Dev did not destroy Collins documents
The report quoted the auction cataloguer as saying that most official documents bearing Collins’ name “were destroyed by Eamon de Valera.”
That is incorrect and I have waited in vain for someone in Fianna Fail to refute it. There is public access to Collins’ papers in the National Library, as well as Cabinet minutes and Dept. of Finance records in the National Archive.
Michael Collins’ personal diary and other papers are available in UCD archives at Belfield, and I also have a couple myself.
The Cabinet minutes of the Provisional Government in the National Archives are also interesting.
Only the minutes of the inaugural meeting are handwritten and signed by Collins; all other remaining minutes up to the time of his death are typewritten and unsigned.
These minutes were under direct control of WT Cosgrave, chairman of the executive council of the Free State, for ten years after the death of Collins.
I have no knowledge of Cosgrave ever claiming that Dev had subsequently made alterations to them.
It is well known that all Cabinet documents concerning the reprisal execution of Republican prisoners in 1922-23, and papers relating to an inquiry into the ambush at Béal na mBláth, were destroyed by Cumann na Gael ministers before leaving office in 1932.
Paddy Connolly,
Clancoolmore,
Bandon,
Co Cork.
