User:Irvine124/sandbox

Personal Life
Outside of the War for Independence in Ireland, Michael Collins was also a lover and a bureaucrat. The public view of Michael Collins is of a militaristic person, however he was more of a paper pusher and orator than a military man. Many pictures of Collins were taken while he was in uniform. The picture of Collins in his full general's uniform is one of the most used and recognized pictures of him of all time. Behind the scenes of the war Collins was first, an administrator, Collins did not see any of the fighting from the time of the 1916 Easter Rising until the fire fight that ensued at his death/assassination. During the last five years of his life, Collins became very close with a woman by the name of Kitty Kiernan. Collins wrote back and forth with Kiernan for years, describing what he was doing and what was going on in the war effort. In later years, Collins shifts the tone of his letters to joy and love, he says in one particular letter "My thoughts just now are all with you, and you have every kind wish and feeling of mine." . One of the later letters Kiernan sends to Collins points out the difference in opinions that they have. Kiernan was more interested in love and romance, where Collins was much more interested in talking politics. Collins was assassinated on 22 August, 1922 at the age of 31 After Collins's death, Kiernan married a Quartermaster General in the Irish Army. In homage to Collins, she named her youngest son Michael Collins Cronin.