joedolan

Coffin of Michael Collins being carried from the Pro-Cathedral

from National Library of Ireland on The Commons

• 18 older comments, and then…
• Niall McAuley said:

  Marlborough Streetview

• Sharon Corbet said:

  The list of the pallbearers is here.

• John Spooner said:

  Michael Collins.
  
  By a combination of circumstances I (with no known Irish connections) have my middle name Michael because of this man. Sort of.
  
  My father was born in 1922, and my grandmother really really liked the name Michael. But of course the one Michael in all the papers at the time was General Collins. I doubt very much whether Grannie Spooner was following the goings-on in Ireland at the time, but although she liked the name, she probably didn't want a name so closely associated with whatever unpleasantness was happening, and so my father was named Philip.
  
  Over three decades later I was born. I don't think my parents particularly wanted the name Micheal, but Grannie still really really liked it for some reason, and if her son couldn't be a Michael, then it would have to be her first grandson. She must have had some clout in the family, because as a compromise I ended up as John Michael.
  
  Personally I don't like the name much, and never use it. My siblings occasionally make muttered accusations of favouritism and privilege because they have no middle names.
  
  And all because of Michael Collins being in the news in 1922.

• National Library of Ireland on The Commons said:

  John Spooner Nice story John Michael! I always thought of Michael as being the name of the first policeman who was ordered by the Lord to throw Lucifer and his minions out of heaven! Mine was an anti-Free State household yet on our wall were a photograph of deValera and a painting of Michael Collins!
  Looking at the list that Sharon has provided the only name that jumps out at me was Dalton and I was wondering if that was Emmett Dalton?????

• Sharon Corbet said:

  National Library of Ireland on The Commons No, his brother Charles.