Michael Collins and the Women Who Spied For Ireland (20 page)

Shortly after the funeral George Bernard Shaw wrote to Hannie, Michael Collins' sister:

Don't let them make you miserable about it: how could a born soldier die better than at the victorious end of a good fight, falling to the shot of another Irishman – a damned fool, but all the same an Irishman who thought he was fighting for Ireland – ‘a Roman to a Roman'? ...

So tear up your mourning and hang up your brightest colours in his honour; and let us all praise God that he had not to die in a snuffy bed of a trumpery cough, weakened by age, and saddened by the disappointments that would have attended his work had he lived.
1

Lady Hazel Lavery and her husband returned to England in September 1922. She invited Kevin O'Higgins to her entertainments whenever business took him to London.
2
W. T. Cosgrave commissioned Sir John to paint a portrait of her, which graced the Irish pound note for many years. Cosgrave said, ‘Every Irishman, not to mention the foreigner who visits Ireland, will carry [Lady Hazel] next to his heart.'

Her husband Sir John wrote: ‘Her rare beauty of face and character must have been known personally to be believed. We had twenty-five years together. She died in 1935, after a long illness'.
3

Kitty Kiernan was the woman most grievously affected by Mick's death.
The Evening Mail
of 23 August and
The Irish Independent
of 24 August commented on Michael Collins' planned marriage to Kitty:

In the midst of the national grief occasioned by his death a due share of sympathy will go out to this young lady in the irreparable loss she has sustained ... They became attached under romantic circumstances. One occasion she tramped all through the night to a lonely cabin where General Collins was hiding, and warned him that the Auxiliaries were on their way to arrest him.

Not long after his death Kitty recovered the letters she had written to Mick over a twelve-month period. Throughout her life she kept those letters as well as his letters near her so that she could read them over and over. Because she moved house on a few occasions some of the letters got mislaid, and she destroyed others for personal reasons about which we can only speculate.

In 1925 Kitty met and married Felix Cronin. He was also a veteran of the War of Independence and the Civil War, and as with other men of the time, he had met Mick Collins and fallen under the spell of ‘the big fellow'. Kitty and Felix had two sons.

As well as her treasured letters, she had the portrait of Michael Collins that had been painted by Sir John Lavery in London during the Treaty negotiations. This she set on an easel in her main living-room wherever she lived.

Though the portrait did not apparently give rise to any difficulty between the pair, their life together was not altogether happy. At times Felix drank to excess and Kitty was often moody; she tended to create the ‘misunderstandings and little rows' so well known to Mick Collins. She suffered from hypertension and other ailments, particularly in her latter years. She died on 24 July 1945, and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, not far from where Michael Collins was laid to rest. Sixteen years later Felix joined her.

Her collection of letters, including her love letters, were offered for public auction by her two sons, Michael Collins Cronin and Felix Cronin, on 13 June 1995. They were purchased by Peter Barry.

Notes

Primary Sources

Private Sources

Michael Collins' diary and details of Collins' career from Michael Collins, a nephew; also details of Nancy O'Brien's (his mother's) activities from him

Mr Liam Collins, background information

Mary Collins-Powell,
Memoirs
and Helena Collins,
Memoirs
(Michael Collins' sisters), from Mary Clare O'Malley and Mary Collins-Pierce.

Hales private papers from Maura Murphy and Eily Hales-MacCarthy

Leslie Price de Barra: private papers and memoirs

Máire Comerford: private papers and memoirs

Máire (Killeen) Mulloy: private letters of Susan Killeen

Dorothy (Dicker) Heffernan: private letters, records and memorabilia of Dilly Dicker

David Neligan: private papers and memoirs

Liam O'Donoghue: private papers including Nancy O'Brien letters

Peter Barry Collection of Michael Collins, Kitty Kiernan and Lady Lavery letters

Íosold Ó Deirg: Sligo prison diary of Michael Collins which he gave to Sinéad Mason

Moya Llewelyn Davies: private letters from Diarmuid Brennan

Interviews with contemporaries of Michael Collins as cited in the Acknowledgements and Notes

Archives

University College, Dublin, Archives: Richard Mulcahy Papers; Ernest Blythe Papers; Ernie O'Malley Papers: Desmond Fitzgerald Papers.

Trinity College, Dublin: Erskine Childers Papers and Diaries.

National Library of Ireland: Michael Collins Papers; Joseph McGarrity Papers; Art O'Brien Papers; Austin Stack Papers; Kathleen Napoli MacKenna Papers; Florrie O'Donoghue Papers; Mark Sturgis' Diary.

Military Archives, Dublin: Captured Correspondence and Documents; Intelligence Reports; General Staff Instructions; Operations Reports; Newspaper cuttings; Military Reports; Ernie O'Malley notebooks.

State Paper Office, Dublin: Minutes of Provisional Government; Minutes of the Executive Council; Dáil Éireann Papers.

Public Records: British Library Board Newspaper Library, London; Colonial Office Papers, Public Record Office, London.

Newspapers and Periodicals

Irish Times, Irish Independent, Freeman's Journal, Cork Examiner, Irish Press, Sunday Express, Daily Sketch, Daily Mail, Sunday Independent, Sunday Press, Capuchin Annual, Police Gazette-Hue and Cry, Sinn Féin Journal
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