Encyclopaedia of Europe

Mary Kenny is the author of “Germany Calling: A Biography of William Joyce, Lord Haw-Haw.” New Island Books: 2003, 2004. Republished in London 2008 by Max Press, an imprint of Little Books, London W11 3QP    

Michael Collins’ religion

We do not associate Michael Collins with any strong sense of religious faith. Unlike Eamon de Valera, he is not identified with an Ireland of “Church and State”; neither is he thought of as being of a particularly spiritual cast of mind. In history and biography, Collins’s immense practicality – his extraordinary gift for organisation, much admired even by the British when they were seeking to capture him, with a price of £4000 on his head – is always emphasised.

A more recent, and more than usually hostile biography (1)  has also underlined his activities as a man who calculatedly ordered the death of other men, and was thus in effect a killer: what we would now call a terrorist. One memoir of Collins’ recalls that Collins had a mind to shoot the Bishop of Cork, Daniel Cohalan, for excommunicating the Sinn Fein activists in 1920. And Collins did not mince words about the said bishop, either, calling him “that ------ of a bishop”! “There is neither sense nor reason in shooting poor, uneducated idiots as spies and letting people like the Bishop of Cork get away with it.” He apparently decided not to liquidate Dr Cohalan because it was politically unwise, and there might have been logistical problems: even the gunmen themselves might demur.

His willingness to be ruthless, even – or especially - towards men of the cloth was perhaps foreshadowed in an early paper he gave to a Sinn Fein club in London in 1909 on “The Catholic Church in Ireland”. He delivered, writes Tim Pat Coogan, “a broadside against the Church’s attitude to Irish nationalism, concluding with the recommendation that the way to deal with the Irish hierarchy was ‘to exterminate them’.” (3) Collins was a youthful member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which was anathemised by the Catholic Church, as was all forms of physical force rebellion against the proper authority (as St Paul decreed). During Easter 1916, he also apparently mocked volunteers who sought a priest to hear their Confession lest it be their last day on earth. (4)

And  I would suggest that one of the reasons why Michael Collins’s stock has risen with a younger generation, while that of De Valera’s has fallen is partly because Collins has more of a reputation of having been anti-clerical, certainly in his youthful years. He also seems to embody a more modernised, secular and contemporary vision of Ireland: more focused on the practicalities of finance and prosperity, and much less on the mystical vision with which De Valera is now associated. (It must be conceded that  - aside from Neil Jordan’s sensational movie of 1996 – another reason to esteem Collins above Dev is that Dev lived to be 93, while Collins died at 31. Those who live longer inevitably outlive the spirit of their time.)

And it is true to say that in Michael Collins’s own writings, his vision of an Irish state seems to be entirely secular. (5) He says very little at all about the role of religion, except to imply that Ireland should be a country for all creeds – a view shared by all revolutionaries (and most Catholics, indeed) in 1922. The Irish Catholic newspaper, at the birth of the State, all emphasised the “inclusiveness” that the new State should represent. In parenthesis, it might also be added that Collins was not that exercised about whether Ireland should be a republic, either. An Irish constitutional monarchy, he thought, would do just as well. “If we had still a descendant of our Irish Kings left, we would be as free, under a limited monarchy, with the British gone, as under a Republic.”  National autonomy was what counted for Collins in terms of political aspiration: content, not form.

The greatest influence on his thinking, from an early age, was Douglas Hyde and he continued, right up to the end, to hold dear Hyde’s vision of a Gaelic Ireland. He retained a historical view – just slightly touched, I would think, with an element of mythologizing – of an earlier Celtic nation of Brehon laws and internal harmony. Collins had scant respect for Daniel O’Connell, whom he thought of – erroneously – as a narrow Catholic concerned largely with votes and British parliamentary seats for Catholics. In this, his knowledge was under-researched, and his judgement immature. O’Connell was, of course, distinctively a moderniser himself: an opponent of slavery and of anti-semitism: a man with a “globalised” vision who understood that democracy, and liberty,  depend crucially on the rule of law. Had Collins had more experience in governance, he would almost certainly have come to see how essential is the rule of law. But in 1922, before the worst of the Civil War began, Collins still elevated Thomas Davis and the Young Irelanders above O’Connell: and still disparaged O’Connell for shrinking from bloody revolution.

In the popular estimation, Michael Collins is seen as a strong, virile guy who comes near to fitting the James Bond ideal: the man of action who was censured for his easy recourse to bad language: hard-drinking: the reckless smoker ( though he could refrain if need be): the womaniser  (we don’t know: Hart alleges repeatedly that Collins had recourse to prostitutes in London, without producing any evidence).  Although we do know that many women loved Michael Collins, and Hazel Lavery, the beautiful wife of the painter Sir John, and close friend to Winston and Clementine Churchill- and the face which once graced our £ notes, framed as a dark-eyed colleen -  was deeply smitten by Collins, and had been ever since she met him as a lad of 16. (6)

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He doesn’t, in short, seem to fit the profile of a devout type of man. And in his early letters to the girl from Granard who became his fiancée, Kitty Kiernan, there are no available references to faith or religion. He writes to her, intermittently, in 1919, 1920 and early 1921 in brief, cheerful bursts, generally ending his letters with “love” or “fondest love”. It is in later 1921, notably when he is in London, attending the Anglo-Irish Conference which will eventually produce the Treaty of December 1921, that Collins emerges as a daily Mass-goer, and a devotee of the Rosary.

In September 1921 he visits the shrine of Blessed Oliver Plunkett in Drogheda and is impressed. “It’s simply marvellous,” he writes to Kitty, “and also I lit candles there – the first for you…” (7)

This seems to herald the start of an assiduous practice of church-going by Collins. It begins with the lighting of a candle, usually for Kitty, but develops into a daily Mass habit. Collins arrived in London for the Anglo-Irish talks on 9 October: there certainly was optimism expressed by all who were to attend the conference, including Collins himself, if somewhat cautiously. “We come with good will in our hearts, and hopes of success,” he told the reporter from the Daily Express, who seemed somewhat starstruck by the “Big Fellow’s” celebrity. “If Mr Lloyd George, Mr Winston Churchill and the rest of the British Cabinet will meet us in the same spirit – I am not without hope that we shall not have come here in vain.” Most of the British and Irish press were supportive of the peace conference (with notable exceptions, such as the sternly Unionist Morning Post) and were prepared to give it a fair wind. But by 12 October, Collins has taken up the habit of going to 8 a.m. Mass at Brompton Oratory, near where he is staying at 15 Cadogan Gardens in Belgravia.

This must have been a promise he made to Kitty Kiernan: on 13 October she writes to him from Granard to remind him of it. “Will you keep your promise no matter what happens to go to Confession and Communion? If I thought you would I’d feel quite content and satisfied…” She would, she went on, feel that sense of “Confidence that [God] will watch over you.”

She doesn’t want to preach but it is important to her. “My very dear love, I’m sorry for making a sermon of my letter…”  But even as she is writing, their letters crossed, and on 13 October, he picked up her letter after returning from Mass. He tells her that he doesn’t resent her “sermon”. “It’s a queer thing but I feel very like that [about Confession and Communion] and I have often felt that it required some one like you to make me appreciate the thing properly.” Every morning now, he says, he lights a candle for her at Brompton Oratory. (The British Secret Service was, of course, following him each day in this endeavour – sometimes as much for his protection as for their intelligence.)

The conference set out with good expectations, but it was bound to hit difficult patches, and on “one of the hardest days”, on October 14, he wrote as he came back from Mass and candle-lighting. On 16 October, Kitty encourages him: “Delighted you went to Mass, etc., and the candle wasn’t forgotten.”

This pattern continues throughout the arduous weeks of negotiation while the delegates argued about matters of sovereignty: how much Britain would concede and how much Ireland could get. Arthur Griffith was already in declining health, and Collins was regarded by the British team as effectively the leader of the delegation: they also believed he could “deliver” the IRB.

It is clear that the correspondence with Kitty is a great source of comfort to him, as is his daily visit to Brompton Oratory. In the middle of October (letter undated) he hears Mass twice – once at the Oratory at 8 a.m., and then later, at an official Mass at Maiden Lane – a gem of a little church just a stone’s throw from the Savoy Hotel in the Strand. He paid his respects, he writes, to Dr MacRory: no mention of shooting this ecclesiastic (but then Joseph MacRory, then Bishop of Down and Connor, and later Cardinal Archbishop, was a Nationalist from Ulster).

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Collins was not what would be called a feminist: he shared with Winston Churchill somewhat unenthusiastic feelings for the role of women in politics – possibly prompted, or abetted, in Collins’ case, by Constance Markievicz sometimes quite maliciously personalised feelings of hostility. (She tried to imply, in an extremely silly way, that Collins was having a romance with Princess Mary, daughter of King George V and Queen Mary.) (8) But nevertheless, Collins was influenced by women, and receptive to their influence: he had been under the wing of his older sister, Hannie, while living in London as a post-office clerk. Many women helped and supported him. He was attached, also, to his sister Helen, who became a nun (as Sister Mary Celestine), and is touched to report on 16 October 1921 that she is the only one who remembered his birthday, which would be his last. It certainly seems that Collins is influenced by Kitty Kiernan in his religious practice. He reports about his Mass-going because he wants to please his girlfriend – who becomes, in the course of the correspondence, the betrothed – and in this, he would not be the first Irishman to be guided towards a spiritual life by women. Hazel Lavery, too, who converts to Catholicism, writes to Collins about going to Mass and lighting candles.

These women are not pietistic prigs: Kitty is a normal, fun-loving young woman, perhaps a little over-anxious about matters of health (possibly a hypochrondiac), but in other respects involved with all the normal pursuits. She is mad about dancing, loves parties, loves being with people, and loves clothes. The correspondence between “Michéal” – as he always signs himself, in the Irish version of his name – and Kitty is almost never political, or touching on political matters: though the subtext, with Collins, is often of the “hard days” they endure during the negotiations, and the burdensome task with which he is involved (as is well known, he hated going to London on this mission, and pleaded with De Valera not to be sent.)

And so throughout October, November and December of 1921, Collins refers to his daily Mass. On October 20, he reports that he got to bed at 3.a.m, but woke at 7.15 for the 8 a.m. Brompton Oratory Mass. Kitty sends him a relic of the Little Flower (St Thérèse of Lisieux was to be canonised in 1925) for which he thanks her and vows: “I’ll pray to her.” Around then, he also starts to sign off his letters “May God bless my Kit and keep her safe”, where before his valediction was “love”, or “slan leat”. In an undated letter, probably in late October, he mentions that he has just knelt down and said the Rosary for her.

In addition to the Oratory, he now sometimes pops in St Mary’s Church in Hammersmith Road (probably en route to visiting his sister Hannie), especially to light the candle for Kitty.

On the morning on which is signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty – 6 December 1921 -  Michael finishes business at 2.15 a.m. “To bed about 5,” he writes, “and up to go to Mass and didn’t (need I say it) forget your candle.” His plans, he adds, are “as yet uncertain. I don’t know how things will go now. But with God’s help we have brought peace to this land of ours.”

After this he returns to Ireland, though there will be other trips to London in 1922. Collins continues to write to Kitty wherever he is – the postal services were, all during this period, remarkably reliable, and letters were always received within a day of posting – and almost always signs off “God be with you,” “God bless you”, “God bless you always”, and that old Irish inflection, “God is good”. He also uses the common conditional “D.V.” It is clear he remains a normal Mass attender during the continuously tough months of 1922, as the country descended into Civil War: and the hard man of yore is now deeply distressed to see bereaved mothers of fallen soldiers weeping at funeral Masses.

His very last letter to Kitty, on 11 August 1922 (the ambush in which he died took place on 22 August) finished with: “May God bless you always. Fondest love, Michéal.”

Leon O Broin, who edited the letters of Michael Collins and Kitty Kiernan – and skilfully put them into historical context, the work subsequently revised and extended by Cian O hEigeartaigh – noted the “recurrent religious note” in their letters. In Kitty’s last letter to Michael, she hopes they would visit Lough Dearg together, and when death comes for Arthur Griffith, suddenly, in the end,  she worries if he was “prepared”. These religious attitudes, O Broin notes, “may seem sanctimonious or pietistic, but to think so would be to misunderstand altogether the nature of a relationship in which it was possible for a man and a woman to talk sincerely to each other about their religious beliefs and what lay behind them.” It seems to me that Leon O Broin’s judgement is quite correct: their religious feelings were natural to their temperaments and culture. Before he had set off for London in October 1921, he had sought out a Passionist father, and made a general Confession: just like those volunteers in 1916.

Collins, I think, probably was a secularist in a political sense: he would have perhaps designed a more politically secular Ireland than De Valera allowed for (though, like all Irish Nationalists, Collins did not fully appreciate the depths of feeling by Ulster Unionists, and thought their commitment to the Union “manufactured” by the English). He was not, either, a man of unwavering faith or religiousity: when Kitty sends him an unspecified religious artefact from nuns in July 1922, he replies “Although I’m rather a heathen I appreciate very much the spirit which inspires these things, and the support which one gets from all these prayers and kind thoughts and good wishes is of real value and it does help one along what is a very difficult road.” He asks her to write to the nuns and thank them on his behalf.