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Michael Collins - Paper

Michael Collins


In , I found the embodiment of that Irish virtue and tragedy. remains one of the most obscure and controversial heroes in Irish history. A survivor of the disastrous 1916 Easter Rising, Collins forged the fragments of the revolutionary movement into a ruthless underground army that compelled the British to sue for peace. Reluctantly serving as a treaty negotiator under the orders of the Irish president, Éamon de Valera, Collins returned in 1921 with an agreement that left the country in its current state of partition into an independent south and a unionist north. De Valera and his followers refused to accept and civil war broke out. The following year Collins was ambushed and murdered ...

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be glimpsed in the painstakingly re-created destruction, carnage, and valor. Wooed by Boland and won by Collins when his friend and rival travels to America with de Valera in search of support, she serves as a device to separate the two boys and inject feeling into passions that are largely theoretical.
The character who most projects the burning, almost pathological patriotism that has fueled Irish nationalism to the
present day is Alan Rickman's de Valera. His aquiline eyes buttressed by rimless spectacles, he writhes with a
pinched, fanatic devotion to his cause. He emerges finally as the villain of the piece: envious of Collins's
popularity, power, and success, he returns from America and nearly undoes the revolution by returning to more
"honorable" conventional tactics. Jordan suggests he set up Collins to take the fall for the peace treaty and may
even have been involved in his rival's assassination.
In short, de Valera comes off as a more interesting figure than ...

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Against that saga is the humanizing picture of Collins as a private citizen falling in love and pursuing his dreams.
As a viewer of the movie and outsider, not from Ireland, I can only observe Collins as a flawed hero who could unflinchingly order his men to carry out cold-blooded murders while he desperately harbored the illusion that the violence would eventually lead to freedom and lasting peace.

During those six years Michael had been greatly influenced by his father, who encouraged his children to learn patriotic ballads and poetry. West Cork was the heartland of Fenianism, the Irish nationalist movement founded in the 19th century. Jermiah O'Donovan Rossa, ...

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"Michael Collins." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 18 Aug. 2005. Web. 29 Mar. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Michael-Collins/31872>
"Michael Collins." Essayworld.com. August 18, 2005. Accessed March 29, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Michael-Collins/31872.
"Michael Collins." Essayworld.com. August 18, 2005. Accessed March 29, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Michael-Collins/31872.
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PAPER DETAILS
Added: 8/18/2005 02:37:15 PM
Category: Biographies
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 2103
Pages: 8

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