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Message: <blockquote data-quote="scolairebocht" data-source="post: 8899" data-attributes="member: 8">Whatever about the official story, the reality appears to be that Collins was a very unpopular man with the British and Irish governments at the time of his death at Béal na Blath, so unpopular as possibly to lead to his killing by these governments, as many people then and since have always thought.British GovernmentThe British government were annoyed: – at his role in the death of General Sir Henry Wilson and the attempted rescuing of his assassins; – because he was basically hostile to Partition and was always anxious to help the Ulster Catholics as they faced an anti-Catholic pogrom (for example Collins was going to publish a book on the pogrom written by Father John Hassan, but after his death the Irish government suppressed it);– maybe they were annoyed at his efforts to secure an early settlement of the Civil War (it may have been that the British hoped to use the Civil War as a kind of permanent ‘divide and rule’ strategy in Ireland, and were probably backing both sides including O’Higgins on the Free State side and Childers and maybe De Valera on the anti-Treaty side, and through Collins they were also arming both sides); – and finally because he simply knew too much about the secret side of that government and they hoped to use the Civil War to finish him off and some others, clearing up ‘loose ends’ from the revolutionary period (for example Collins was very close to Moya Davies, the wife of Crompton Llewelyn Davies, a close friend of Lloyd-George’s and some say in charge of security/intelligence in the Post Office system in the UK and Ireland in this period. Also, as pointed out in Tim Pat Coogan’s book on Collins, he might have been close to unmasking Tim Healy as a British government agent.)(1)  Irish GovernmentThe hostility from the Irish government seems to be because they just didn’t control him, he was too much of a loose cannon, getting them involved in enterprises that they had no real knowledge of. For example: – the whole episode of the Collins-DeValera pact which seemed to bypass the Dail and hence the Cabinet somewhat;– again the Wilson killing;– his ownership of the process of drafting the Irish constitution (not letting the other experts on the subject, like Darrell Figgis, have their proper say maybe);– again on Partition, including his involvement in the Belleek semi-invasion of the North and similar episodes.Here is an account of this ‘loose cannon’ aspect to Collins of the period from Sean MacBride speaking in Glenties on the 19/8/1985, who obviously knew all these people:Obviously when he says the last shipment of arms went out then, it also meant that a shipment of arms went into the Four Courts from the Free State government at the same time (it was supposed to be a swap of arms, the Free State arming the anti-Treaty IRA in return for some of the latter’s arms supposed to be used in Ulster). You can imagine the sort of confusion this type of intrigue created for the Irish government, that the perceived head of it was so intertwined with the Four Courts garrison just before that government bombed it. This business of Collins arming the anti-Treaty side, which is well known and confirmed elsewhere, was I think inspired by the British who wanted a Civil War, and to start it needed to arm both sides, but in Collins’ eyes was probably a prelude to an invasion of the North, again by both sides, and these two contradictory positions had to clash at some point.(3) In any case it seems that both Collins and Griffith were put out to ‘Coventry’, as it were, in the weeks before both died, by the Irish government. Obviously Griffith was out of the loop staying in a nursing home, and Collins was out of the Irish cabinet at the time of his death, although this was a closely guarded secret. By the government of Ireland I mean the increasingly influential Kevin O’Higgins, allied to his uncle, the soon to be Governor-General Tim Healy, and in close concert with Alfred Cope, reputed to be MI6’s first representative here and certainly the confidential agent of Lloyd-George in Ireland. When Collins died the first message received by the Irish government about his death came to Higgins who was on duty in Portobello Barracks. Its extremely surprising to see Higgins occupying that position, who didn’t have any military experience or knowledge. Then the funeral arrangements for Collins, including the idea of transporting his body by sea – which stopped any crowds forming along the route – were handled by Cope. Anyway you can tell the atmosphere from this statement by his friend and senior military figure Commandant William James Brennan-Whitmore, who had met Collins in the week he died:So there has always been in fact some suspicion that Collins’ death was no accident, and a bit too convenient for a lone stray bullet at the time when it seems that elements in both governments were anxious to kill him. Also it has always been the case, that the main figure who comes into the frame with these suspicions, is his companion on that fatal trip, Major-General Emmet Dalton.</blockquote>

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