The pocket diaries of Irish revolutionary, soldier and politician, Michael Collins, will be made available to the public for the first time, having been loaned to the National Archives by his family.
While until now, only two diaries have been on public display, with only two pages made visible to the public; next month a total of 5 pocket diaries will be made available in digitised format.
The pocket diaries were written by Michael Collins, while on the run and thus information contained in same is coded for very obvious reasons.
Pages in at least one of the diaries, dated Thursday March 20th 1919 and the following day Friday 21st 1919, appear to mention coded information referring to Thurles, Co. Tipperary. (See Image above)
The arrow pointing from hand written and coded page, dated Friday 21st 2019, to page dated Thursday March 20th, may possibly mean 8:30 app [interpreted as either approximately – appearance – appointment] as [Irish for ‘out of’] Fogludas [Irish for ‘Foleys’] .
Can anyone of our readers, out there, encode or throw possible light on this message? We would greatly like to hear from you.
The diaries will be available in the National Archives from sometime in September and will also be available in digital form.
Next weekend, more than 5,000 people are expected to attend a commemoration, marking the 100th anniversary of the Béal na Bláth ambush in west Cork; which saw Michael Collins; latter then Chairman of the Irish Provisional Government and Commander-in-Chief of the National Army, shot dead.
Just over a month later Collins wrote (several times) to the Mid Tipp IRA in Thurles, requesting info on the levy. https://postimg.cc/hfqfDRDn
Since I see a lot of pound signs in the image above maybe it’s related? I think he was minister for finance at this time also.
Thanks Neville, you didn’t perhaps recognise any of the names. Could £7 B. Callanan for example be the Callanan family in Leigh, Thurles? They had a pub I understand, in Cathedral Street (then a continuation of Main Street), beside the Munster Hotel.
Afraid I don’t. It would be a lot of guesswork.
However cross referencing this with some of the ‘Collins papers’ around the same time comes up with something interesting. The man who the dispatch I shared in my previous message was sent to (Butler). He was court-martialled by the Mid-Tipp IRA around this time due to the loss (theft?) of similar amounts of money Collins mentions in diary. Correspondence between Collins and James Leahy sheds further light. https://www.militaryarchives.ie/fileadmin/user_upload/MAC-002/IE_MA_CP_02_23.pdf