THE Michael Collins Centre Museum at Castleview, just outside Clonakilty, has added another poignant artefact to its impressive collection in form of a mass card that was obtained for Michael Collins.

Tim Crowley said that in August 1922 an Irish National Army officer by the name of Felix Cronin acquired a mass card and got a mass said for his friend, General Michael Collins, who had just died in action at Béal na Bláth on August 22nd.

‘What Cronin didn’t realise at the time was that he would go on to marry Collins’ fiancée Kitty Kiernan less than three years later,’ said Tim.

‘Felix Cronin was born in County Tipperary in 1890 and was active with the IRA in North Tipperary during the War of Independence. He was arrested by the British forces in 1920 and went on hunger strike with other IRA prisoners in Wormwood Scrubs Prison.’

Cronin later served with the pro-Treaty National Army during the Irish Civil War and after the Irish army mutiny crisis of March 1924, he was appointed Quarter Master General of the Irish army.

‘Major General Felix Cronin married Kitty Kiernan in June 1925 and the couple had two sons, Felix Cronin and Michael Collins Cronin. Kitty Kiernan died in July 1945 at the age of 52 and was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin in a grave very close to the grave of Collins. Felix Cronin died at the age of 70 in October 1961 and was buried with Kitty.’

Tim said that addition of the Felix Cronin/ Michael Collins Mass card is another welcome addition to the museum and the collection already includes an original studio photograph of Kitty Kiernan onto which an original calling card had been stapled.

Later this month on August 23rd, journalist and historian David McCullagh will deliver the oration at Béal na Bláth to mark the 104th anniversary of the death of Collins. The ceremony takes place at 3pm and is expected to draw a sizeable crowd to the monument site where he was killed on August 22nd 1922.