Michael Collins’s diaries to go on display in his hometown of Clonakilty

Michael Collins’s diaries, including those covering the critical period where he signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921, are to go on display in a museum in his native Clonakilty, Co Cork, as part of a series of events to mark the centenary of his death.

Collins’s five diaries, which cover the period 1918-1922, will go on public display for the first time at the Michael Collins House Museum in Clonakilty as part of a series of events marking Collins’s death in an ambush by anti-Treaty forces at Béal na Bláth on August 22nd, 1922.

Mayor of County Cork, Cllr Danny Collins, welcomed the return of the diaries to West Cork, saying it marked a homecoming for them as they had been loaned to the National Archives by Collins’s descendants, Liam and Betty Collins of Clonakilty.

“I am thrilled that the first time Michael Collins’s diaries are going on public display is right here in his hometown of Clonakilty. Much has been written about Collins over the last 100 years but there is something special about seeing his actual words, written by his own hand on the pages of his diaries.

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“The diaries had undergone significant conservation and preservation treatment, archival processing and digitisation at the National Archives over recent months,” said Cllr Collins.

“I would like to congratulate Michael Collins House, the National Archives, and the Collins family on coming together to make this possible. I hope the diaries will encourage people from far and wide to visit the museum and Clonakilty as well as inspiring people’s interest in history.”

Visitors to the museum will be able to view all five diaries on a touchscreen device installed in the museum while the 1921 and 1922 diaries in physical form will go on public display for the month of August, he said.

Director of the National Archives Orlaith McBride said the National Archives was “very proud to partner with Cork County Council to bring these precious diaries to the Michael Collins House Museum, Clonakilty, for public display.

“In returning the diaries to the place of Collins’s youth, a place that shaped and formed the young revolutionary, we are introducing them to a wider public as an important new primary source material to further our understanding of this significant national figure.”

Michael Collins’s grandniece Helen Collins said that following Michael Collins’s death at the age of 31, the diaries had come into the possession of her grandfather, Michael’s older brother Johnny, who, in turn, left them to his son, her late father, Liam Collins.

“Our grand uncle Michael Collins lived an extraordinary life. The diaries will give the public a much greater understanding of this exceptional and courageous man,” said Ms Collins who last year showed the diaries to Taoiseach Micheál Martin during a visit to Collins’s birthplace at Woodfield.

Chief executive of Cork County Council Tim Lucey praised the Collins family for their generosity in loaning such significant historical documents to the National Archives and then for asking that they be put on display back in Clonakilty so they can be shared with locals and visitors alike.

He said the diaries were being presented as part of the Government’s Decade of Centenaries 2012-2023 Programme and admission to the exhibition at the Michael Collins House Museum is free with the museum extending its opening hours throughout August.