This week marks the centenary of the killing of Michael Collins, the politician and spymaster they called the Great Moderniser – and the man who, by common consensus, might have ended partition… had he lived.

He knew – and said publicly – that he had signed his death warrant when he put his signature to the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921. And the following August, his prediction became a bloody reality when he was shot dead as he drove through his beloved West Cork.

This is how the Connacht Tribune reported the killing of Collins in Beal na Bláth, exactly 100 years ago, at the age of just 31.

With admirable speed, it not alone reported the death of Collins, but also analysed his life and political legacy. We republish it here as a mark of respect to the Big Fellow – and to the first generation of Connacht Tribune journalists who brought the news to the people of Galway.