Path to Freedom: Articles & Speeches by Michael Collins

By Michael Collins

Articles and speeches by Michael Collins. Foreword by Tim Pat Coogan. In these essays and speeches Michael Collins spellled out his vision for the future of Ireland, as well as his analysis of its past. Some of them are written in the anguish of a civil war which he struggled so hard to avoid, and in which he saw his country torn apart while seeking to establish and defend democracy, liberty and stability. Michael Collins’ overall vision is still inspiring, he sees the necessity for open trade with overseas markets, for investment and management, and for putting the “national economy on a sound footing” as a priority. Noted historian Tim Pat Coogan provides an introduction to the man and his times, giving an insight into the times that prompted him to write his articles and speeches. Michael Collins was an Irish revolutionary leader, Minister for Finance and MP for Cork South in the first Dáil of 1919. He was Director of Intelligence for the IRA and a member of the Irish delegation during the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations. During the Civil War Michael Collins was Chairman of the Provisional Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Free State Army. He was shot and killed in August 1922 during the Irish Civil War.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mercier Press
• Release date: Mar 3, 2011
• ISBN: 9781856358408

Michael Collins

Michael Collins (1930-2021) was an astronaut, one of 24 who have flown to the moon. A West Point graduate, he was an Air Force jet-fighter pilot and a test-pilot before being recruited by NASA in 1963 as a member of the third astronaut group selected for the Apollo moon project. Lieutenant Colonel Collins flew in the Gemini 10 space mission, orbiting the earth forty-three times in 1966, and piloted the Apollo 11 module for the 1969 lunar mission which put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon’s surface. After NASA, Collins became director of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, then under secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and vice president of the LTV Aerospace and Defense Company. He held the rank of major general when he retired from the Air Force Reserve. Collins recounted his experiences as an astronaut in the memoirs Carrying the Fire and Flying to the Moon.