As Ireland remembers Michael Collins on the 100th anniversary of his death, one forgotten aspect of his life is his connection to Catholicism.
Collins was a Catholic who prayed the Rosary, though he was not as outwardly fervent as Pearse, DeValera or Plunkett and hence some see him as not being religious at all. Though this is untrue.
His sister, Helena, became a nun in England.
While awaiting his execution, Joseph Mary Plunkett gave Collins a book written by another famous Catholic figure of their day, GK Chesterton. Chesterton was not fully Catholic until 3 weeks prior to Collins’s death, but his earlier writings nonetheless mostly exhibit the Sensus Catholicus that he is known for, ‘The Apostle of Common Sense’. By way of coincidence, it was an Irish landlady of Chesterton’s that allowed a makeshift chapel to be made so that he could have the ceremony there as there was no Catholic church in the immediate vicinity.
In his foreword to the collection of Collins’s writings, Path of Freedom, Tim Pat Coogan writes:
One of his central ideas was derived from G.K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday. he was given the book by Joseph Plunkett, his immediate superior in 1916. Plunkett, who was dying of tuberculosis, took part in the fighting and was married in his cell, ten minutes before facing a firing squad. Obviously any relic of such a figure would be prized by his lieutenant. And Collins prized in particular the advice of the Chief Anarchist in the Chesterton book:
“if you don’t seem to be hiding nobody hunts you out”. Accordingly, Collins never seemed to be hiding. He always wore good suits, neatly pressed. And time after time, this young businessman was passed through police cordons unsearched, with his pockets stuffed with incriminating documents. It seems to be an iron law with policemen both in Collins’ time and ours, that terrorists are not expected to wear pinstriped suits and clean collars and ties.
It was not the first time that Collins had come across the writings of Chesterton.
As it transpired, he was a devoted reader of Chesterton, even being described as ‘fanatical’ in his attachment to the Napoleon of Notting Hill, James McKay has written:
In Dublin, Michael met Sir William Darling, then on the staff of the British administration in Dublin Castle. They discussed books at great length and discovered a mutual interest in the novels of G.K. Chesterton. It transpired that Michael’s favourite was “The Napoleon of Notting Hill”, Darling concluding that the young Irishman was ‘almost fanatically attached to it’, as he recorded in his memoirs, So It Looks to Me, published in 1952.
It is quite incredible to think that the death of Collins and the conversion of Chesterton, two of the most significant events of the century for Catholics in Ireland and England, occurred within days of one another. It is all the more remarkable still, that Plunkett’s last interaction with Collins was related to Chesterton and served as inspiration for the War of Independence, after which Collins was to hire Legion of Mary founder Frank Duff as his secretary.
Duff, ever the careful discerner, included Plunkett’s famous poem about Christ in the Legion of Mary handbook, read daily by millions throughout the world.
If there is one piece of literature that encapsulates this short but significant period in history and the brilliance of these men and the faith that encouraged them, it is I See His Blood Upon the Rose.
Collins and Plunkett gave their blood for their countries, Duff gave up a promising career as a civil servant and saw many Legionaries die in Communist China, North Korea and elsewhere and Chesterton saw the death of the more comfortable life that he could have chosen as a cosmopolitan neo Pagan or respectable Anglican.
May they all rest in peace.
I see his blood upon the rose
And in the stars the glory of his eyes,
His body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies. I see his face in every flower;
The thunder and the singing of the birds
Are but his voice—and carven by his power
Rocks are his written words. All pathways by his feet are worn,
His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,
His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,
His cross is every tree.