In June 1922, Kitty Kiernan wrote certainly one of her most passionate letters to her fiancé, Michael Collins.
t has led historians to take a position about whether or not the couple ever had intercourse throughout their quick relationship, or abstained from the “sins of the flesh”, as religious Catholics.
Kitty wrote: “Final night time was an actual marriage ceremony night time for you and me. Didn’t you are feeling that means too, however couldn’t put it into phrases? I needed to run away with you. That have to be the sensation with individuals who do run away like that. We had it final night time. That was our night time. Glad in the present day, for each you and me, that I didn’t go. Isn’t this proper? Inform me. Do – am I not proper? Heaps of kisses that it is best to have gotten yesterday, and heaps and heaps of hugs and love and love and hugs and kisses. Your individual little pet, Equipment.”
One biographer of the Huge Fella, Peter Hart, expressed doubts about whether or not this passage actually presents proof that that they had an evening of ardour.
He wonders why, in the event that they did have intercourse, she sends him “heaps of kisses that it is best to have gotten yesterday”.
One other biographer, James MacKay, fashioned the view from the letters that this love was given bodily expression as incessantly as potential.
Kitty was way more open in her emotions than Collins within the a whole lot of letters they exchanged between 1920 and 1922.
In the summertime of 1922, she wrote: “I virtually shudder on the considered the energy
of my love, what I do
imagine I’m able to feeling and that with out you, life held nothing for me.”
Though his affection for Kitty is clear in his facet of the correspondence, Collins is maybe extra guarded within the data that the letters may very well be intercepted by his adversaries – and used to embarrass him.
Collins and Kiernan had met in 1917, when his social gathering Sinn Féin was campaigning within the Longford South by-election.
Kitty was certainly one of 4 sisters who labored within the Greville Arms Lodge in Longford.
Collins was among the many Sinn Féin activists staying within the resort, and initially he was drawn to Kitty’s sister, Helen.
However the consideration of Collins turned to Kitty when Helen declared her affections for an area solicitor.
The issue was that Kitty was initially interested in Collins’s buddy and fellow revolutionary, Harry Boland, who ultimately proposed to her.
Complicating issues even additional, Kitty was additionally briefly engaged to a 3rd man, Lionel Lyster, however he was dumped.
Ultimately, it was Collins who received Kitty’s affection whereas Boland was conveniently away within the US.
She wrote to Collins: “Why not marry the one I actually love, and what a cowardly factor of me to be afraid to marry the one I actually love, and who loves me simply in addition to any of the others I had considered marrying?”
A lot of their courtship came about at a distance, with Collins over in London on the Treaty talks of 1921, and Boland’s place because the loser within the love triangle was solely lastly resolved on the finish of that 12 months.
The engagement between Kitty and Michael grew to become public in uncommon circumstances through the Treaty debate at first of 1922, when Countess Constance Markievicz made the outlandish suggestion that Collins was having an affair with a member of the British royal household, Princess Mary.
Collins responded indignantly within the Dáil: “I do know nothing of her in any means no matter, however the assertion could trigger her ache, and will trigger ache to the girl who’s betrothed to me.”
After this public assertion that he was to be married, Collins instantly dispatched an specific letter to Kitty, following up on this assertion: “My Dearest Kitty, It will attain you earlier than the letters I despatched in the present day. My expensive, expensive Kitty, see the references to your self and Princess Mary of England.
“My betrothed, My fondest love, Michael.”
In an essay within the Jesuit journal Research, Mary Kenny confirmed how the letters reveal the non secular facet of each Collins and Kiernan.
Whereas in London for the prolonged Treaty talks, he wrote to her about going to each day mass at Brompton Oratory, and lighting candles for her.
On October 13, 1921, Kiernan wrote to Collins: “Will you retain your promise it doesn’t matter what occurs to go to confession and communion? If I assumed you’ll I’d really feel fairly content material and happy.”
Collins replied: “It’s a queer factor however I really feel very like that (about confession and communion) and I’ve usually felt that it required somebody such as you to make me recognize the factor correctly.”
On October 16, Kitty encourages him: “Delighted you went to mass… and the candle wasn’t forgotten.”
Was it only a pious part on the a part of Collins, designed to impress her?
There have been definitely loads of rumours linking him with different girls together with the London society hostess, Girl Lavery, whose picture later appeared on the Irish pound notes.
And Kitty refers jokingly in a single letter to Collins’s “fairly woman secretaries”.
Moya Llewelyn-Davies, a republican supporter who ghost-wrote a ebook for Collins, boasted of being Collins’s lover.
In response to Tim Pat Coogan’s biography of Collins, Llewelyn-Davies mentioned that on the night time Collins realized that Éamon de Valera was to reject the Treaty: “He was so upset that I gave myself to him.”
Of their letters, Collins and Kiernan reveal their doubts, anxieties and insecurities about their relationship.
However had he escaped the ambush at Béal na Bláth on August 22, Collins would possibly have married Kitty Kiernan two months later. A date was set for October 20.
However as an alternative of getting a marriage bouquet, she was left to mourn the Huge Fella’s passing with a single white lily left on his coffin.
Within the area of simply three weeks, each Collins and Harry Boland have been shot on reverse sides within the Civil Warfare.
