Irish Examiner view: Formal inquiry into death of Michael Collins is a dead end

Discovering the truth would be desirable, but a judgement based on a balance of probabilities would be a hostage to fortune

The Taoiseach has ruled out holding an official enquiry into the death of revolutionary and statesman Michael Collins who died during the Civil War on August 12, 1922. Picture: Topical Press/Getty Images

The Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, is wise to rule out any formal inquiry into the death of Michael Collins on August 22, 1922 at Béal na Bláth, County Cork, in the middle of the bloody conflict between Free  State and anti-Treaty forces.

This is not because it is undesirable to know what happened in the firefight just before sunset on that fateful day. Quite the reverse. As we wrote at the start of October, “the assassination of Michael Collins, if that is what it was, is one of the foundation myths of the state and resonates to this day: 

If there is truth to be found, it is always best and safer to unearth it. It prevents the past from being hijacked and distorted, often to serve political ends.

But invoking the apparatus of the State to try to uncover a century-old “truth” in a year of centenaries, which begins on January 7 with the anniversary of Dáil Éireann’s decision to approve the Anglo-Irish Treaty by seven votes, would be a hostage to fortune. In the absence of any conclusive evidence a judgement based on a balance of probabilities would be fully open to misinterpretation and misrepresentation.

The Warren Commission set up in 1963 to investigate the assassination of US president John F Kennedy in Dallas had access to all contemporary witness accounts and evidence. It delivered an 888-page report just 10 months later determining that he was murdered by Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone. Barely 30% of American citizens accept this as the truth.

Michael Collins' funeral cortege crossing St Patrick's Bridge in Cork on its way to Dublin — just days after the top photo of Collins was taken, at the funeral of Arthur Griffith. Picture: Irish Examiner Archive

For our Government to untangle the Gordian knot surrounding the death of Collins requires incontrovertible new evidence. At this moment there is none. There is no death certificate, and no formal independent autopsy other than the initial investigation carried out at Shanakiel Hospital in Cork before his body was transferred by ship to Dublin. Many of the papers referencing his killing were burned in 1932.

The Taoiseach is correct to say that Collins should be remembered primarily for his statesmanship. The Republican poet Shane Leslie wrote of him: “His spirit passed like sunset splendor.” This is a fine epitaph to carry into 2022.