Michael Collins Quotes

“I remembered going to confession to a great priest, Father Moriarty of South William Street. I told him, "I shot a man, Father." "Did you think you were doing right? Had you no qualms about it?" he asked me. I told him I didn't have any qualms, I thought I was doing right, and he said, "Carry on with the good work," and gave me absolution.”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: The Man Who Made Ireland

“And from there the various parties set out on their mission of destruction. Many who witnessed similar scenes in France and Flanders say, that nothing they had experienced was comparable to the punishment meted out to Cork.”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“He had detailed plans for developing industry, using hydro-electric power – ‘the white coal of Ireland’.”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“There was Brigade Major Montgomery, later Field Marshal Montgomery of El Alamein, who wrote of his Irish experiences: ‘My whole attention was given to defeating the rebels. It never bothered me a bit how many houses were burned.”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“But they put up such a fight, particularly in Cork, Clare, Tipperary, Longford, Limerick and Mayo, that they tied up well over 50,000 troops and drove the RIC out of all but the most strongly fortified barracks in the larger towns.”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“Book of Job: ‘There is a path which no fowl knoweth and which the eye of the vulture hath not seen.”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“Even the reduced Six-County area which the unionists were now resignedly seeking to agree on for exclusion from Home Rule showed Sinn Fein majorities in two counties, Fermanagh and Tyrone.”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“Besides the sinfulness of the acts from their opposition to the law of God, anyone, be he a subject of this diocese or an extern, who, within the diocese of Cork, shall organise or take part in ambushes or kidnappings, or shall otherwise be guilty of murder or attempted murder, shall incur by the very fact the censure of excommunication.”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“Policy calmly formulated in public-school accents behind closed doors can manifest itself in very raucous and savage proceedings when translated into action.”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“Truly the hills of Ireland could be levelled to the ground and all her children driven out upon the seas of the world before England can conquer us while we have such faith and courage.”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: The Man Who Made Ireland

“This was a strong underlying sub-text to the entire meeting, how to destabilise the Northern state rather than how to work with it, an approach which Devlin and his spokesmen would certainly have been expected to explore more fully.”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“Collins knew he had the IRB behind him. But he literally had de Valera, Brugha and Stack in front of him, the division between the parties being brought into the open by the contestants sitting across the floor from each other. The subsequent debate calls to mind images from both Swift and Yeats.”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“The financial cost20 was around £47 million, an appalling sum for those days. The cost in idealism, energy, and enthusiasm was probably higher. Bitterness, cynicism, disillusionment, emigration, censorship, clericalism and stagnation became the hallmarks of Irish society”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“English civilisation... for us... is a misfit... the Irish... qualities are hidden, besmirched, by that what has been imposed upon us, just as the fine, splendid surface of Ireland is besmirched by our towns and villages – hideous medleys of contemptible dwellings and mean shops and squalid public houses. We are now free in name. The extent to which we become free in fact and secure our freedom will be the extent to which we become Gaels again... The biggest task will be the restoration of the language.”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“Ulster Ex-Servicemen’s Association and taking a leading part in the anti-boycott campaign.’ The ESMA was the paramilitary body most associated with driving Catholics from the shipyards in 1920 and with taking various actions against the employment of Catholics throughout Belfast.”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“In their judgement it is essential, now that the war is over, and the peace Conference has dealt with so many analogous questions in Europe, that the Government should make a sincere attempt to deal with the Irish question once and for all.”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“The Committee found two problems: On the one hand the Government was committed against any solution which would break with the unity of the Empire. On the other, it was committed that Ulster must not be forced under the rule of an Irish parliament against its will.”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“Gaelic civilisation was quite different. Their unity was not of any military solidarity. It came from sharing the same traditions... They never exalted a central authority... The land belonged to the people... held for the people by the Chief of the Clan.”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“Unlike de Valera whose talent lay in getting and holding power, Collins asked himself the question, ‘All this for what?’, and tried to provide the answers.”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“Boland took the unexpected position that the use of force in pursuit of a principle lowered its value. Collins agreed with Beaslai who quoted Shaw’s Armourer: ‘Nothing is ever done in this world unless men are prepared to kill one another, if it is not done.”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“One of the most irritating features of Mr de Valera’s behaviour at this time was, having used every device of a practised politician to gain his point, having shown himself relentless and unscrupulous in taking every advantage of generous opponents, he would adopt a tone of injured innocence when his shots failed, and assume the pose of a simple, sensitive man, too guileless and gentle for this rough world of politics.108”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“As he walked down the stairs to wait for his armoured car he tripped and his gun went off, an ill-omen.”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“The road to the Castle is paved with anonymous letters, deriving from the besetting Irish sin, jealousy.”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“Dr Cohalan, the Bishop of Cork, who pronounced a decree of excommunication on 12 December 1920. In fact the Bishop was extremely even-handed and judicious in his condemnation of violence”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“Lawrence was working under Churchill in the Colonial Office and growing increasingly embittered at the betrayal of British Governmental war-time promises made to the Arabs through him.”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“to paraphrase Lincoln’s remark when Grant’s drinking was reported to him, if Collins did drink as heavily as alleged I would seriously advocate that the cadets in the Irish Army Staff college be instructed to partake of a few glasses of his favourite John Jameson”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“My personal safety does not count as a factor in the question of Ireland’s rights. I thank no one for refraining from murdering me.”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“Most of the group escaped the fighting, de Valera getting away in a Red Cross ambulance,”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“After the Four Courts bombardment he made his way through the tunnelled buildings to the Gresham Hotel where he found Art O’Connor, de Valera, Robert Barton, Countess Markievicz, Austin Stack, Oscar Traynor and Brugha, ‘all apparently without purpose’.3 The anti-Treaty leaders were courageous, but woefully bad tacticians, disorganised and lacking any overall strategy.”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography

“against my struggling conscience, I found myself behind the barrel of a gun in Upper O’Connell St’.2”
― Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: A Biography