Michael Collins (Irish Leader) - Easter Rising

Easter Rising

Michael Collins first became known during the Easter Rising in 1916. A skilled organiser of considerable intelligence, he was highly respected in the IRB, so much that he was made financial advisor to Count Plunkett father of one of the Rising's organisers, Joseph Mary Plunkett, whose aide-de-camp Collins later became.

When the Rising itself took place on Easter Monday 1916, he fought alongside Patrick Pearse and others in the General Post Office in Dublin. The Rising became a military disaster. While some celebrated the fact that a rising had happened at all, believing in Pearse's theory of "blood sacrifice" (namely that the deaths of the Rising's leaders would inspire others), Collins railed against it, notably the seizure of indefensible and very vulnerable positions such as St Stephen's Green that were impossible to escape from and difficult to supply. (During the War of Independence he ensured the avoidance of such sitting targets, with his soldiers operating as "flying columns" who waged a guerrilla war against the British, suddenly attacking, then just as quickly withdrawing, minimising losses and maximising effectiveness.)

Collins, like many of the other participants, was arrested, almost executed and was imprisoned at Frongoch internment camp. Collins became one of the leading figures in the post-rising Sinn Féin, a small nationalist party which the British government and the Irish media wrongly blamed for the Rising. It was quickly infiltrated by participants in the Rising, so as to capitalise on the "notoriety" the movement had gained through British attacks. By October 1917, Collins had risen to become a member of the executive of Sinn Féin and director of organisation of the Irish Volunteers; Éamon de Valera was president of both organisations.