COLLINS, Michael. A postcard-sized photographic print titled in manuscript ‘Bealnablath, Cork’.

Showing as ten-man armed Irish Army platoon, under command of an officer, mustered in front of a large shrouded object, probably the carved cross erected across the road from the spot where Michael Collins was shot, in a skirmish following an ambush on 22 August 1922.

Books have been written about the circumstances of Collins' death, and more will doubtless follow, but all that can really be said is that after a lifetime of narrow escapes, Collins' luck finally ran out. Beal na Blath will always be a place of pilgrimage and mourning, even to most of those politically opposed to Collins.

Coogan's biography records that as late as 1971, Army representatives were forbidden to attend the annual commemoration service for their first commander-in-chief.

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