FROM THE ARCHIVES:BEFORE THE "official" start of the Civil War in June 1922, there were numerous clashes between pro- and anti-Treaty IRA factions. Among them was an alleged assassination attempt on Michael Collins in Parnell Square which produced widely differing accounts of what had happened. –
JOE JOYCE
MR. MICHAEL Collins’s experience in Rutland [Parnell] Square on Sunday night was the subject of general comment in Dublin yesterday. Mr. Collins had arrived in the city, along with a few of his friends, from Naas. Their taxi cabs drew up at Vaughan’s Hotel. The party alighted, and Mr. Collins, standing on the footway, was talking to Mr. O’Muirthulo [sic] and others when the shots were fired.
Mr. Collins stated yesterday that it might have been that his attackers intended to seize him. The party, about 10 in number, rushed out of a house adjacent to the hotel in Rutland Square, and at once opened fire. He thought that they aimed at the cars. He replied with only one shot, and he believes that he wounded one of the attackers. His companions fired no shot. He chased one man into a doorway and took from him a revolver. Some of his assailants, he says, wore uniforms and were armed with rifles. The man who was captured [later named as Murphy] was lodged in Mountjoy Jail.
The following statement was issued last night by the Director of Publicity of the new Army Executive [anti-Treaty IRA]:
“The events of Sunday night have been misrepresented in important instances in the Press today. Certain I.R.A. Executive posts were attacked without any provocation whatever, as the following particulars will show:
“1 – At 11.10p.m. on the night in question while two members of the I.R.A. were on guard at 44 Parnell Square they were fired on from an open touring car which contained about eight men. Fire was returned, and the car proceeded towards Banba Hall. When the firing ceased, three members of the guard went out to take a motor outside an adjacent hotel for the purpose of driving to I.R.A. Headquarters at the Four Courts to report about the attack. Our men were fired on, and one, with an empty revolved, was disarmed and taken away.
“ll – About midnight an armour-plated tender, containing [pro-Treaty] forces from Beggars’ Bush [barracks], came down the square from the direction of Banba Hall. When opposite the I.R.A. Offices, 44 Parnell Square, a volley of shots was discharged at the house. The guard returned the fire.
“lV – Later a light armoured car, with a tender full of troops from Beggars’ Bush, questioned passers-by. The armoured car patrolled the vicinity of Parnell Square for about an hour, but no further firing took place.
“I wish to state definitely and emphatically that an attack on Mr. Michael Collins was not in any way intended or contemplated. He happened to be in the vicinity during the incidents at Parnell square, and thus got implicated in the matter.”
http://url.ie/ap6n