then left.
1

A short while later, Kitty Kiernan entered the little chapel, accompanied by her sister. Kitty's eyes were red with crying. Now tears poured down her cheeks. She kissed Mick, held him and looked down at him for a long, long time.

Mick's friend Oliver Gogarty had embalmed the body and Albert Power made a death-mask of him. Sir John Lavery now began to do a painting of him. Later the remains were ceremoniously taken in procession to City Hall for the public lying-in-state. Queues filed past – members of the Squad, his intelligence men, government ministers, army officers and his many close comrades who had worked and suffered with him since 1915. On Sunday evening 27 August the body was taken to the pro-cathedral and the following morning, after Requiem Mass, the funeral cortège set out on the six-mile journey to Glasnevin cemetery. The coffin bore a single white lily, last symbol of Kitty's love. Thousands lined the streets to pay their last respects.

On that August morning in Glasnevin Mick Collins' sisters, Hannie, Margaret, Mary and Katie, his brother Johnny and many of Collins' comrades in arms and in politics now stood at the graveside – men like Dalton, Mulcahy, Dolan, O'Reilly, Cosgrave, O'Higgins, Blythe, Tobin, Cullen, O'Duffy, women like Jennie Wyse-Power, Min Ryan, Moya Llewelyn Davies.

Richard Mulcahy, who would afterwards take Michael Collins' place as commander-in-chief of the army, was almost poetic when he delivered the oration over his dead friend, now laid to rest beside other Volunteer friends:

Tom Ashe, Thomas MacCurtain, Traolach MacSuibhne, Dick McKee, Mícheál Ó Coileáin, and all of you who lie buried here, disciples of our great Chief, those of us you leave behind are all, too, grain from the same handful ... Men and women of Ireland, we are all mariners on the deep, bound for a port still seen only through storm and spray, sailing still on a sea ‘full of dangers and hardships, and bitter toil'. But the Great Sleeper lies smiling in the stern of the boat, and we shall be filled with that spirit which will walk bravely upon the waters.
2

This oration was recorded by Patrick O'Driscoll (husband of Collins' sister Margaret and a reporter in Dáil Éireann) on the blank page at the back of his prayer book.

In one of the last letters that Kitty wrote to Mick, she expressed her sorrow on the death of Arthur Griffith and wondered if he [Griffith] had been ‘prepared'.

‘I am always thinking of you and worrying,' she wrote, that ‘you'll be shot, but God is very good to you.'

Just over a week later she was standing at his graveside. The candles Mick had lit for Kitty in the churches of London and Dublin and the candles she had lit for him were now a memory. But Kitty would continue throughout her life to light a candle for him.

Two tearful women met for the first time. Michael Collins' fiancée Kitty Kiernan and his dear friend Lady Hazel Lavery spontaneously embraced. Other friends and relatives sobbed softly.
3

To the remaining members of the Provisional Government and officers in the army was left the task of picking up the threads of Michael Collins' work.

Notes