Lost photo of Michael Collins discovered. What's Next?

12 Feb 2016

History awaits as UCC hosts the Revolutionary Decade Roadshow in Thurles on February 13, 2016.

Come for historical appreciation, rather like the Antiques Roadshow. Anyone who has any documents, stories, or artefacts from the revolutionary decade – or indeed are simply interested the events that took place 1913-1923 – are invited to meet to meet with professional archivists and expert historians, in a friendly, informal setting.

At a previous event in Clonakilty, a photo of Michael Collins taken just hours before his death was discovered in an attic. 

The photographs were taken in August 1922 by then 18-year-old Agnes Hurley, from Mallowgaton in Bandon, using an old Brownie box camera. Her remarkable collection spans 20 years, dating from 1921, and includes hundreds of photographs.

Part of the collection was lost but was rediscovered in an attic in Dublin last year. Ms Hurley’s niece Mim O’Donovan, from Bandon, brought the pictures to the ‘Revolutionary Decade Roadshow’ in Clonakilty organised by the History Department at University College Cork.

The second picture captures the scene at Beal na Blath on August 23, 1922, the day after the ambush where Collins was killed. It shows what historians believe to be Collins’s shirt collar on the road. No known photograph of the post-ambush site was believed to exist previously.

“Aggie went to Beal na Blath to see what had happened because they’d heard gunshots the previous day. She took hundreds of photographs over the years and dated the back of every single one,” Ms O’Donovan said.

Cork archivist Brian Magee described the find as “extraordinary”.

The School of History, University College Cork, and Tipperary County Council, are pleased to announce that that the next ‘Revolutionary decade roadshow’ will be held in the Source Arts Centre, Thurles, on Saturday 13 February 2016, from 11am-4pm.

The event – which is free, open to all and for which no pre-registration is required – follows on from the success of previous roadshows, which have been held over the last three years in Cork city, Clonakilty, and Killarney, and the most recent editions, in Tralee and Dungarvan in October 2015.

Together these events have attracted nearly fifteen hundred visitors. The roadshow is aimed at anyone who has an interest – whether personal or familial – in the history of the ‘revolutionary decade’ in modern Irish history, 1912-1923, with particular (but not exclusive) reference to the events in Tipperary during that decade.

Also present on the day will be a number of local & national historical groups with a particular specialism in this period. Members of the public can browse their exhibits, purchase commemorative items, register as members, and so on. Others stalls will offer for sale books relating to the period.

Members of historical re-enactment groups, dressed in period attire, will also be present, as members of the IRA, Crown forces etc., suffrage campaigners, etc., and will deliver short talks ‘in character’ about their aims, equipment, and so on.

Short talks will be delivered, with particular reference to the plans published last week by Tipperary county council (along with the other local authorities in the state) to mark this year’s centenary of the Easter Rising. There will also be a recital of the poems of Thomas MacDonagh, and a special participatory session devoted to younger members of the audience.

This article was first published in the Irish Examiner on 4 December 2012