Michael Collins would not have backed later IRA murders

Throughout history nationalist Ireland has described Michael Collins as a traitor who ‘sold out’ the nationalist people of Northern Ireland,a naive fool who was tricked into signing the Anglo Irish Treaty by the duplicitous British.

Now on the 100th anniversary of his killing he is claimed by various shades of nationalism as a ‘National Hero’.

Missing from any reflection or discussion on Michael Collins and his reasoning for signing the Anglo Irish Treaty which brought the War of Independence to an end is the fact that Michael Collins without compromising his Irish republican ideals, believed that the pursuit of a 32 County Sovereign Ireland was not worth the inevitable sectarian slaughter of Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. In that sense he was a progressive pragmatic republican who would have disavowed the current republican leadership belief that there was no alternative to the sectarian murder campaign of the 1970s 80s and 90s which is euphemistically called ‘The Troubles’.

Sinn Fein may take comfort from the recent Lucid Poll which indicated that approx 70% of nationalist people share Sinn Fein’s claim that there was no alternative to the IRA campaign. But perhaps the poll asked the wrong question for I believe that had nationlist people been asked do they believe that there was no alternative to the sectarian murder of their Protestant neighbors,friends and work colleagues many of the 70% would disagree with Sinn Fein’s position.

Gerry Cullen, Dungannon