Michael Collins’ School – Lisavaird
Michael attended national school at Lisavaird, where the schoolmaster, Denis Lyons, was to have a large influence on Michael’s life. Denis Lyons, was an active member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, a secret organisation dedicated to ousting the British from Ireland, by force if necessary. Lyons and the local blacksmith, James Santry, another Fenian, were Michael’s first tutors in giving him a sense of pride of the Irish as a race. Throughout Michael Collins’ brief life, Irishness was the thing that held the greatest meaning for him. Big for his age, Michael had a keen mind as well as a fit, athletic body.
Michael loved to read. His sister, Mary Ann, heightened his interest in the struggle for nationalism, and because of her, he devoured the writings of men such as poet and Nationalist, Thomas Davis. Worried that he might fall in with a bad sort, his mother sent him to Clonakilty to study for the Post Office examinations and to live with his sister Margaret. Here he worked briefly for his brother-in-law who owned the West Cork People, a newspaper of the area. Michael learned typesetting and wrote articles about local sporting events. After a year and a half, when he was 15, he went to London where he lived with his sister Hannie, in West Kensington and worked for the Postal Savings Bank in West Kensington. Michael would spend the next nine years in London.
