Ireland
Michael Collins
1890–1922 Director of Intelligence of the IRA; Chairman of the Provisional Government, 1922
Born in County Cork, Collins worked as a clerk in London from 1906 and returned to Ireland in early 1916 to fight in the Easter Rising at the General Post Office. Interned at Frongoch in Wales, he was released in December 1916 and rose through the Irish Volunteers and Sinn Féin. Elected to Parliament in December 1918, he became Minister for Finance in the Dáil and, in the War of Independence, Director of Intelligence of the IRA; he created the Squad to kill British agents and informers. He signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty on 6 December 1921, chaired the Provisional Government from January 1922 and in July became commander-in-chief of the National Army. He was shot in an ambush at Béal na Bláth on 22 August 1922.