A €1.3 million museum planned to commemorate Michael Collins in his childhood home appears to be under construction at the wrong address.
Cork county council bought No 7 Emmet Square, in Clonakilty, in 2012. A plaque outside states that the revolutionary leader lived there between 1904 and 1905 while he was attending Clonakilty National School, but newly discovered records suggest that he may actually have lived a few doors up at No 13.
Laurence Coughlan, the owner of No 13, said that discovering that Collins had lived in his house was “a huge surprise”. He said he would be honoured to display the plaque, as long as it was clear that the museum was further along the street.
“As long as it points out that the museum is over at No 7 and that people can’t just come wandering in, I wouldn’t have a problem with it,” he said. “I’d ask people to respect our privacy but I’d be happy with the plaque if it set the record straight.”
Three amateur historians stumbled upon the information while hunting for facts about Collins’s life in the Valuation Office in Dublin. Vincent Allen, Michael O’Mahony, and Tomás Tuipéar said they were looking for evidence of a second Clonakilty address for Collins when they spotted the supposed error.
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“We saw that the address was listed at No 13 and we couldn’t believe it,” Mr Tuipéar said.
It had been widely understood that No 7 Shannon Square, which is now known as Emmet Square, was the home of Collins’s sister Margaret and his brother-in-law Patrick O’Driscoll, where Collins stayed at the age of 13 so that he could attend school.
Tim Crowley, who has written several books about Collins and runs the Michael Collins Centre in Clonakilty, mentioned the revelation in his latest book, In Search of Michael Collins, which was published this month.
“I have no doubt now. Collins lived at No 13,” Mr Crowley said. “The British authorities’ records were spot-on and very accurate when it came to collecting tax. They had a very sophisticated system for assessing rates and they knew exactly where the family lived.”
Mr Tuipéar said he did not think the new information should prevent the museum, which is due to be open in October, from going ahead or being a success. Cork county council has not met the three historians to discuss their findings or review the documents in question. A spokesman said the council was aware that Collins may have lived at a different address in the square.
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“Conclusive evidence is not available to confirm the exact O’Driscoll residence. Should this change, which would be very important from a historical perspective, and if required, Cork county council would have no hesitation in relocating the plaque, subject to the present owner’s consent,” a spokesman said.
“The house is representative of a typical house that would have existed anywhere on the square at the turn of the century and records this period from both a local and national perspective while acting as a narrative and information centre,” he added.
The museum will also tell the story of Tadhg An Astna, who led the United Irishmen at the Battle of the Big Cross in 1798, and Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, who was charged with plotting a Fenian rising in 1865.