Michael Collins’ Final Hours

22 Aug 1922: Just after 6am, Michael Collins, Chairman of the Provisional Government of The Irish Free State and Commander-in-chief of the Ireland's National Army left the Imperial Hotel in Cork City for what would be his final day on earth.

His small convoy included a motorcycle, a Rolls Royce Whippet armoured car aka The Slievnamon, a Crossley Tender and a yellow open-top Leland Thomas Straight Eight. Collins and Emmet Dalton would ride in the back seat of the Leland.

The Big Fella had been a marked man throughout the War of Independence. But since he affixing his name to the Anglo-Irish Treaty the year prior, his enemies included many of his former comrades in arms. Collins was well aware that while major cities in Co. Cork were under Free-State control, more rural areas were rife with anti-treaty sentiment and "irregulars" as the provisional government forces referred to the anti-treaty forces.

Undeterred, Collins, had a packed multi-day itinerary and on the 22nd pushed on with Free-State business, meeting with civil war neutral parties and checking in with local commanding officers. That day he travelled through Macroom, Crookstown and on to Bandon. The group then had lunch at Clonakilty and headed on to Roscaberry and Sam's Cross where they stopped for drink. And after a final stop in Skibbereen they were headed back for Cork.

With bridges and infrastructure heavily damaged during the ongoing civil war, there were but two main routes for their return. And having been observed by anti-treaty forces near Bandon that morning, an ambush was set-up at an ideal natural choke-point, Béal na mBláth (the mouth of the flowers).

Collins had been wrong...they would shoot him in his home county.