Ulsterman
County: Antrim
Posts: 2458

754826 I admire him up to the Civil War as the great man he was then no I am sorry after that he sold the North out like many in the South


Bigapple
County: Kerry
Posts: 267

755126 Our brothers in the North were abandoned , and the South was not ready for independence :
Collins made many poor decisions


2 true posts no matter what anyone in the 26 say the 6 counties where sold out for sure.

Dellboypolecat (Tyrone) - Posts: 15069 - 24/08/2010 17:54:33    755276

24/08/2010 17:54:33
Dellboypolecat
County: Tyrone
Posts: 12519

755276 Ulsterman
County: Antrim
Posts: 2458

754826 I admire him up to the Civil War as the great man he was then no I am sorry after that he sold the North out like many in the South


Bigapple
County: Kerry
Posts: 267

755126 Our brothers in the North were abandoned , and the South was not ready for independence :
Collins made many poor decisions


2 true posts no matter what anyone in the 26 say the 6 counties where sold out for sure.
----

I assume you mean the nationalists in the 6 counties were sold out.

abhainn (Galway) - Posts: 1000 - 24/08/2010 18:04:20    755294

abhainn you assume it whatever you like ......

Dellboypolecat (Tyrone) - Posts: 15069 - 24/08/2010 18:09:19    755306

Goodfella, Tir - Collins would have been and indeed was well aware of how the Catholic people in the north would be treated in a partitionist state - 1920 Pogroms for starters! So i'm afraid that old 'benefit of hindsight' arguement holds absolutely no water in this instance.

artisan (Down) - Posts: 1794 - 24/08/2010 18:35:12    755348

artisan, and everyone else.....Collins signed a treaty to get the British army out of Ireland. There WAS ALREADY a northern state. Collins ATTACKED that state, and planned to do so again before the Pact election etc....he had no intention of leaving the six counties.

abhainn (Galway) - Posts: 1000 - 24/08/2010 18:51:00    755371

Abhainn -The brits did not leave, they simply changed uniform.

artisan (Down) - Posts: 1794 - 24/08/2010 19:08:05    755386

In 1966 President of Ireland Eamon de Valera said

" It is in my considered opinion that in the fullness of time history will record the greatness of Michael Collins..and it will be recorded at my expense"

yew_tree (Mayo) - Posts: 11550 - 24/08/2010 19:38:00    755418

My family fought on the Republican side in the Civil war and I knew well one of the participants of the Beal na Blath ambush. I am still extremely friendly with his son. The Republicans had laid mines and were lying in wait for Collins for hours. However they felt he had been warned and wasn't going to come that way, so they disconnected the mines and began to withdraw. There were only a few of the ambush party around when the convoy came on to Beal na Blath and they took a few opportunistic shots. The leader of the convoy wanted to drive through at speed (the sensible option) but Collins shouted for the Convoy to stop and wanted to take on the attackers. Sonny O Neill who was taking cover behind a pillar let off one final shot as the attackers were scattering and this was the fatal shot that killed Collins. In my youth I despised Collins and the Free-Staters but I now realise that nothing is black & white. Collins was a patriot and a great soldier, he was also human and like the rest of us had flaws. An earlier poster alluded that he might have become a Mussolini type figure and that is very true, he was anything but humble and did have a flair for the grandiose. However whether he would have become a great leader that would have reunited our Country or a Dictator is all conjecture. He died a young man and those that immediately followed him were far more extreme in dealing with dissenters. I support neither Fianna Fail or Fine Gael but I am glad to see Lenihan give the Beal na Blath address, it is well overdue to put all the bitterness of the past to one side. Collins was a great Irishman as were the lads who fought against him. The Civil War was a tragedy with mistakes made on all sides its now best consigned to History there is nothing to be gained by now throwing Civil War type insults at each other in the present day.

corkcelt (Cork) - Posts: 4388 - 24/08/2010 19:52:19    755433

Corkcelt
You continue to rise in My esteem. Why is it that people in general and many posters here in particular seem to be so blinkered in their assessment of history. Nothing is clear cut no one has a monoply on right and all figures from history suffer from the same human frailities as we ourselves. Collins did what he believed was the best thing at the time. I believe his decisions flawed as they were, were made with the advancement of irish freedom from foreign rule as his aim. I continue to doubt the same of De Valera.

derryman (Derry) - Posts: 3246 - 24/08/2010 20:12:15    755457

thats the key derryman - everything he did he did for the removal of foreign rule. Its all too easy to judge in hindsight

abhainn (Galway) - Posts: 1000 - 24/08/2010 20:29:49    755470

notice that ulster people always crying that the south left them behind...etc but what fighting do they do in 1916...etc to win their freedom or did they just expect those in the south to do all the fighting for them

bad.monkey (USA) - Posts: 4649 - 24/08/2010 21:17:49    755510

fantastic post corkcelt. i have a huge amount of time for michael collins myself, a tragedy his life was cut short.

bad.monkey (USA) - Posts: 4649 - 24/08/2010 21:20:04    755512

bad.monkey
County: USA
Posts: 2348

755510 notice that ulster people always crying that the south left them behind...etc but what fighting do they do in 1916...etc to win their freedom or did they just expect those in the south to do all the fighting for them

Id say there were plenty among the ranks. The rest trying to survive in the totally outnumbered north.

Brolly (Monaghan) - Posts: 4472 - 24/08/2010 21:39:51    755542

bad.monkey
County: USA
Posts: 2348


notice that ulster people always crying that the south left them behind...etc but what fighting do they do in 1916...etc to win their freedom or did they just expect those in the south to do all the fighting for them

Typical pro partition, anti-Irish statement, blame the people of Ulster for their own enslavement. Ulster was at one stage the most Irish, Gaelic and free province of them all, and for years led the resistance to British tyranny. The O'Neill rebellion, the 1641 rebellion and the United Irishmen were all associated with Ulster. Thats why Britain tried ethnic cleansing in the form of the plantations to rid Ulster of rebels. And it worked to a certain degree. Now, we come to the War of Independence era, and nothing of note happened in Ulster. Why? Because sectarianism shown to the Nationalist communtiy was rife, and they were downtrodden by organisations like the Orange Order, backed by the British Army.

Scruffy2Donut (Cavan) - Posts: 1112 - 24/08/2010 21:42:53    755545

bad.monkey
County: USA
Posts: 2348

755510 notice that ulster people always crying that the south left them behind...etc but what fighting do they do in 1916...etc to win their freedom or did they just expect those in the south to do all the fighting for them

You have only suceeded in showing your own ignorance I am afraid. There are obvious reasons why the participants from Ulster never had their stories told. And there was a large contingent of volunteers from all over ulster left from Dungannon to join the rising but were turned back in dissaray when o neil countermanded the call to arms. As some one on another thread pointed out this has been an 800 year war but the only events properly accounted for is the 1916 rising and the war of independece as it is called. However some still believe the war of independence is still going on. If you bothered to read a little History you would see that the folk from Ulster and the six counties have all through history fought and died for that cause that gained independence for 26 counties and as of yet is incomplete.
It is understandable why we in the north feel abandoned and if you want to gain an insight find a very old book called "Churchill and Ireland" and that was written long before the most recent skirmishes of the 800 year war.

derryman (Derry) - Posts: 3246 - 24/08/2010 21:47:55    755552

A lot of whats been written here about Ulster is true. Believing the south abandoned them is fair enough, as thats what the South did. But what else could the south do? People had become tired of war, and were not able to keep going. In Galway, between WWI, the WoI and the Civil War there were very few families left without death touching them somehow. Huge numbers of people unable to farm the land which was too small to provide them with a living anyway. They lived in abject poverty which we can't comprehend today. There were 2 famines in Galway between 1915-1923, and people had their own survival on their minds rather than an ideological fight. Yet a large minority of people still refused to accept the treaty. But the majority took a chance for peace, to rebuild their lives. It is not fair to judge them with a wave of the hand and with 90 years hindsight.

abhainn (Galway) - Posts: 1000 - 25/08/2010 09:37:38    755616

http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/tomclarkeairport


and they are going to name the airport after a Dungannon man!!

Dún Geanainn Abú

wise_guy (Tyrone) - Posts: 1584 - 25/08/2010 14:21:44    755983

corkcelt - excellent post, one of the best ive read on hoganstand ever.

yew_tree (Mayo) - Posts: 11550 - 25/08/2010 17:16:03    756262

Collins himself said that he signed his own death warrant by signing the treaty.
He probably wasn't destined to die of old age.

Bigapple (Kerry) - Posts: 495 - 25/08/2010 17:26:15    756281

a true hero- and from how they have behaved in the north since boy wasnt collins spot on, a great decision

liathroidboy (Mayo) - Posts: 4921 - 05/09/2010 15:36:54    765572