Collins' story is still controversial today. After all, he is part of the tumultuous history of the Irish struggle to separate themselves from Britain; an extremely difficult history, which was also marked by the Irish Civil War. He was certainly a gifted, unconventional leader, going beyond the traditional patterns of guerrilla warfare. The methods of warfare he developed were analysed in depth by the likes of Mao Zedong and Yitzhak Shamir.

"Michael Collins was a highly intelligent man. He was excellent at drawing conclusions from the course of events. Tragic fate took away a figure who could have been the most outstanding Irish politician of the first half of the 20th century. Certainly better than Éamon de Valera," Professor Wawrzyniec Konarski, rector of the Vistula Academy of Finance and Business, political scientist and author of the book "Partisans, Doctrinaires, Terrorists. Chronological study of the phenomenon of the Irish Republican Army' (Warsaw 2019).

The intricacy of Collins' fate, and of the struggle for Irish independence in general, is evidenced by the fact that he died at the hands of his comrades in arms, in whose eyes he was no longer radical enough. But about that - about Collins, the IRA and the methods of struggle - in a moment.

A rebellious Catholic colony

To understand the complexity of this story, it is worth briefly reviewing the context of the Irish-British conflict. Its origins date back to the 12th century - it was then that the English colonisation of Ireland began. The situation of the population worsened significantly 400 years later, with the Reformation introduced by Henry VIII in the British Isles and the repression of the Catholics, who were the Irish. "The King of England attempted to completely destroy the Catholic Church in the British Isles," stresses Father Professor Piotr Mazurkiewicz of UKSW in Warsaw, who specialises in political and social sciences, in an interview with TVP Weekly.

SIGN UP TO OUR PAGE As a result, the English and Scots of Protestant faith settled in Ireland, particularly in Ulster (one of the four Irish provinces, most of whose counties are now part of Northern Ireland, still part of Great Britain). In defence of their Catholicism, which was an indispensable part of their national identity, the Irish often rose up in arms against the colonisers who were harassing them. Following one such uprising, which broke out in 1641, the army led by Oliver Cromwell carried out a brutal pacification of the island. The persecution became increasingly severe.

On 1 January 1801, the Act of Union came into force - by which Ireland was annexed to Great Britain. At this time, the Irish Parliament gained considerable independence. This improved the situation for Catholics in the 19th century. Nevertheless, the situation of society was still difficult. It became extremely severe in the middle of the century due to the Great Famine, caused by the destruction of 40 per cent of the potato crop by blight. One million Irish people died as a result of the disaster and it also led to mass emigration.

In the 19th century, the independence movement flourished. The Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) was formed in 1858, in 1893. - Gaelic League, promoting the Irish language and national culture in general, and in 1905. - Sinn Féin, an organisation that soon evolved into a political party (associated with the IRA).

Tensions between the British authorities (and the Unionists who supported them) and the Republicans were escalating. Adding fuel to the fire was the staunch opposition of loyalists to the Home Rule (Irish autonomy) project, the idea of which had been floated by the authorities.

On 24 April 1916, the Easter Rising broke out in Dublin. Under the captured Post Office building, Patrick Pearse, one of the leaders of the independence uprising, proclaimed the establishment of the Irish Republic. The insurgent, in the ranks of the Irish Volunteers formed three years earlier, was also the less than 26-year-old Michael Collins.

The military suppressed the uprising in six days. The insurgents were repressed. Patrick Pearse, like 15 other leaders of the revolt, was executed. "A total of 90 death sentences were handed down and 3,500 men and 79 women were in prison. Adding spice to this repression is the fact that among those approving the sentences were well-known organisers of Ulster unionism: Edward Garson and Andrew Bonar Law," wrote Professor Wawrzyniec Konarski in his book "The Intransigent: a story about the Irish Republican Army".

The scale of the repression has sparked public outrage in the UK and abroad.

The next chord of conflict was the War of Independence in 1919-1921. In January 1919, Sinn Féin MPs in the House of Commons formed the opposition National Assembly Dáil Éireann. Michael Collins was specifically elected as Minister of Finance.

In addition, he served as Chairman of the IRB Supreme Council and as Chief of Intelligence of the Irish Volunteers. Through his reorganisation of the Volunteers, the Irish Republican Army was formed on 30 August 1919.

Partisan flying columns

"Between 1919 and 1921, the [IRA] army enjoyed the greatest fame in its entire history," wrote Brendad O'Brien in his book "The IRA", adding, however, that the partisans' efforts did not force the British to recognise the Republic or maintain it.

The fighting between the IRA and the British army was extremely fierce, with many casualties on both sides. The Republicans, despite their obvious disparity in numbers (and in terms of weaponry), were a very difficult opponent.

Collins put into practice a new method of guerrilla warfare, employed by what were known as flying colums. These were officially called Active Service Units. They were small in number, disciplined, acting by surprise and mobile groups of guerrillas. "Their members knew the terrain very well. Very often they moved on bicycles. They would arrive at a given location, carry out an act of violence and then disappear. They even carried out attacks in broad daylight. Such acts of violence were carried out even before the formal establishment of the columns, which took place in September 1920. This is shown, for example, by the event on 26 March 1920, when six IRA assassins dragged Inspector Alan Bell [who was fighting the organisation - ed.] out of a tram and shot him in front of a crowd," says Prof. Wawrzyniec Konarski.

It is possible that the attack was in retaliation for the death of Tomás MacCurtain, the Sinn Féin mayor of Cork. A few days earlier, on 20 March, he had been shot dead by masked police agents.

Nevertheless, terrorists have often used various excuses to justify their actions. "They were able to kill someone in front of hundreds of people. They would also leave a message on the victim's body stating that he or she was a British spy, a secret police collaborator and so on. This created a sense of insecurity among those working in the British administration or the police. But also among those citizens for whom guerrilla warfare was a kind of curiosity that should not have happened," comments Professor Konarski.

As the political scientist recounts, one of the methods used by the IRA became stealth suicide, carried out in several places and at the same time. He recalls the events of 21 November 1920, the so-called 'Bloody Sunday', when, in Dublin, assassins shot dead twelve British intelligence officers whose job it was to infiltrate and dismantle IRA structures.

Add that in response, on the evening of the same day - during a Gaelic football match - members of Britain's notoriously grim police reserves, the so-called Black and Tans, opened fire on a crowd of spectators, killing 12 people and injuring more than 60.

The invisible net behind which was the spirit of the nation

Collins was a great organiser. Tim Pat Coogan, author of the biography "Michael Collins", wrote that the protagonist of his book between 1918 and 1919 "was responsible for a series of initiatives: founding two underground newspapers, building an intelligence network, an arms smuggling route, organising a national loan, creating an elite strike unit - the 'Squadron' - building a bomb factory and a number of other plans".

It is worth pausing for a moment at the thread of the IRA intelligence network that Collins created. For his men had successfully infiltrated the British secret services. Coogan described a situation that was symptomatic: "One day a couple of British agents were talking to three Irishmen when one of the officers suddenly said to Cullen: 'I'm sure you know Liam Tobin, Frank Thornton and Tom Cullen. These three are Collins officers and if you can get them, you will find Collins himself as well'."

The other two Irishmen, besides Cullen, not recognised by the British services were, of course, Tobin and Thornton....

In turn, Professor Wawrzyniec Konarski shared an anecdote about how Collins' agents had stolen all the important files from Dublin Castle, the seat of the British Viceroy. "These included a photograph of Collins. As a consequence, the British, during the1919-1921 war, did not know his image. He was able to successfully escape," says the political scientist.

However, Tim Pat Coogan aforementioned in his biography of Collins that he possessed something more important than guns, and even more important than determination and initiative. "For behind his small band of detectives, porters and clerks, postmen, guards and typists, his Tobins and Cullens, was the spirit of a nation," he stressed.

Insufficiently radical

The spirit of the nation left Michael Collins on 22 August 1922. He was killed in an ambush in the village of Béal na mBláth in County Cork, prepared by a faction of the IRA. How is this possible? In 1921. Collins was part of the delegation that concluded the peace agreement with the British, which created an independent Irish Free State (now Ireland) on the island - comprising 26 of Ireland's 32 counties - and Northern Ireland, comprising the remaining counties, as part of the United Kingdom. From 1922 Michael Collins was head of the Provisional Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Irish Army.

This attitude on the part of the leaders of the independence movement (the delegation was headed by Arthur Griffith, who, incidentally, died of a heart attack a few days before Collins' death) caused outrage among the most radical members of the IRA. Divisions arose within the organisation.

"The IRA and Sinn Féin only accepted the Republic consisting of 32 counties and the Dáil that proclaimed it in 1919. Any subsequent institutions were considered treacherous. Over the next 80 years, experiencing many crises and splits, the IRA fought to re-establish the Republic of Ireland as proclaimed in 1916 and legalised in 1919 and to which they swore allegiance and obedience," wrote Brendan O'Brien.

A civil war broke out between supporters and opponents of the treaty (1922-1923), in which more people died (up to around 4,000, no exact figures are given) - including many patriots and distinguished members of the IRA - than in the preceding Irish War of Independence against British troops (around 1,300 Irish soldiers and civilians).

"Collins was killed by his former subordinates who, after the peace agreement, no longer accepted his methods of operation. They wanted to remain terrorists. And they remained so," adds Prof Konarski.

Bloody "Troubles"

While intelligence and counter-intelligence reconnaissance continued to underpin the activities of IRA terrorists in subsequent decades, the methods of carrying out attacks themselves evolved. Stealth attacks were still carried out. In contrast, during the period referred to as 'The Troubles', i.e. from the late 1960s to the second half of the 1990s, when the Good Friday Agreement was signed, bombings were the most common method of fighting against British authority.

Hotels that hosted politicians and officials; pubs where soldiers and police officers enjoyed guinness - the attacks in such places can literally be multiplied. Terrorists were also keen to use explosive-laden car bombs. A symbol of this dark period is the Europa Hotel in Belfast, the most frequently attacked hotel in the world by terrorists. In the space of less than three decades, the IRA detonated 33 explosives there.

The victims of attacks were often civilians. Recall, for example, the one on 21 July 1972, carried out by a radical breakaway organisation, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), which detonated 22 explosives in 75 minutes, killing nine people and injuring 130. Among the fatalities were two soldiers and one member of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA).

On 27 August 1979, the IRA carried out a successful assassination attempt on a member of the British royal family, Lord Louis Mountbatten. The bomb exploded on the yacht of the last Viceroy of India.

No British politician could feel safe. On 12 October 1984, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was the target of an IRA terrorist attack. "The 'Iron Lady' emerged from the attack unharmed. However, a bomb, planted at the Grand Hotel in Brighton where she was staying, killed five people and injured 34.

There have been so many attacks that it is difficult to count them....

It is fair to say that from the 1970s onwards IRA activity was radicalised. "At one time I came into contact with people who knew this milieu well. It became the organisation's custom - usually by telephone - to inform the police or newspaper editors of a bomb site to prevent civilian casualties. During the Northern Ireland conflict, known in the republican tradition as the 'Troubles', the IRA split internally, radicalising its methods, which increased the number of casualties", reports Professor Wawrzyniec Konarski.

The political scientist enumerates: "In December 1969, two structures emerged: The Official Irish Republican Army (OIRA) and the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), which dropped the adjective after a year. The following years saw the formation of the even more ruthlessly violent Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) and, in 1986, the so-called Continuity Army Council, otherwise known as the Continuity Irish Republican Army (Continuity IRA). In 1997 another split resulted in the formation of the Real Irish Republican Army (Real IRA), whose methods of operation (planting bombs without warning) discredited the idea of armed struggle.

In August 1998, in protest at the Good Friday Agreement of 10 April that year, the RIRA carried out a terrorist attack in the town of Omagh in which 28 people were killed and more than 200 injured. "The founder of the RIRA, Michael McKevitt [who died in 2021 - ed.] was an example of a cynical, cold-blooded terrorist who did not care about civilian lives," points out the rector of the Vistula Academy of Finance and Business.

The most recent breakaway group became the New IRA, as reported in the media in 2019.

Catholic or Protestant atheist?

Nor should it be forgotten that the British uniformed services and unionist organisations, such as the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), kept pace with the IRA in brutally fighting political opponents (killing civilians too, by the way).

Recall, for example, the events of 30 January 1972 in Londonderry, known as 'Bloody Sunday'. British soldiers then shot dead 14 participants in a peaceful march (organised by republicans) protesting against the custom of internment without sentence.

Looking at the methods used by both republicans and unionists, it raises the question of the role of religion, the value of which was so often emphasised by both sides of the conflict. Rev. Prof. Piotr Mazurkiewicz points out that talking about the denominational background of the Irish-British dispute, about the Catholic-Protestant dividing line - especially in the 20th-century version of the conflict - is misleading, even unauthorised. "Religion here was an element that facilitated communal identification. On the other hand, this was not a confessional conflict. It was not about any religious content. It was not a dispute over dogma. Let me quote a joke to put the situation into perspective a little bit. Two men meet in Ireland. When asked about their faith, one of them replies: 'I am an atheist'. To which the other asks: 'Well, OK, but are you a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?'" - recounts Fr Prof Mazurkiewicz. This second question is completely serious, but it is not about religion, but about nationality.

The priest professor adds: "The attitude to terrorism in Protestant as well as Catholic theology is identical. That is, there is unequivocal condemnation of such actions. Both the IRA on the Republican side and the UVF on the Unionist side used a terrorist strategy at times. This happened when the target of the attack was not soldiers but civilians. Such a way of fighting cannot be reconciled with Christianity".

Sometimes, however, the issue of IRA membership was more complex. How to assess, for example, young people who were coerced into the organisation? It was not only the uniformed services, officials and politicians who felt the breath of terrorists on them, but also ordinary citizens. "All those who did not want to get involved with the IRA, but were members of Catholic families, had to reckon with the fact that they might be under surveillance", says Professor Wawrzyniec Konarski. "There is an excellent book by Bernard MacLverty entitled 'Inch'. It was the basis for a very good film starring John Lynch and Helen Mirren, which tells the story of a young man. He has had links with the IRA, but no longer wants anything to do with the organisation. He is plagued by dilemmas of an ethical and moral nature. Many young people psychologically could not cope with being part of the Irish Republican Army", the political scientist points out.

– Łukasz Lubański
-translated by Tomasz Krzyżanowski

TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and jornalists