Michael Collins (Irish Leader) - Early Years

Early Years

Born in Sam's Cross, near Clonakilty, Collins was the third son and youngest of eight children. Most biographies state his date of birth as 16 October 1890; however, his tombstone gives his date of birth as 12 October 1890. His father, also named Michael, had become a member of the republican Fenian movement, but had left and settled down to farming. The elder Collins was 59 years old when he married Marianne O'Brien, then 23, in 1875. The marriage was apparently happy and they brought up eight children on their 90-acre (36 ha) farm in Woodfield. Michael was six years old when his father died. On his death bed, his father (who was the seventh son of a seventh son) predicted that his daughter Helena (one of Michael's elder sisters) would become a nun (which she did, known as Sister Mary Celestine, based in Whitby). He then turned to the family and told them to take care of Michael, because "One day he'll be a great man. He'll do great work for Ireland."

Collins was a bright and precocious child, with a fiery temper and a passionate feeling of nationalism. This was spurred on by a local blacksmith, James Santry, and later, at the Lisavaird National School by a local school headmaster, Denis Lyons, a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB).

At the age of thirteen and a half, he boarded at Clonakilty National School. During the week, he stayed with his sister Margaret O'Driscoll and her husband Patrick O'Driscoll, while at weekends, he returned to the family farm. Patrick O'Driscoll founded the newspaper "The West Cork People" and Michael helped out, with general reporting jobs and preparing the issues of the newspaper.

After leaving school aged 15, Collins took the Civil Service examination in Cork in February 1906, and was then employed by the Royal Mail from July 1906. In 1910, he moved to London where he became a messenger at a London firm of stockbrokers, Horne and Company. While in London he lived with his elder sister Hannie, and studied at King's College London. He joined the London GAA and, through this, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, a secret, oath-bound society dedicated to achieving Irish independence. Sam Maguire, a Church of Ireland republican from Dunmanway, County Cork, introduced the 19-year-old Collins into the IRB. In 1915, he moved to the Guaranty Trust Company of New York where he remained until his return to Ireland the following year joining part-time Craig Gardiner & Co, a firm of accountants in Dawson Street, Dublin.