![]() ![]() Dalton’s experiences in 1922, however, when he was just 24,were only one chapter of a remarkable life. That was an understandable response from a Civil War veteran who had been devoted to Collins. ![]() Shortly before he died, at the age of 80, in 1978, he agreed to return to Béal na Blá, in Co Cork, for the making of a documentary, but he tersely dismissed a suggestion that he might meet surviving members of that IRA ambush party from August 1922: “If their only claim to fame is that they shot at me from behind a wall, I don’t want to meet the bastards.” ![]() It is much more likely, however, that Collins's last words were the more prosaic, "Emmet, I've been hit," these words being addressed to Emmet Dalton, in whose lap he died a few minutes later.ĭalton, who outlived Collins by more than 50 years, forever remembered that traumatic day and was certainly never willing to forgive. In the aftermath of the death of Michael Collins some fanciful assertions were made about what his last words had been, with suggestions that he had articulated forgiveness for those who had ambushed him and his colleagues. ![]()
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