A Nation’s Grief: How the funeral of Michael Collins was reported 

The cortege itself was of immense proportions and extended between five and six miles. It is stated to have assumed proportions even larger than that of Parnell’s funeral. It was a mighty tribute of homage, and afforded a scene well calculated to endure in the memory of all who had the sad privilege of witnessing it. 

The whole enormous throng stood patiently, reverently silent. Scarcely a sound was heard and awesome stillness settled on the wonderful crowd of mourners when the trams ceased and the last sound of traffic died out of the streets. 

It was thrilling to pass along through that huge multitude, wrapped in the pathos of the national calamity, and on all sides almost tangible evidence of profound inconsolable grief. No such tribute of homage and regret has ever been poured out round the bier of a national leader.

SCENE IN THE STREETS

The day was proclaimed as a general holiday, and all shops, public offices, factories, etc were closed. It was a city of grief, and from an early hour in the morning preparations were on foot for the splendid but appealing and sorrow-laden obsequies of the great Army Chief, for his last passage through the city.

The morning was crisp but fine and there were abundant signs of a lovely summer day. At 10 a.m. the sun was already warm and radiant, and the city was bathed in its shining rays. 

An unusual solemnity settled over the town, and a sad and impressive dullness ... All window blinds in houses and buildings were closely drawn; flags all over the city and on the ships in the river flew at half-mast; mourning favours were worn by men, women and children; tokens of grief met the eye on every side, and the city for the day was dedicated to a sorrow in which all true Irishmen and women the world over joined.

AT THE PRO-CATHEDRAL

At 10 o’clock those privileged to attend the solemn religious ceremonial in the Pro-Cathedral began to assemble. Priests walked toward the sacred edifice in soutanes and carrying their white surplices on arm. Representative men were seen hurrying thither in very large numbers. The wonderful and impressive ceremonial with which the church celebrates the obsequies of her distinguished children was exemplified in a striking manner. 

The interior of the sacred edifice was suitably draped. On the catafalque before the high altar rested the coffin, covered with a Tricolour of silk. The catafalque itself was covered with black drapery fringed with gold. Drapery hung loosely over the catafalque and fell in folds on the ground. Around the bier stood four military officers, two at the head and two at the foot of the coffin.

About 11 o’clock, preceded by a long procession of clergy, headed by a cross bearer and acolytes, Most Rev. Dr Fogarty, Bishop of Killaloe, accompanied by the assistant priest, deacon and sub-deacon, left St Kevin’s Chapel and walked in procession to the High Altar. 

Arrived at the High Altar, the Bishop took his seat on the faldstool to await the arrival of the Archbishop of Dublin, who presided at the High mass. Most Rev. Dr Fogarty had black and gold vestments and wore a white mitre. The assistant priest, deacon and sub-deacon were also vested in black.

Shortly afterwards Most Rev. Dr Byrne, Archbishop of Dublin preceded by his cross-bearer and followed by the metropolitan chapter, entered from St Kevin’s Chapel, and passed in procession to the high altar, the congregation standing as before. The Archbishop who was vested in purple having knelt for a short time before the altar, took his place on the throne. His Grace was assisted at the throne by the Very Rev. Wm J Canon Murphy, PP Dunlaighaire, and the Very Rev. Canon O’Keeffe, PP, Rathfarnham.

PONTIFICAL REQUIEM MASS

Then the celebrant of the Pontifical Requiem High mass commenced. Most Rev. Dr Fogarty as celebrant was assisted by Very Rev. John Flanagan, Adm., Pro-Cathedral; as assistant priest, Rev. M O’Shea, CC, Our Lady of Lourdes, Gloucester Street, as deacon and Rev. Fr Concannon, military chaplain, Portobello Barracks, as sub-deacon. 

Before the entrance of the priests, Mr Brendan Rogers, chief organist played a lament specially composed by himself in connection with the obsequies of Mr Arthur Griffith, and as the procession of bishops and priests passed through the church he played Chopin’s funeral march. There were several bishops present and the attendance of priests was estimated at between three and four hundred. 

In addition to the Archbishop of Dublin and the Bishop of Killaloe, the following were present: Most Rev. Dr Duhig, Archbishop of Brisbane; Most Rev. Dr McKenna, Bishop of Clogher; Most Rev. Dr MacRory, Bishop of Down and Conor; Most Rev. Dr O’Doherty, Bishop of Clonfert; the Bishop of Salford, Right Rev. Dr Cleary, Bishop of Auckland; and Right Rev. Dr Miller OMI. 

The music of the mass was partly Gregorian and partly Nikel’s Requiem Mass. It was rendered by a choir of priests, supplemented by the Pro-Cathedral choir.

The music of the Mass was the same as on the occasion of the obsequies of the late President Griffith with one change. The first two invocations of the Agnus Dei were plain chant, and the third was the rich harmony of Nikel. All music was strictly liturgical and was rendered with deeply impressive effort by the choir. 

At the Sanctus the music ceased. Candles held by the large assemblance of priests were lighted, the church was hushed in a silence broken by the tinkling of the altar bell. At the elevation the congregation reverently bowed down and assisted at the great mystery that was being enacted and the solemn tolling of the Cathedral bell announced to the multitude outside that the solemn act of sacrifice on behalf of the dead young soldier chief had been completed.

FIFTY THOUSAND MOURNERS

Whilst the religious ceremonies were in progress remarkable scenes were being witnessed in the streets. About 11 o’clock upwards of 50,000 people had congregated long before the cortege had left the Pro-Cathedral. 

It was a vast, sad and silent assemblage that spread out as far as the eye could reach, their reverent and solemn demeanour speaking eloquently and touchingly their intense feeling of sorrow and sympathy.

LEAVING THE CATHEDRAL

At half past 12 the coffin was borne from the Pro-Cathedral by officers of the National Army and placed on the gun carriage in waiting. The guard of honour at once formed round the bier under the command of Comdt General Guilfoyle. The guard was Col Comdt B McMahon, Lt Comdt Archer, Vice Brigadier J Shiels, Comdt. J Fitzgerald, Capt. F Conlon, Capt. P Dalton, Capt. N Tobin, Capt. Farrell, Capt. Reilly, Lt McCauley, Lt Laurence, Lt J Kenny, Lt FX Henry, Lt T Henry, Lt Murray and Lt Newport.

At word of command the advance guard or cavalry, two and 30 horsed men moved out of Beresford Place, crossed Butt Bridge and halted in Tara Street, whilst contingents were moved into junctions at which they would fall into the line of march.

At 20 minutes to one the order to march ran along the line, and the cavalry moved off at a slow pace, while in the distance the Dead March [from Handel’s] Saul played on the brass and drums with the most thrilling effect, came from across the waters of the Liffey. The pace was very slow at first and the soul-searching melody fell on the ear with an almost unearthly pathos. 

The body of clergy marched in a compact mass, four deep. There were 288 priests in the procession and amongst them two brothers-in-law of President Griffith, Father Peter and Father Leo Sheehan of the Order of Friars Minor, who had gone over the self-same sorrowful way not a fortnight back. 

Most Rev. Dr McKenna, Most Rev. Dr Fogarty, Most Rev. Dr McRory and Most Rev. Dr Duhig of Brisbane, followed the priests secular and regular, and then walked the little altar boys of the Pro-Cathedral in their purple soutanes. 

St James’s Brass Band, still sending forth Handel’s great dirge for the dead marched ahead of the firing party of the Dublin Guards. Then came the gun carriage on which reposed the coffin enclosing the remains of the Army’s beloved chief, and the nation’s great hero soldier’s bier was drawn by six black horses with riders amount and two drivers in seat.

At the head of the coffin was placed a single lily, the tribute to the dead chief and his fiancée, Miss Kiernan. At each side of the bier walked the guard of honour. A body of 50 soldiers with arms reversed walked along at each side close to the footpaths and the GHQ staff, 10 officers, marched next. 

Mr Sean Collins and Commandant General Sean Hales, TD, walked immediately after the gun carriage. A phalanx of the National Army formed the next section of the great funeral cortege. Ahead of it marched the new Commander in Chief, General R Mulcahy, Major General O’Sullivan JF Dalton. Four and 20 officers followed and next came the Dáil Cabinet.

SOME OF THE MULTITUDE

Amongst the general public were Mrs Arthur Griffith, Mrs Annie Griffith, Miss Frances Griffith, Mrs Mulcahy, Mrs Cosgrave, Mrs Hayes, Mrs Desmond Fitzgerald, Mrs Blythe, Mrs Walsh, Mrs Duggan, Mrs Kevin O’Higgins, Mrs Hugh Kennedy, Mrs Wyse Power, Mrs Burke, Mrs Keogh, Miss Joan Burke, Miss May Cosgrave, Miss MacCarron, Miss Mason, Miss Mulcahy, the Misses Walsh, the Misses Lyons, Miss Staines, Mrs Alice Stopford Green, Mrs PA O’Farrell, Mrs H McCullough, Mrs FJ Lawlor and Miss H.J. Lawlor, TM Healy, KC Maurice Healy; Lord and Lady Fingal, Sir Horace Plunkett, Thomas A. Gahan, South American Irish: HS Guinness Governor Bank of Ireland; Hon Hugh McMahon, Australia; J.C. Dowdall, Rev. Brother P.J. Hennessy, Christian Brothers; Mrs Rynne, Limerick; Mrs Agnes Newman, sister of Sir Roger Casement; the Recorder of Dublin, Mayor and Corporation of Waterford, Mayor and Corporation of Kilkenny, Limerick Chamber of Commerce represented by St Stephen O’Mara; Irish Medical Association, Dr McGuinness and GH Gick; Gaelic League Maura Ni Cinneidhe; Royal Society of Antiquarians of Ireland MJ McEmery.

Other bodies represented were Irish Dental Association, Irish Industrial Development Association, Irish National Teachers Association, Irish National Foresters, Railway Clerks Association, Irish Railway Workers, Cork Board of Guardians, Waterford County Council, Mayo County Council, Irish Farmers Union, Legion of Irish ex-Servicemen, Congested Districts Board, Post Office, Telephone and Telegraph staff.

Cork supplied a very strong representative contribution to the procession, both delegates who arrived by special steamer as well as a special section comprised of Cork men and Cork women resident in Dublin. Between 20 and 30 bands participated.

FLORAL TRIBUTES

Over 300 beautiful wreaths were borne in motor cards in the cortege and they included some from Mr and Mrs Hayes, Cork; staff of the Munster and Leinster Bank; officers and men 1st Cork Reserve: “with love from his broken-hearted brothers and sisters”.

ALONG THE ROUTE

From the spectacular point of view the most imposing sight was that when the procession passed over O’Connell Bridge and into O’Connell Street, lined by thousands of onlookers. The monuments, thronged with clambering youths, it gave a singularly appropriate setting to the passing of one, who will probably go down to history as one worthy to rank with them. 

As it passed O’Connell’s statue, and a little later of Parnell, the mind went back instinctively to the great men who had preceded Collins and like him, had died in the service of their country. And the last act ... was to lay him to rest with Ireland’s greatest national leaders. It was a fitting tribute. 

The road outside the cemetery was congested for hours, and when the funeral reached it at 10 minutes past three it was with difficulty that the gates were held against the rush of the number of people who took part in the cortege and were anxious to be admitted to the last solemn ceremonies which embraced prayers in the mortuary chapel, graveside prayers, the firing of three volleys and the sounding of the Last Post by buglers.

AT THE GRAVESIDE

There were many affecting scenes as the grave was closed. His remains arrived at Glasnevin at three o’clock, and were received by the Very Rev. Eugene McCarthy, PP Arran Quay. A short Requiem service was conducted in the mortuary chapel of the cemetery, the avenue to which was lined by men of the Divisional Guards under Captain O’Brien. 

Inside the cemetery a large number of privileged visitors were permitted and an affecting scene marked the arrival of the cortege, his remains were followed into the mortuary chapel by the greatest number of the accompanying clergy. The Most Rev. Dr Fogarty presided at the obsequies and was assisted by the Rev. Father McCarthy, PP Arran Quay, and Rev. Dr Murphy CC Marlboro Street. 

While the service was in progress the guard of troops was drawn up around the grave, including the firing party and buglers. A number of clergy, including students from Holycross College, Clonliffe, took up a position near the grave: the last prayers were recited and the Benedictus sung, Bishop Fogarty officiating. 

When the remains had been lowered into the grave the usual military ritual was observed. Three volleys were tired by 50 men of the Dublin Guards under Captain Fennessy and 10 buglers sounded the Last Post. General Mulcahy then standing over the open grave delivered the funeral oration.

General Mulcahy’s oration: A hero and legend, his spirit will live for ever

Speaking with much emotion beside the grave of the dead chief, General Risteard Mulcahy, Commander-in-Chief of the Army, commenced his oration in Irish, and speaking in English at some length, in the course of his remarks said:

“Our country is today bent under a sorrow such as it has not been bent under for many a year. Our minds are cold, empty, wordless and without sound but it is only our weaknesses that are bent under this great sorrow that we meet with today. All that is strong in us is strengthened by the memory of that great hero and that great legend who is now laid to rest.

“We bend today over the grave of a young man not more than 30 yeas of age who took to himself the gospel of toil for Ireland, the gospel of working for the people of Ireland, and of sacrifice for their ends, and who has made himself a hero and a legend that will stand in the pages of our history with any bright page that was written there. 

"Pages have been written by him in the hearts of our people that will never find themselves in print, but we lived some of us with these intimate pages and those pages that will reach history, meagre though that be, will do good to our country and will inspire us through many a dark hour.

“Our weaknesses cry out to us — ‘Michael Collins was too brave.’ Every day and every hour he lived it to the full extent of that bravery which God gave him, and it is for us to be brave, as he was — brave before danger, brave before those who lie, brave before those who speak false words — brave even to that very great bravery that our weakness complained of in him.

“When we look over the pages of his diary for the 22nd August, which read: ‘started 6.15 am, Macroom, Ballineen, Bandon, Skibbereen, Rosscarberry, Clonakilty,’ our weakness says he tried to put too much into the day. On Saturday, the day before he went on his last journey to Cork, he sat with us at breakfast, writhing with a pain from a cold, all through his body, and yet he was facing his day’s work for that Saturday and facing his Sunday’s journey and Monday’s journey and his journey on Tuesday. So let us be brave and let us not be afraid to do too much in the day in all that great work.

“Strenuous it was comparatively — it was intemperate, but it was the only thing that Michael Collins was intemperate in. 

Often with a shout he used get out of bed at five or six o’clock, crying about all the time that is wasted in sleep, and would dash around the room or into some neighbouring room where some of us lay in hope of another hour or two’s sleep, and he would clear all the blankets off us or would pound vigorously at the door that prudence had locked. 

"Crossing the square of the barracks on the Saturday morning that I mention he told of his visit to to one of the barracks in the South on his first trip there, and of finding most of the garrison in bed at 10 o’clock and thinking of all the lack of order, lack of cleanliness, lack of moral strength and efficiency that goes with this particular type of sloth and of that demoralisation following on the dissatisfaction that one has with oneself all day that one starts with an hour’s disadvantage — ‘oh’ he said, ‘if our fellows would only get up at six o’clock in the morning, yes get up to read, to write, to think, to plan, to work, or like Ard Riogh Eireann long ago simply to greet the sun, the God-given long day, fully felt and fully seen, would bring it’s own work and it’s own constructor.’ Let us be brave then and let us work.

“Recent writings, recent speeches, the recent break in our national silence that have disfigured the last few months, have seemed to emphasise the Army as a thing apart and different from the people. Our Army has been the people, it is the people and will be the people. 

"Our green uniform does not make us less the people. It is a cloak of service, a curtailer of our weakness, and amplifier of our strength. The Army will be a concentration, a crystal that will crystalise out all the good, all the bravery, all the industry, all the clear intelligence that lies in saturation in the people and hold aloft a headline for the nation.

“Words have been quoted as being his last words. Michael Collins is supposed to have said the fragile words, ‘forgive them’. Michael Collins never said these words. ‘Forgive them’ because his great big mind could not have entertained the obverse thought, and he knew those who sat around him and worked with him, that they too were too big to harbour in their minds the obverse thought. 

"When Michael Collins met difficulties, met people that obstructed him and worked against him, he didn’t turn aside to blame them, but facing steadily ahead he worked bravely forward to the goal that he intended. He had that faith in the intensity of his own work, that in its development and in its construction, he would absorb into one homogeneous whole nation, without the necessity for blame or for forgiveness of all those who differed from him and of all those who fought against him.

“He is supposed to have said: ‘Let the Dublin Brigade bury me’. Michael Collins knows that we will never bury him. He lies here among the men of the Dublin Brigade. Around him there lie 48 comrades of his from our Dublin battalions but Michael Collins never separated the men of Dublin from the men of Kerry nor the men of Dublin from the men of Donegal, nor the men of Donegal from the men of Cork. 

"His great love embraced our whole people and our whole army, and he was as close in spirit with our men in Kerry and Donegal as he was with our men in Dublin. Yes, and even those men in different districts in the country who sent us home here our dead — Dublin men — we are sure he felt nothing but pity and sorrow for them, for the tragic circumstances in which they find themselves — knowing that in fundamentals and in ideal they were the same.

“Michael Collins had only a few minutes to live and to speak after he received his death wound, and the only word he spoke in these few moments was ‘Emmet’. He called to the comrade alongside him, the comrade of many fights and many plans, and I am sure that he felt in calling that one name that he was calling around him the whole men of Ireland that he might speak the word of comradeship and love.”