Michael Collins - Summary

MICHAEL COLLINS

A film by Neil Jordan

Michael Collins was born in 1890 in a small village in West Cork, Ireland. At the age of fifteen he went to London where he spent nine years. There he was active in IRB, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, an organisation where he started as secretary and ended as president.

The film begins in the middle of a rising – the Easter Rising - against the British occupants. Michael Collins had become Captain in the army of the Volunteers, but they did not succeed and he was held prisoner of war among a lot of other Volunteers. When he returned to Ireland he rebuilt the IRB and was soon elected to the political organisation, Sinn Fein.

Together with his friend and co-member of IRB, Harry Boland, he went to England to help the president of Sinn Fein, Eamon de Valera, to escape from prison. De Valera went to America with Harry Boland trying to raise money for Sinn Fein. Michael Collins led a campaign against the British forces and chi...