Michael Collins

“I tell you this; early this morning I signed my death warrant.”

“Think what have I got for Ireland? Something which she has wanted these past seven hundred years. Will anyone be satisfied at the bargain? Will anyone?”

“Give us the future... we've had enough of the past. To the Irish people, our judgement has been given. We have given you a nation.”

“History will record the greatness of this Treaty and history will record the heroism of those who made it.”

“Let the Irish people be the judge.”

“In my opinion, it gives us freedom, not the ultimate freedom that all nations desire, but the freedom to achieve it.”

“Yerra, they'll never shoot me in my own county.”

“The British Government has no right in Ireland, never had any right in Ireland, and never can have any right in Ireland.”

“We have not been conquered, because we have not consented to be conquered.”

“To go for a drink is one thing. To be driven to it is another.”

“The terror of the British has been broken.”

“The path to freedom is not a path of ease. It is a path of suffering.”