Com. Tom Kelleher who was present said Sonny just took a shot to let them know that they were still there@ just protecting those, who had been shifting the barricade. There were only him Son y @ the dock present @ it was dusk @ they were up the hill. Tom Hales @ a scout had been shifting the barricade when the convoy drove into ig
@@kevinwatkins5001Dalton was sickened with the cruelty of the National government and was happy to get away from the whole business. Apparently he adored Collins.
If you look at the headgear Collins was wearing - which was pierced by the bullet that killed him - you will understand that it was a ricochet that had flattened somewhat against a hard surface (such as the bodywork of the armoured car behind which he took cover?) before hitting Collins in the side of the head. ANYONE firing in his general direction could have fired the fatal shot. Back in the 1970's his headgear was on permanent display in Dublin (National Museum?), and perhaps it still is. Go and look at it. You don't need to be a forensic scientist to draw your own conclusions. The shooter might well have been Sonny O'Neill, or indeed any of the others of the ambush party . . . . . .
We don't know that hat was Collins'. Even Dalton said it was two sizes too small for his head and was possibly his hat. The clumsy 'hole' someone tore in the side would put the wound at the top right hand side of Collins' head. No-one says the wound was located there - not even Albert Power's death mask has it located there. The wounds were behind the left and right ears at the base of the skull (again - 'according to whom' being the operative words). The luckiest ricochet in history managed to hit the most important Irishman in history but no-one else? Supposedly he was 'standing out on his own' - not behind the armoured car. There are no certainties, nor enough to 'draw your own conclusions'. It would be a pretty poor forensic scientist who wouldn't want to do a thorough examination of physical evidence. We've had two of those. Enough.
@@paddycullivan Hello from Chicago! I'd like to add to the multiple hat claims as the descendants of Michael's brother Patrick Collins in Chicago in 2017 gave Enda Kenny what they claim was the hat Michael was wearing when he was assassinated. The Irish Times reported on it - June 6, 2017 "They presented him with artefacts belonging to the independence leader, including the hat Collins was wearing when he was assassinated, his grand-nephew Dennis Collins said. The hat was smuggled out of Ireland in the 1930s and sent to his grandfather, Patrick, the brother of Michael Collins, for safe keeping. The gesture was ceremonial - the family is due to travel to Ireland next year to officially present the items to the State." I think we can all agree no one will ever know what happened to the real hat and there's no way to prove the provenance of all the ones claiming to be "the hat." The hat isn't really a key indicator at this point of who shot Collins anyway. Personally, I don't see how it isn't Dalton given the lie he told of how he found out Collins was shot by saying Collins called out to him that he was hit. What is the purpose of telling that lie but to physically distance yourself from Collins at the moment he was shot? And why would you need to do that if you weren't the one that shot him. Anyway, great research Mr. Cullivan.
@@paddycullivan Are you going to release a version of your Michael Collins show that you recorded in front of a live audience? I purchased the 2-part one you released on your website during Covid but I think you said in an interview that you have updated it since then. It's also fun to see a live audience reaction.
Collins should never have been there. He should have taken the advice of his escorts and got to hell out of the ambush ground. You never fight your enemy on their choice of ground. You get out of there and you, if you have to, attack them from a more favourable direction. Collins decision to stay and fight cost him his life. He was indeed no soldier and out of his depth.
1:34 I haven't seen his British Army personnel files, but if O. was taken prisoner by the Germans in 1918, & discharged from the British Army in October '18, it's probable that he had been returned to the British Isles by the German Government as a crippled soldier who was regarded as being unlikely to take the field against them again. This was standard practice. He wouldn't have been liberated by the Allied advance on the Western Front in 1918 as he would have been being held in a POW Camp in Germany, not in France/Belgium
Yes since I've taken the show on the road more information has come to me that suggests you're right. We can't know but he definitely would have been an extra mouth to feed. But also as you say his wound was very bad and records show it hadn't improved by 1922.
Nonsense. As a young man in the 80s I was in the Irish reserve, the FCA. We used the old Lee Enfield No. 4 Mk. 2 .303. Very similar rifle to the one used by most anti treaty IRA during the civil war, the Lee Enfield No. 3 .303. Some years later I visited Beal na Blath and walked along the lane overlooking the road where the IRA were located. It is not a difficult shot and well with the range of someone with basic rifle training (which is what I recieved). When you suggest otherwise you either don't know what your talking about or you are trying to mislead your viewers. Your suggestion that Collins was shot at close range, an old IRA conspiracy theory spread to absolve them from responsibility for Collins death, that has been convincingly debunked, suggests the later.
If it's an easy shot with basic training as you say, why was there an entire industry at pains to say O'Niell was a 'sniper' and 'marksman' when he wasn't? If something is 'nonsense', why did they counter it with nonsense rather than just say 'anyone could do it, even a man with a permanent disability in his right arm with no basic training and about whom there is zero proof he was the shooter bar the testimony of someone who wasn't there'? What I'm saying is - no-one can truly know what happened - and walking around Beal na Bath or using similar rifles certainly makes no-one an expert by osmosis either. Building O'Neill into the definitive shooter on the basis of no evidence, blatant untruths and a desire to wrap it up neatly - is of no use to anyone. As for the Dalton 'conspiracy' - it came from within the ranks of the National Army - including the author of the original book on the subject Captain John Feehan. All the IRA ever said was - they didn't see what happened and only found out it was Collins later that night. Dalton's own bizarre behaviour led to people's suspicions of him. You'd have to research it fully yourself rather than dismiss someone who has done hard yards on this and explored every angle. It's certainly not 'nonsense'.
Hey Paddy, serving for three years, training on a very similar rifle and exploring the location of the ambush may not make me an expert. But it does mean that at least I know what I'm talking about!
Doesn't answer any of the points I made. But have at it. I've realised there are as many people who are incurious about things as they are curious. They can dismiss something as nonsense, refuse to deal with the answer refuting this claim and carry on as before. You know about training with similar rifles and walking around (presumably with two good arms). This makes you an expert in your view. I know about people calling people snipers when they provably weren't, surgeons saying people were shot at close range contradicting their earlier utterances - and heads of security who didn't secure their chief behaving in the oddest ways in the immediate aftermath of the security failure - and in the years after. Nothing has been convincingly debunked. In fact the more sure people are, the worse the glaringly obvious holes in the story. Watch the whole show, read Feehan and Sigerson, move beyond the analytical simplicity and bullish assuredness of RTE and stuck academia and apply common sense to the inexplicable. The most important question to ask in history - as ever - is 'according to whom'? @@alanrobinson375
@@zahadaq No. I haven't performed brain surgery either. But I am allowed ask if a brain surgeon is qualified, rather than say anyone with basic training at using a bread knife on a batch loaf should be able to operate on someone's brain. I actually met someone else who was in the FCA who said the shot would be incredibly difficult with a 40% disabled right arm and no record of training. We can all say what we want based on anecdote or experience. Who or what we choose to believe is completely on us.
Why would Jim Kearney say he was at Beal na Bláth if he wasn't? I'm sure he was good with a gun but the only source we have for that is the guy spying on him who also got his age wrong.
I'll refer you to britishmuzzleloaders TH-cam channel were he demonstrates the 1914 musketry practices of 1914, pay particular attention to practice #22 . These were drills every soldier had to under go to qualify as proficient and there was a 6 pence per day bonus for marksmen. Qualifying as a markman wasn't particularly difficult. I'm a competent shooter myself but not outstanding by any measure and even i would qualify as a marksman by the standard of that time.
Interesting - but then we factor in the 40% disability in the right arm, the fact of zero other casualties or wounded, the fact he never admitted to doing it. But most of all, the concerted campaign to label him a marksman and a sniper when there's no proof either way.
Well Paddy you didn't convince me. You don't have to be a marksman to get off a lucky shot. All the evidence is pointing towards O'Neill. It was a bad day for Ireland and for everyone on both sides. Now let it rest man.
Nobody that shoots thinks Sony made the 450ft shot in his condition! And as a complete novice at best. It was close range in my opinion. His narrative and the direction of the country was clearly different to where it went! I say look into the oss 😉
Collins was reputed to have been shot by a ricochet bullet so the shooter would not have to be accurate just lucky. Collins made the decision to stop and fight when the correct tactic would have been to drive quickly through the ambush site. General Dalton actually gave this command and was contradicted by Collins. The second mistake Collins made was to break cover during the ambush. It was a unnecessary risk but Collins was a brave fighting man. On this occasion he made wrong decisions and his luck ran out.
According to whom? If you believe everything that Dalton said that's a personal decision - not a historical one - Dalton contradicted himself a lot over the five decades - and as head of security seemed to blame everything on Collins rather than take any blame a) for returning by the same route they came (a military tactical no-no) and b) not protecting the C+C with 23 armed bodyguards including himself. Dalton's version is not the Gospel and is highly questionable.
@@paddycullivan There is no hard evidence of a conspiracy at Be'al na Bla'th. No ballistic evidence that Collins was shot at close range. You are grasping at straws. Sonny O' Neil was the most likely candidate to have fired the fatal shot at a range of approx 200 yards. IRA intelligence reports name Sonny as the shooter. Listing Sonnys ailments has little bearing on the matter. Collins own decisions significantly contributed to his death. Just going to cork was dangerous, then stopping to fight, an emotional decision rather than a logical or strategic one. Finally breaking cover to actively fire on the enemy thus exposing himself to the fatal shot. These decisions were consistent with Collins character A courageous fighter, but reckless with his own safety. Fighting the British his luck held out but at Be'al na Bla'th his luck ran out and he fell to the fortune of war.
You haven't a clue what your talking about, there wasn't a single sniper killing in ireland , it was never a thing, and it was never and would never appeal to Michael collins, so you're wrong about him calling sonny o neill and give him sniper"jobs" collins and his squad were highly efficient with the way they were going they needed no sniper. Sonny shot collins , all you have to do is read the accounts of his friends , he regretted it to the day he died
Spot on, this is all conspiracy waffle. The shot that killed Collins was a standard shot for anyone ever trained on a Lee Enfield (a weapon by the way with a range of over a mile, and also it’s standard for said weapon to create a small entry wound with a large exit wound / as with all high velocity weapons) o neill mentioned to friends that he struggled with it till the day he died. The whole episode was a mess. Collins and most of those around him had been drinking and Collins made the fatal mistake of stopping in the middle of an ambush site when Dalton had said “drive like hell”, through it , which is standard in an ambush. Never engage an enemy who have height advantage without first extracting and forming a base line in a safer position. Dalton even said that it was clear Collins hadn’t been in a scrap before as he didn’t duck when on the road. And Dalton and family have had to put up with this conspiratorial waffle for ages. He loved the man like a brother. And this constant talk of exhuming the body with nothing to be gained. Let it lay. All parties regretted it till the day they died. Brother killing brother. It’s done and it’s in the past.
@@MrCommonsense22 There's no evidence of any of that bar hearsay. Collins was in a major scrap for a week called 'The GPO 1916', leading the retreat into Moore Lane which was a killing zone. He kept his head down there. No evidence Sonny ever admitted anything.
The convoy could not have driven through, there was a dray cart with wheels removed on one side and broken beer bottles all over the road, the Crossley tender had stopped so the car could not have driven like hell except up behind the Crossley where the troops were exchanging fire with the irregulars. There are questions about Dalton such as his ability to pass through Auxiliary cordons, his army service, his closeness with Colin McVean Gubbins later head of an SOE unit. (see Ministry of ungentlemanly warfare). Collins had many enemies and had been ousted from the Cabinet, the British were furious at the assassination of Wilson, the IRB in USA had sentenced him to death, there had been eight attempts on his life. Dalton could have been working for any of them. Sean Dowling (anti treaty IRA Rathmines) interviewed O'Neill allegedly about the ambush but no detail survives. I understand the order from Desmond Fitzgerald to destroy documents is in military archives though i have not seen it.
well researched but serious assumptions are thrown about and much of this is just your opinion and surmising from a lack of written documents about his marksmen training while simply making assumptions without any written or otherwise conformation of the severity of his injuries
I actually received the documentation regarding the severity of his wounds after I finished the show - unfortunate but will include in later shows. This is just a segment from a 195-minute show which I'd recommend you watch at www.paddycullivan.com. Those documents showing he had a 40% disability to his right arm are included in this Irish Times article: www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/who-killed-michael-collins-new-evidence-casts-doubt-on-chief-suspect-1.4653243
@@paddycullivan Can you find any information on Eleanor Gordon?, who was the matron at Shanakiel Hospital, she's said to have claimed that there was a second wound in Collins' back and gunpowder burns on his uniform.
Yes I deal with all of that in my show. She wrote a statement which was in the possession of her nephew an American priest. The original document is reproduced in Micheal Keating's seminal essay.@@strawdog291
Sonny could not have applied for an Free State pension in the 1920s as it was known that he was anti-Treary. He could not have applied until FF got in in 1932 and expanded the categories eligible for a pension
@@frankmacgabhann6935 The Guards had the Burn Order stuff because they kept moving the documents back and forth from Dublin Castle. It's all dealt with in the Military Archives website and the article on O'Neill from 2017.
@@paddycullivan Not good enough. Please produce this "burn order". Also, you first said it was from the 1920s. You are now changing your story. Now it's from the 1930s!!!!!!!!!!!
@@frankmacgabhann6935 Sorry Frank - can't engage with hysterics - never said the Burn Order stuff was from the 1930s. The Burn Order is 1932. The types of documents burned in it weren't in Sonny's case because his documents were moved back and forth and were with the guards and not in Dublin Castle. You can find the burn order anywhere, in the military archives, reproduced by Michael Keating and it is reproduced in my show. Go to my show or watch it online and you'll see it.
I have always had a sneaky feeling that Emmett Dalton, knows more, if it was a close range shot, Dalton was right beside him 🍀
Com. Tom Kelleher who was present said Sonny just took a shot to let them know that they were still there@ just protecting those, who had been shifting the barricade. There were only him Son y @ the dock present @ it was dusk @ they were up the hill. Tom Hales @ a scout had been shifting the barricade when the convoy drove into ig
Did you ever think his own man Dalton could have killed him at close range look 👀 a little closer you’re nearly there
Dalton was a British soldier first and he had a good life after Ardmore studios
@@kevinwatkins5001Dalton was sickened with the cruelty of the National government and was happy to get away from the whole business. Apparently he adored Collins.
So was Sonny O'NEILl ex British army and many others in the IRA
If you look at the headgear Collins was wearing - which was pierced by the bullet that killed him - you will understand that it was a ricochet that had flattened somewhat against a hard surface (such as the bodywork of the armoured car behind which he took cover?) before hitting Collins in the side of the head. ANYONE firing in his general direction could have fired the fatal shot. Back in the 1970's his headgear was on permanent display in Dublin (National Museum?), and perhaps it still is. Go and look at it. You don't need to be a forensic scientist to draw your own conclusions. The shooter might well have been Sonny O'Neill, or indeed any of the others of the ambush party . . . . . .
We don't know that hat was Collins'. Even Dalton said it was two sizes too small for his head and was possibly his hat. The clumsy 'hole' someone tore in the side would put the wound at the top right hand side of Collins' head. No-one says the wound was located there - not even Albert Power's death mask has it located there. The wounds were behind the left and right ears at the base of the skull (again - 'according to whom' being the operative words). The luckiest ricochet in history managed to hit the most important Irishman in history but no-one else? Supposedly he was 'standing out on his own' - not behind the armoured car. There are no certainties, nor enough to 'draw your own conclusions'. It would be a pretty poor forensic scientist who wouldn't want to do a thorough examination of physical evidence. We've had two of those. Enough.
@@paddycullivan Hello from Chicago!
I'd like to add to the multiple hat claims as the descendants of Michael's brother Patrick Collins in Chicago in 2017 gave Enda Kenny what they claim was the hat Michael was wearing when he was assassinated.
The Irish Times reported on it - June 6, 2017
"They presented him with artefacts belonging to the independence leader, including the hat Collins was wearing when he was assassinated, his grand-nephew Dennis Collins said.
The hat was smuggled out of Ireland in the 1930s and sent to his grandfather, Patrick, the brother of Michael Collins, for safe keeping. The gesture was ceremonial - the family is due to travel to Ireland next year to officially present the items to the State."
I think we can all agree no one will ever know what happened to the real hat and there's no way to prove the provenance of all the ones claiming to be "the hat." The hat isn't really a key indicator at this point of who shot Collins anyway.
Personally, I don't see how it isn't Dalton given the lie he told of how he found out Collins was shot by saying Collins called out to him that he was hit. What is the purpose of telling that lie but to physically distance yourself from Collins at the moment he was shot? And why would you need to do that if you weren't the one that shot him.
Anyway, great research Mr. Cullivan.
Thank you! And yes there's no way that's the hat - though they based a whole 'forensic' documentary on it in 2022! @@jmo8525
@@paddycullivan Are you going to release a version of your Michael Collins show that you recorded in front of a live audience? I purchased the 2-part one you released on your website during Covid but I think you said in an interview that you have updated it since then. It's also fun to see a live audience reaction.
Collins should never have been there. He should have taken the advice of his escorts and got to hell out of the ambush ground. You never fight your enemy on their choice of ground. You get out of there and you, if you have to, attack them from a more favourable direction. Collins decision to stay and fight cost him his life. He was indeed no soldier and out of his depth.
1:34 I haven't seen his British Army personnel files, but if O. was taken prisoner by the Germans in 1918, & discharged from the British Army in October '18, it's probable that he had been returned to the British Isles by the German Government as a crippled soldier who was regarded as being unlikely to take the field against them again. This was standard practice. He wouldn't have been liberated by the Allied advance on the Western Front in 1918 as he would have been being held in a POW Camp in Germany, not in France/Belgium
You're probably right. I think it was September when he was returned. I have significant new research into all of this too.
Yes since I've taken the show on the road more information has come to me that suggests you're right. We can't know but he definitely would have been an extra mouth to feed. But also as you say his wound was very bad and records show it hadn't improved by 1922.
@@paddycullivan Do u know which Regiment O. served with in the British Army?
@@Horizon344 I believe he was in the Royal Irish Regiment and discharged unfit 28th October 1918 though I saw September in documents
Emmet Dalton retired from the army soon after Collins funeral and then became very wealthy all of a sudden. I'm sure it's just a coincidence 🤢
Sonny the untrained! That’s a keeper!
Great video - well researched and confirms what I've suspected for years.
Not the notoriety us O'Neills want. Michael Collins the greatest Irishman there is
Collins was a traitor to Ireland.
Well researched. Well presented. Excellent video.
The key question is what was Daltons relationship like with De 'Valera afterwards....
Nonsense. As a young man in the 80s I was in the Irish reserve, the FCA. We used the old Lee Enfield No. 4 Mk. 2 .303. Very similar rifle to the one used by most anti treaty IRA during the civil war, the Lee Enfield No. 3 .303. Some years later I visited Beal na Blath and walked along the lane overlooking the road where the IRA were located. It is not a difficult shot and well with the range of someone with basic rifle training (which is what I recieved). When you suggest otherwise you either don't know what your talking about or you are trying to mislead your viewers. Your suggestion that Collins was shot at close range, an old IRA conspiracy theory spread to absolve them from responsibility for Collins death, that has been convincingly debunked, suggests the later.
If it's an easy shot with basic training as you say, why was there an entire industry at pains to say O'Niell was a 'sniper' and 'marksman' when he wasn't? If something is 'nonsense', why did they counter it with nonsense rather than just say 'anyone could do it, even a man with a permanent disability in his right arm with no basic training and about whom there is zero proof he was the shooter bar the testimony of someone who wasn't there'? What I'm saying is - no-one can truly know what happened - and walking around Beal na Bath or using similar rifles certainly makes no-one an expert by osmosis either. Building O'Neill into the definitive shooter on the basis of no evidence, blatant untruths and a desire to wrap it up neatly - is of no use to anyone. As for the Dalton 'conspiracy' - it came from within the ranks of the National Army - including the author of the original book on the subject Captain John Feehan. All the IRA ever said was - they didn't see what happened and only found out it was Collins later that night. Dalton's own bizarre behaviour led to people's suspicions of him. You'd have to research it fully yourself rather than dismiss someone who has done hard yards on this and explored every angle. It's certainly not 'nonsense'.
Hey Paddy, serving for three years, training on a very similar rifle and exploring the location of the ambush may not make me an expert. But it does mean that at least I know what I'm talking about!
Doesn't answer any of the points I made. But have at it. I've realised there are as many people who are incurious about things as they are curious. They can dismiss something as nonsense, refuse to deal with the answer refuting this claim and carry on as before. You know about training with similar rifles and walking around (presumably with two good arms). This makes you an expert in your view. I know about people calling people snipers when they provably weren't, surgeons saying people were shot at close range contradicting their earlier utterances - and heads of security who didn't secure their chief behaving in the oddest ways in the immediate aftermath of the security failure - and in the years after. Nothing has been convincingly debunked. In fact the more sure people are, the worse the glaringly obvious holes in the story. Watch the whole show, read Feehan and Sigerson, move beyond the analytical simplicity and bullish assuredness of RTE and stuck academia and apply common sense to the inexplicable. The most important question to ask in history - as ever - is 'according to whom'? @@alanrobinson375
@@paddycullivan Have you ever fired a weapon? What Regiment were you in again?
@@zahadaq No. I haven't performed brain surgery either. But I am allowed ask if a brain surgeon is qualified, rather than say anyone with basic training at using a bread knife on a batch loaf should be able to operate on someone's brain. I actually met someone else who was in the FCA who said the shot would be incredibly difficult with a 40% disabled right arm and no record of training. We can all say what we want based on anecdote or experience. Who or what we choose to believe is completely on us.
But why would Agent 145 call him a 'first class shot' in 1924 if he wasn't one?
Why would Jim Kearney say he was at Beal na Bláth if he wasn't? I'm sure he was good with a gun but the only source we have for that is the guy spying on him who also got his age wrong.
A "peter the painter" was a luger wih a stock.
It became slang for all handguns.
Not rifles.
@@olliephelan "peter the painter" was a C96 Mauser automatic pistol
I'll refer you to britishmuzzleloaders TH-cam channel were he demonstrates the 1914 musketry practices of 1914, pay particular attention to practice #22 . These were drills every soldier had to under go to qualify as proficient and there was a 6 pence per day bonus for marksmen. Qualifying as a markman wasn't particularly difficult. I'm a competent shooter myself but not outstanding by any measure and even i would qualify as a marksman by the standard of that time.
Interesting - but then we factor in the 40% disability in the right arm, the fact of zero other casualties or wounded, the fact he never admitted to doing it. But most of all, the concerted campaign to label him a marksman and a sniper when there's no proof either way.
Well Paddy you didn't convince me. You don't have to be a marksman to get off a lucky shot. All the evidence is pointing towards O'Neill. It was a bad day for Ireland and for everyone on both sides. Now let it rest man.
It's a pity none of the unlucky shots didn't hit anyone else. There is no evidence. That's the point. Go to the show.
Nobody that shoots thinks Sony made the 450ft shot in his condition! And as a complete novice at best. It was close range in my opinion. His narrative and the direction of the country was clearly different to where it went! I say look into the oss 😉
Collins was reputed to have been shot by a ricochet bullet so the shooter would not have to be accurate just lucky.
Collins made the decision to stop and fight when the correct tactic would have been to drive quickly through the ambush site.
General Dalton actually gave this command and was contradicted by Collins. The second mistake Collins made was to break cover during
the ambush. It was a unnecessary risk but Collins was a brave fighting man. On this occasion he made wrong decisions and his luck ran out.
According to whom? If you believe everything that Dalton said that's a personal decision - not a historical one - Dalton contradicted himself a lot over the five decades - and as head of security seemed to blame everything on Collins rather than take any blame a) for returning by the same route they came (a military tactical no-no) and b) not protecting the C+C with 23 armed bodyguards including himself. Dalton's version is not the Gospel and is highly questionable.
@@paddycullivan There is no hard evidence of a conspiracy at Be'al na Bla'th. No ballistic evidence that Collins was shot at close range. You are grasping at straws.
Sonny O' Neil was the most likely candidate to have fired the fatal shot at a range of approx 200 yards. IRA intelligence reports name Sonny as the shooter.
Listing Sonnys ailments has little bearing on the matter. Collins own decisions significantly contributed to his death. Just going to cork was dangerous, then stopping
to fight, an emotional decision rather than a logical or strategic one. Finally breaking cover to actively fire on the enemy thus exposing himself to the fatal shot.
These decisions were consistent with Collins character A courageous fighter, but reckless with his own safety. Fighting the British his luck held out but at
Be'al na Bla'th his luck ran out and he fell to the fortune of war.
I’m intrigued. Well argued.
Very interesting, more please
You haven't a clue what your talking about, there wasn't a single sniper killing in ireland , it was never a thing, and it was never and would never appeal to Michael collins, so you're wrong about him calling sonny o neill and give him sniper"jobs" collins and his squad were highly efficient with the way they were going they needed no sniper. Sonny shot collins , all you have to do is read the accounts of his friends , he regretted it to the day he died
The attack at Dillons Cross was an attempt to take out Captain Campbell Kelly, very likely that a sniper would have been used, if one were available.
Spot on, this is all conspiracy waffle. The shot that killed Collins was a standard shot for anyone ever trained on a Lee Enfield (a weapon by the way with a range of over a mile, and also it’s standard for said weapon to create a small entry wound with a large exit wound / as with all high velocity weapons) o neill mentioned to friends that he struggled with it till the day he died. The whole episode was a mess. Collins and most of those around him had been drinking and Collins made the fatal mistake of stopping in the middle of an ambush site when Dalton had said “drive like hell”, through it , which is standard in an ambush. Never engage an enemy who have height advantage without first extracting and forming a base line in a safer position. Dalton even said that it was clear Collins hadn’t been in a scrap before as he didn’t duck when on the road. And Dalton and family have had to put up with this conspiratorial waffle for ages. He loved the man like a brother. And this constant talk of exhuming the body with nothing to be gained. Let it lay. All parties regretted it till the day they died. Brother killing brother. It’s done and it’s in the past.
@@MrCommonsense22 There's no evidence of any of that bar hearsay. Collins was in a major scrap for a week called 'The GPO 1916', leading the retreat into Moore Lane which was a killing zone. He kept his head down there. No evidence Sonny ever admitted anything.
The convoy could not have driven through, there was a dray cart with wheels removed on one side and broken beer bottles all over the road, the Crossley tender had stopped so the car could not have driven like hell except up behind the Crossley where the troops were exchanging fire with the irregulars. There are questions about Dalton such as his ability to pass through Auxiliary cordons, his army service, his closeness with Colin McVean Gubbins later head of an SOE unit. (see Ministry of ungentlemanly warfare). Collins had many enemies and had been ousted from the Cabinet, the British were furious at the assassination of Wilson, the IRB in USA had sentenced him to death, there had been eight attempts on his life. Dalton could have been working for any of them. Sean Dowling (anti treaty IRA Rathmines) interviewed O'Neill allegedly about the ambush but no detail survives.
I understand the order from Desmond Fitzgerald to destroy documents is in military archives though i have not seen it.
Mick was a dead man walking
Brilliant paddy but unlike collins murder there was witnesses that Oswald wasn’t on the sixth floor
well researched but serious assumptions are thrown about and much of this is just your opinion and surmising from a lack of written documents about his marksmen training while simply making assumptions without any written or otherwise conformation of the severity of his injuries
I actually received the documentation regarding the severity of his wounds after I finished the show - unfortunate but will include in later shows. This is just a segment from a 195-minute show which I'd recommend you watch at www.paddycullivan.com. Those documents showing he had a 40% disability to his right arm are included in this Irish Times article: www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/who-killed-michael-collins-new-evidence-casts-doubt-on-chief-suspect-1.4653243
@@paddycullivan Can you find any information on Eleanor Gordon?, who was the matron at Shanakiel Hospital, she's said to have claimed that there was a second wound in Collins' back and gunpowder burns on his uniform.
Yes I deal with all of that in my show. She wrote a statement which was in the possession of her nephew an American priest. The original document is reproduced in Micheal Keating's seminal essay.@@strawdog291
DE V shot MCollins he had man from brits was wating in bushes dev drove him out there that evning after it all we being told was a lie.
Sonny could not have applied for an Free State pension in the 1920s as it was known that he was anti-Treary. He could not have applied until FF got in in 1932 and expanded the categories eligible for a pension
Exactly. All the pension stuff is from the 1930s. But they also had the 1920s burn order stuff which is unique.
@@paddycullivan Who is "they" in the 1930s? And what is your source?
@@frankmacgabhann6935 The Guards had the Burn Order stuff because they kept moving the documents back and forth from Dublin Castle. It's all dealt with in the Military Archives website and the article on O'Neill from 2017.
@@paddycullivan Not good enough. Please produce this "burn order". Also, you first said it was from the 1920s. You are now changing your story. Now it's from the 1930s!!!!!!!!!!!
@@frankmacgabhann6935 Sorry Frank - can't engage with hysterics - never said the Burn Order stuff was from the 1930s. The Burn Order is 1932. The types of documents burned in it weren't in Sonny's case because his documents were moved back and forth and were with the guards and not in Dublin Castle. You can find the burn order anywhere, in the military archives, reproduced by Michael Keating and it is reproduced in my show. Go to my show or watch it online and you'll see it.