On This Day / September 4, 1921
Go BackReproduced with permission from The Irish News.
September 4, 2021
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice *
Summary: On This Day – 4th September 1921, Michael Collins received a remarkable reception in Armagh, where he promised Northern nationalists they would not be deserted. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
Collins in Armagh | On This Day – 4th September 1921
MR MICHAEL Collins, Minister of Finance in the Dail Cabinet, paid his first official visit to Armagh yesterday and was accorded a remarkable reception from the people of the city and neighbouring counties.
With the exception of his appearance at Dail Eireann meetings, this was the first time that Mr Collins has appeared in public since his name became known to the world over as that of the Commander-in-Chief of the Republican forces.
Elaborate arrangements were made by the organisers and upwards of 20,000 people assembled to greet Mr Collins.
The day commenced with the presentation of addresses to Mr Collins the City Hall, a procession to the College grounds and a monster meeting there. Mr Edward [Eamonn] Donnelly, president of the Armagh Sinn Fein Club, presided.
The chairman said that the day had arrived at last in Armagh when it took its place with the rest of Ireland and its representative in the Republican Parliament was here to meet his friends.
Mr Eoin O’Duffy said that he had escaped the bullets and he was back there – fresh from Sandy Row.
If these people in Belfast continue to ally themselves with the enemies of this country, it might be necessary for a time to cut off Belfast absolutely from the rest of Ireland…
Mr Michael Collins, who was greeted enthusiastically with the audience singing ‘The Soldier’s Song’, spoke briefly in Irish and paid tribute to ‘the glorious dead – to the men who had nobly sacrificed themselves that their country might be free’.
He went on: ‘Sir James Craig that said he was responsible for peace in Northern Ireland. In Ireland today there is peace – everywhere except in the domain of his Parliament…
Our proposal is that they [the Unionists] should come in. We can afford to give them even more than justice. We can afford to be generous (applause).
That is our message to the North. To those who are with us, I can say that no matter what happens, no matter what the future may bring, we shall not desert them.
Their Parliament in its doomed building … is shaking. Tyrone and Fermanagh have fallen away; they come to us for protection.’
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: COLLINS’S historic visit to Armagh – for which he had been returned in May – was meticulously arranged by Eamonn Donnelly to raise Northern nationalist morale on the eve of the Treaty negotiations.
Accepting the freedom of the Nationalist- controlled city, Collins coupled a promise of generous treatment for Unionists in a united Ireland with words of reassurance to his Ulster supporters.
In truth, however, Sinn Fein had no real strategy to tackle partition, already established.)
On This Day – 4th September 1921
Further Reading on Irish History:
List of other On This Day columns
Other resources: National Library of Ireland Irish News CAIN Archive
On This Day is a daily column in the Irish News looking back either 50 or 100 years. The column was compiled by Dr Éamon Phoenix from the mid 1980s until autumn, 2022. The Foundation is very grateful to the Irish News for giving permission to reproduce Eamon’s columns. Funding gratefully received from Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs and the Magill Trust.
* The Foundation has worked hard to recreate Eamon’s distinctive voice through AI. Since this is an emerging technology, occasional imperfections may be audible.