Sonny O’Neill's Béal na Bláth account says nothing of shot that killed Collins

Sonny O’Neill, the man believed to have killed Michael Collins at Béal na Bláth, described being there when applying for a military pension 13 years later — but said nothing about the gunfight or firing the fatal shot.

The absence of any detail and the apparent lack of questions about what transpired to be one of the country’s most significant military engagements, is described by a historian as very telling.

The military pension file of West Cork-born Denis ‘Sonny’ O’Neill — an ex-RIC policeman who served for three years in the British Army, including the last year of the First World War — was published online yesterday, along with those of more than 1,100 other Easter Rising, War of Independence, and Civil War veterans. The 350 pages on O’Neill in the Defence Forces’ Military Archives include a transcript of his May 1935 sworn statement to an advisory committee referee considering applications for those claiming pensions for service in the period.