This episode of The Kim Munson Show brings you the riveting story of Michael Collins through the eyes of Colonel Bill Rutledge. Discover the efforts of a young Collins who spearheaded a clandestine movement of guerrilla warfare against British forces, changing the course of Irish history forever. From tales of courage and strategic brilliance to the legacy of Ireland’s quest for complete autonomy, this conversation offers a rich tapestry of historical insight commemorating Easter week.
SPEAKER 09 :
We are pleased to rebroadcast an interview aired on The Kim Munson Show, which is relevant for America’s veteran stories. So enjoy.
SPEAKER 05 :
World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and our other wars and conflicts. America’s fighting men and women strapped on their boots and picked up their guns to fight tyranny and stand for liberty. We must never forget them. Welcome to America’s veteran stories with Kim Munson. These stories will touch your heart, inspire you and give you courage. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Here’s Kim Munson.
SPEAKER 09 :
Indeed, and welcome to The Kim Munson Show. Thank you so much for joining us. You’re each treasured, you’re valued, you have purpose. Today, strive for excellence. Take care of your heart, your soul, your mind, and your body, my friends. We were made for this moment in history. And thank you to the team. That’s Producer Joe, Luke, Rachel, Zach, Echo, Charlie, Mike, Teresa, Amanda. and all the people here at Crawford Broadcasting. Check out our website. That is kimmunson.com. Sign up for our weekly email newsletter while you’re there. That way you’ll get first look at our upcoming guests as well as our most recent essays. You can email me at kim at kimmunson.com. Thank you to all of you who support us. We are an independent voice on an independent station searching for truth and clarity by looking at these issues through the lens of freedom versus force, force versus freedom. If something’s a good idea, shouldn’t have to force people to do it. I do thank all of you who contribute and support us and all of our sponsors because it is so important to have these conversations. You can hear the show online. Monday through Friday, 6 to 8 a.m. live. America’s Veterans Stories is on Sundays, 3 to 4 p.m. But the Kim Munson Show is on all platforms, KLZ 560 platforms, which is KLZ 560 AM, 100.7 FM, the KLZ website, the KLZ app. You can listen via Alexa, and then the shows are on Spotify and iTunes after we get those posted. And we do search for Truth and Clarity. by looking at these issues through the lens of freedom versus force, force versus freedom. If something’s a good idea, you should not have to force people to do it. And we are pre-recording for several of the days during Holy Week. And that’s the time between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. And pleased to have on the line with me a fan favorite. And that is 96-year-young Colonel Bill Rutledge, retired United States Air Force. He’s traveled the world, has this deep interest in people, and was established right around the same time that we were in the 1600s. That’s correct. Okay. And you’d mentioned in some of these preparation things that you’d sent over that Plymouth, which was established in 1620, was based upon a desire by the settlers to seek religious freedom from the Church of England. And then you said the Irish had largely been converted to the Roman Catholic faith by priests who had arrived in the 9th century. So this was setting up probably a situation where there were a lot of disagreements, yes?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes. But we have to recognize that when they were first colonized, I should say colonized, but when they first were introduced to the Christian faith with Ireland to try to convert them and to gain greater control over them through sending people from Scotland, mostly, who were Scotch Protestants, to gain control. And they were concentrated in the northern six counties, which is called Ulster. And that, again, was in the early 1600s. And this was started by the English King James I and also by William and Mary. And, of course, we recognize that King James was reigning when that’s why it was named Jamestown and William and Mary College in the state of Virginia. was one of the first colleges in America, and it was named, again, for the king and queen of England.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, and so a couple of things. I imagine this King James was the King James that had the Bible translated into English.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. And did he have it translated into English? Is that what it was? So we all know of the King James Version, yes? Yes, absolutely. Okay. You also mentioned in some of the prep work here that there was the Book of Kel, which was a handwritten Bible with beautiful illustrations dating from the 1900s. And this was via the… Let me correct. From the 900s. Oh, from the 900s. Yes, thank you for that correction. Correct. And it was written in Latin. And you said there’s a display at Trinity University in Dublin, Ireland.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s correct. And I was not aware of this until we went to Ireland in 1977. And we were visiting in Trinity University. And they have the original book, the book of Calvin. And they also have extracted or made copies of many parts of that book since it was all done by hand. And it was done in color when they did pictures to illustrate stories because you have to recognize that most of the people couldn’t read in those days and the priests were using Latin. And now they have copies of their most artistic presentations that are available for sale And my wife and I looked it over, and we picked four that we liked very much and we felt were compatible with us. And years and years later, I received an art book, and the art book had portraits and things from many, many generations, many centuries. And it happened to have some of the very copies from the Book of Kel that we had purchased. So it was very interesting.
SPEAKER 09 :
Wow. And I love the way that you have connected history in so many of our different conversations. So Benjamin Franklin was quoted as saying, regarding our revolution, our Declaration of Independence, all of that, he said, we must all hang together or surely we shall hang separately. And fortunately, the British did not capture and hang our leaders of our revolution. But the Irish were not so lucky, right? No.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s correct. There are a lot of parallels. First of all, we were the first English colony, starting from Jamestown in 1609, the first colony away from their main islands. And then Ireland followed pretty closely thereafter by just two or three decades later. So there were many, many similarities that occurred in that time. And we were most fortunate that not only did they not capture the people who signed it, but they didn’t capture George Washington, because George Washington was the key. And if we had not had him and if he had not been saved by divine providence, by his choice of words, we would never have gotten our independence for many, many decades later. So The Irish also wanted to have their independence, and they tried, but they were too close to England and too close to the English so that they could bring their army over there when they wanted to assert their power. So it took them many, many years. So whereas we were the first British colony to gain their independence, the Irish were almost the last.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, and again, such a close proximity, easy for the British to get troops there. And so let’s talk a little bit about Michael Collins, because I find this fascinating. You said he was born in 1890 on a large farm in County Cork, southwest Ireland. His father was the seventh son of a seventh son. And Michael was the seventh child and a family of eight. And that is curious. And the number seven is very important in the Christian faith.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, it is. And it’s I’ve used this reference many times when we talk about climate change and people are all distressed about factors. And I said, just just read the Bible. I said the Bible uses seven so frequently and it talks about seven year periods of drought and seven year periods of prosperity and plenty of moisture. And this is why they went down to Egypt periodically when they had drought up in what is now Israel. And so it’s amazing how there are so many correlations between the Bible and both the Catholic faith and the Protestant faith.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, it is. And this is interesting. You said his father did not marry until he was 60. So was that his first marriage? And his bride was 22. Yes. And then they go on to have eight children.
SPEAKER 04 :
Good grief. It is. And it’s what’s so odd. I say it’s odd. It was traditional in that era. An Irishman never considered marriage until he was older. and until he was employable and he could sustain a family. And it was that same way in America when I was young. A person never considered marriage unless they were going to be able to support a wife and children. Unfortunately, that is not true today. But it was the basis for strong nuclear families that were very active either as members of the Roman Catholic Church or in some Protestant denominations.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, and gosh, it took him a while, it took his father a while if he was 60 to get to that age. But I guess marrying somebody that was 22 years old, they ended up, again, having eight children. So Michael was always a real leader, and he was a student of Irish history.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, and he had that interest from earliest days. And he… During those periods, the British did not like for the Irish to dwell upon their history. They tried to encourage them to think of English history, and they wanted them to be sure and use English as their conversational language. But he wanted also to look at the Gaelic historical part of Ireland and their history. And he continued that. And in Ireland they had teachers who were referred to sometimes as hedgerow teachers because they didn’t have a particular school or anything. They just moved around from place to place and they would go to areas where children could come out by the hedgerow because And they would try to teach them the history of Ireland before the British invasion, and especially to try to teach them Gaelic language so that they could maintain the language that they had learned. inherited for hundreds of years.
SPEAKER 09 :
Boy, this is absolutely fascinating, Colonel Bill Rutledge. We’re going to continue the discussion. All this happens because of our sponsors. And did want to say thank you to the Harris family for their gold sponsorship of the show. And also the Roger Mangan State Farm Insurance team can help you with your insurance coverage to make sure that you know what you have and you have what you need. And so give them a call, 303-795-8855. Like a good neighbor, the Roger Mangan team is there.
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All of Kim’s sponsors are in inclusive partnership with Kim and are not affiliated with or in partnership with KLZ or Crawford Broadcasting. If you would like to support the work of The Kim Munson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, kimmunson.com. That’s kimmunson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.
SPEAKER 09 :
And welcome back to The Kim Munson Show. Be sure and check out our website. That’s kimmunson, M-O-N-S-O-N.com. Sign up for our weekly email newsletter. You can email me at kim at kimmunson.com as well. And we are pre-recording many of the shows for Easter week, which that is the time between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. And in Irish history, there is the Easter uprising, which has a lot of… corollaries to our uh fight for independence here in america so i’m talking with uh colonel bill rutledge he’s retired united states air force he’s 96 years young and his interest in people and places in history and the fact that he will share this with us is really a it’s a gift it’s a treasure So, Colonel Rutledge, we’re talking about Michael Collins, which some might say that Michael Collins is to the Irish as what George Washington is to the Americans.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, there’s a lot of parallels in that Michael, like George Washington, had many occasions when he could have or perhaps should have been killed. because he was the target for the English for at least five years once they found out that he was a leader of the Irish people and sort of covertly trying to seek independence from the crown. So there are many, many similarities. There’s one thing that I didn’t mention earlier but was germane to this discussion, and that is how the British established control over the entire island. And this happened in the mid-1650s when Oliver Cromwell took over and actually gained control of Parliament. It was between two of the British kings, and Cromwell went to Ireland with an army, and he had a battle with the Irish natives an account called the Battle of the Boyne, in which they defeated the Irish Catholics who were in the lower counties and therefore asserted English domain over the entire Ireland of Ireland, the entire island. But the Battle of the Boyne is still celebrated in the northern six counties where they wear orange. It’s odd, but they’re referred to as orange men and even till today. So the British occupation in the mid-1600s is when they gained control of all these lands, many of which had been owned by the Catholic Church and the Pope. And just like in England, they took control of all that land in England from the papacy. Well, they did the same thing when they got to Ireland. And the Catholic Church presence there also controlled a lot of land. It was taken over and it was given to people who were loyal to the British crown. So that really it was taken away from the Irish owners. So the Irish, again, they became renters of their own land. And this created continued animosity.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, that would do it for sure. Just an off-the-cuff question. The Syracuse University is known as the Orangemen. Is that any connection with what you’re saying about these counties in Ireland?
SPEAKER 04 :
Which school are you referring to?
SPEAKER 09 :
Isn’t it the Syracuse Orangemen, I was thinking?
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s correct, but I don’t think there’s any connection. None that I know of. I’ve never heard of that correlation. However, when I went to Ireland in 1977 and I went down to the vital statistics office to try to track my ancestors who had lived in Ireland. And when I was there, I gave them my name and they said, well, your ancestors may have been living here a long time, but they weren’t Irish. And I said, what do you mean? And he said, your ancestors were loyal to the crown. They were orange men.
SPEAKER 09 :
Huh. Fascinating. Okay, so Michael Collins, we’re setting the stage here for what he is doing. So what’s next?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, Michael Collins, in his early 20s, went to London because there were job opportunities there. So he first went over, like many people who got started with contacts in the mail service in Ireland. And so he went over and worked in the mail operation in London. And then he went into financial investment areas. as a beginner to learn because he was very intelligent and he learned a lot. And he was there when World War I started in 1914. So shortly thereafter, he elected to go back to Ireland because he said that if he stayed in England, he would be subject to the military draft. and that he did not want to fight on behalf of the king. So he went back to Ireland and renewed his association with various Irish organizations that were for perpetuating Irish history, Irish traditions, and ultimately to seek independence.
SPEAKER 09 :
And so what happens when he goes back to Ireland? How do they start to do this?
SPEAKER 04 :
She went back, and he went back in 1915, and they started organizing to take advantage, really, of World War I in that the British were so involved And their military was, of course, in France. And so, therefore, there were less British military presence in Ireland than there had been before. And it looked like, again, a great opportunity for them to seek their independence. So the various leaders, political leaders internal to Ireland, either they were local or a very few members were actually members of parliament. but they didn’t have enough votes to be significant. Nevertheless, these people all aspired to be free, and they formed an organization very loosely and got together and elected that they were going to have what they called a rising. Now, they had done this on three different occasions in the 1800s very unsuccessfully. But this time, because of the war and the fact that the British presence was much smaller in 1950 and 1916, they looked as though this was a great opportunity. And Michael was very sympathetic with him, and he was a very junior person, but he was also interested in politics. contributing towards the uprising. So the rising was scheduled for Easter week in 1916. Now, on Easter Sunday, they did the regular traditional things. They had parades. They all went to Mass. It was an Irish Catholic holiday. in celebration, but it was also when they were assembling their military capabilities. They had gathered over a period of years, really, rifles and ammunition and things that they could use. They did not have any heavy guns like cannons. They didn’t have machine guns. So they were not well-armed, but they had weapons. some resources, and they had established different places around Dublin that were to be their military points in which they would show their resistance. So actually on Easter Monday, they started significant changes in trying to control the main British post office and the main seat of government in dublin and that’s when the firing and things started again at this time michael was sort of like a junior officer in say the national guard
SPEAKER 09 :
So what happens then? They’re not that well-armed, and they don’t have the benefit of a big ocean between them and Britain like the Americans did. And this is 1916. World War I is occurring at the same time. So what goes on with this Easter Monday uprising?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, they started defending various positions around the city. And then what happened was that the British brought in more soldiers from England, and the British brought in machine guns, and the British brought in artillery. And so consequently, the fighting really started on Monday, and by Saturday, because of the overwhelming number of trained military personnel, officers and men and also their guns especially the artillery they had really recaptured all of these strategic points that the irish had established and michael was in one of these specific locations around the city he was one of the last that was captured now he got some minor wounds And there were a couple of times when he was a real target, when he was trying to act as a courier between one strategic point and another. But nevertheless, he was eventually captured by that weekend, the weekend ending Easter week. And most of the other people who were insurgents or people who were fighting were captured there. There were a lot of people killed on both sides, but obviously the Irish had more wounded, killed and wounded. Now, when the people had signed, the leaders, the political leaders in Ireland had signed, and we’re talking about six or eight people, they had signed this document declaring that they were independent. Then what happened was the British declared martial law And in so doing, then they established that they would use military courts. And so they had military court-martials, and those men whose signatures were on the documents were all presented before the courts, found guilty of treason, and within a week or so, they were all put up against the wall and executed by firing squads.
SPEAKER 09 :
So why wasn’t Collins, why wasn’t he killed at that time?
SPEAKER 04 :
Because he was not a signature. And it was just like, this is a parallel with those comments about Benjamin Franklin, said, if we do not hang together, we will surely hang separately. And they would have, if they’d have captured our people in Philadelphia. But they did capture the ones in Dublin. So it shows that we were lucky and the Irish were not. And this junior officer and all of these other people who were fighting were put into prisons. And they were given indeterminate terms. They were just captured as though they were insurgents. Many of them were sent to prisons in England, some in Wales, and then some, of course, on the island in Ireland. Ireland didn’t have enough space for them. And so Michael was one of those that was sent to Wales. And while he was there, he began to plan for when he would be able to get out. The good luck for him was this situation. that he was captured in the Easter week 1916, and for some reason or not, he was released just before Christmas 1916, so he could go back to Ireland. But while he was in Wales, he started developing a plan to counter the British, and he realized they couldn’t do it militarily because they didn’t have the weapons, they didn’t have the training or the men to do it. So what he did, it was to develop really what we know as guerrilla warfare. It was very covert. He set up spies in all the British organizations. As a matter of fact, he had one of the secretaries of the British commander… In Dublin, she was one of his spies.
SPEAKER 09 :
Wow. Okay, we’re going to continue the discussion with Colonel Bill Rutledge regarding Michael Collins, who is part of the Irish’s quest for independence. And we’ll continue these discussions. We have them because of our sponsors. For everything residential real estate, reach out to Karen Levine.
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SPEAKER 09 :
And welcome back to the Kim Munson Show. and really a great place to get together with friends and family for their lunch specials monday through friday and great place to get together to watch all the games we’re getting into hockey playoffs i think very soon and baseball basketball lots going on out there so be sure and check out hooters restaurants and then also the usmc memorial foundation is a non-profit i dearly love they uh We certainly need to remember and honor all those that have given their lives or been willing to give their lives for our freedom. You can help them with their remodel of the Marine Memorial by going to usmcmemorialfoundation.org. We have prerecorded many of the shows for this week of Easter week, which is the time between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. And, of course, there’s Easter Monday, the day after as well, and Easter. And all that is connected with the Easter uprising of the Irish for their independence. And the pivotal figure in this is Michael Collins. We’re talking about him, and Colonel Bill Rutledge is sharing his knowledge about Michael Collins. So question, was Michael Collins married?
SPEAKER 04 :
No, Michael Collins was not married. He was engaged, and he was following a pattern really different. were very common in Ireland in that the men often were in their 30s when they would marry someone maybe in their early 20s or even late teens because they had to be able to support a wife and children. This was the concept and it’s still the concept in many places. And so his was deferred. But also one of the reasons is that Michael became so active in the military and political underground, and he had great mobility. And as his leadership grew, he was hardly ever in one place long enough to be considering a marriage and supporting a family. So his priorities were different. to create chaos for the British and therefore by a continued period of doing this to make it where it was not desirable for the British to continue to to control the Irish and so therefore he became the underground leader and he realized that the way to do it was to gain intelligence from the English leadership positions. So he planted people in, say, service-type positions, be secretaries, or it might be a janitor, or it might be a doorkeeper, or it may be a manager of a pub. They were scattered around throughout, especially the concentration in Dublin. And they would find information and then share it with Michael, who in turn would share it with what he had like a hit squad. He actually had a small, like a small squad, maybe eight to ten people that would go all around the counties and would cause all the havoc they possibly could. Sometimes they would get in armed conflict with some of the militia. Some of the police. And it was that kind of harassment warfare. like an undeclared war with England for five years.
SPEAKER 09 :
So Colonel Rutledge, we’ve talked about some correlations between Michael Collins and the Irish and getting their independence, and America and George Washington and achieving our independence. But the thing about America is it was founded on this idea of all men are created equal with these rights from God of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. But the Irish independence, was that just, it seems like it was more just based on we want independence and we want religious freedom. What would you say regarding the correlations between the two on that?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, the big, I’d say one of the big differences was that all of the lower counties were very strongly Roman Catholics. Catholicism was a part of everyday life for the people in all of the lower counties. Ulster, the six northern counties, were principally from Scotland, and that’s why you often hear the term when people talk about their heritage, they were Scotch-Irish. That means they came from the northern counties, but They lived there for generations, but their tradition was Protestant Scotch. And so that was completely different than the situation that you had in America, whereas most of our earlier colonial people had broken away from the Church of England and also Before that, because of King Henry VIII, he had made the break in the late 1500s, early 1600s with the Pope. So England, then when the people came to America, the ones that came to Virginia, those were traditional people. Church of England people there. But those that went to New England, to that area, they were breakaway from the British, from the Church of England. Now, they didn’t officially declare it, but that’s what it was. It was a declaration, and they did not want to owe homage towards the crown. So there were but very distinct differences because the people who came to America, they still considered themselves English. Their loyalty basically was to the English throne, whereas the Irish had their own tradition, which was hundreds, maybe even thousands of years older, and it was this Celtic background that their own language, their own written language, their own traditions, and their loyalty to the Catholic Church. So there was that distinct difference.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. So, Michael, thank you for all of that. Michael Collins, it was only 32 when he was killed. And we’ll talk about that in a little bit. But he’s in prison. He’s a model prisoner. But he’s working on these covert operations, guerrilla warfare. And is it effective what he and his guys are doing? Guys and men and women, I should say.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, it was very effective, and especially after the war in Europe ended, of course, on the 11th of November, 1918. So after that, then the British could move more soldiers over into Ireland, which they did. And you’ve heard of things I call the Black and Tan War. Well, these were takeoffs on the uniforms that the British wore that came over. They were supposedly there to maintain the peace. But in fact, there was a lot of friction. There was a lot of killing between the British and the Black and Tans from after 1920. after November 1918, all the way up into the middle of 1921. So this, again, was this continuation of an undeclared war between the Irish and the English. And finally, the English parliament and the people, they just got to the point they’d had about enough of it. So they were willing to meet with the Irish government and try to come to some conclusion. And during this era, Michael had taken the lead, and Michael wanted to negotiate with the British to bring this to an end. Many of the others who were in the so-called IRA, the Irish Republican Army, which was not formal at that time, they didn’t want to do that because they didn’t want A division in Ireland. They didn’t want the six northern counties to be separate. They wanted everything to be Irish. And Michael was willing to compromise to get a start in Irish independence. So he was one who was a principled negotiator who went to London in the summer of 1921 and he signed the documents. And that established what was then called the Irish Free State. And it was always that way until 1949. And all the time when I was in public school, when we studied Ireland, we talked about the Irish Free State. We never talked about the Republic of Ireland because there was no Republican of Ireland until 1949 when they declared absolute break with the British crown.
SPEAKER 09 :
So, was it 1949? Wasn’t that also when Israel was established? Or was that 1948? That was 48, wasn’t it?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, Israel had been already established, yeah. It was separate. The thing that, even though they signed and were Irish Free State, we had… The Irish had a continued struggle with the British because there were various members of the IRA that still insisted we must have control of all six counties north. Well, after they gained their independence in 1921, then they established their political body, and they appointed Michael as the commander-in-chief of the IRA, the Irish Republican Army. It now became a legal part of their government. But there were still breakaway people. There were those who had fought for independence and were not willing to compromise. And so consequently, they would go around and destroy things and kill people. And they would also go up into the northern six counties and create all sorts of havoc And one of the times they went up there and actually went to this British general’s home and killed a general in his house. This caused a lot of problems. And it almost broke up the treaty with the English. And the British sent more and more people to Northern Ireland to protect them. And about that time, Michael… was out traveling in the southwest, actually over in County Cork area, with a small detachment of his soldiers, because he was now commander-in-chief of the IRA. And they were surrounded in one small village, and the other people were trying to kill him, but nobody was hurt. And so they were all breaking away, going out, And so Michael got out of his staff car and was standing out in the street talking to his soldiers. And nobody had been wounded. Everything was fine. And there was one sniper of the breakaway IRA people who was up on the top of the hill. And he didn’t even know who was down in the valley. But he could see one officer standing out there. So he shot. And that one shot hit Michael in the head and killed him on sight. 22 August. And this was 1922. Michael was only 32 years old.
SPEAKER 09 :
And that was a breakaway IRA person that shot him. Yes. Wow.
SPEAKER 04 :
Absolutely. And the thing is, this wasn’t an end to this. The IRA as a informal group, not sponsored by the Irish government or the Irish Free State but they were still an organization all the way up probably even till today but most assuredly late in the 1900s and early 2000 because I remember experiences that were happened that were international. For example, in 1979— You know what?
SPEAKER 09 :
Let’s keep that as a cliffhanger, Colonel Rutledge, and we’re going to go to break. We’re talking about Irish independence, Michael Collins, and the Easter uprising. These are great discussions to have. We all learn something, and they happen because of sponsors. One of those is Lorne Levy.
SPEAKER 06 :
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SPEAKER 07 :
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SPEAKER 05 :
From the mountains to the prairies to the oceans wide
SPEAKER 09 :
And welcome back to The Kim Munson Show. Be sure and check out our website. That is KimMunson, M-O-N-S-O-N.com. Sign up for our weekly email newsletter. You can email me at Kim at KimMunson.com as well. Thank you to all of you who support us. We’re an independent voice. We search for truth and clarity by looking at these issues through the lens of freedom versus force, force versus freedom. If something’s a good idea, shouldn’t have to force people to do it. I did want to mention the Center for American Values located in Pueblo, Colorado. And they do really three things. They have these beautiful portraits of valor of our Medal of Honor recipients, or many of them. They focus on educational programs regarding these values of honor, integrity, and patriotism. And then they also have these great On Values presentations there as well. So get more information. Go to AmericanValueCenter.org. They are nonpartisan, nonpolitical, just focused on these values. Values of Honor, Integrity, and Patriotism. I’m talking with Colonel Bill Rutledge, retired United States Air Force. He is 96 years young, and I love the fact that he shares his knowledge and curiosity with us. We’re talking about Michael Collins, who is probably to the Irish and their independence as what George Washington is to we Americans and our independence. With Michael Collins, it was happening much later in the early 1900s. He was killed by a sniper’s bullet in, was that 1922, Colonel Rutledge?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, August the 22nd. late in the afternoon in 1922.
SPEAKER 09 :
He was only 32 years old at the time. But he was the head of the IRA, the Irish Republic Army, right?
SPEAKER 04 :
An army, correct. It would be just like if some maverick member of our own military were to be hiding out somewhere in shoot the chief of staff of the army.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. But I really had kind of thought the IRA was violent because I remember in the 70s and 80s, I just remember a lot of violence with the IRA. And I remember this news story that Lord Mountbatten was killed on his yacht. It was blown up. That was 1979. So I’d always kind of thought of the IRA as super violent. Right.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, they do have that tradition. And one of the things that’s perpetuated it is that they have been able to get financial support over decades from the Irish who came to America. The people, there are many Irish, millions of Irish who came to America, first starting strongly when the potato blight hit in 1848. But even then, later in continuing affiliation, there were still a close identity between all those migrants who came to America and their homeland, and they always were in support of gaining independence from England. And that continued after 1921 and the agreement for the lower counties to gain Irish independence. So they still kept supporting them because still many of these Americans who were Irish Americans still felt strongly that the entire island should be under the Republic of Ireland. And so they offered support throughout that era. And So the people, there was always a small element that wanted to create problems, and they did. And we don’t know even the status today. I mean, those of us in America, I feel confident that there’s still pockets of these people. And you gave the example of Lord Mountbatten, them blowing up his yacht. And it was anchored in one of the more than six counties in Harbor. But shortly thereafter, in the early 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister, they carried their action over to England. And the conservative party, which Margaret Thatcher was the head of, was having a large meeting over in Blackpool in the west of England. And they tried to kill her with a bomb. She was very lucky. She wasn’t injured. But that was the IRA. And the IRA would always take pride in saying, yes, yeah, we did this. It was IRA. And I had a firsthand experience with them. In 1990, a friend of ours, he and I and our wives all did a home exchange in England. And we were down near the British Naval Academy. And he was a retired Army colonel, and I was retired from the Air Force. So we wanted to visit the British Naval Academy. So we went over to the main gate, and we asked the guard if we could come in and visit. And we showed him our identification, explained our interests, because I had been assigned at the Air Force Academy, and my friend had worked very closely with the people in West Point. And the guard there said, you can’t come in. And we said, well, what’s the problem? And he said, the problem is the IRA, and our defense and protection against the IRA takes priority over anything else. And that was 1990.
SPEAKER 09 :
Wow. So you’d said in your information that the IRA has kept a low profile, but it still would really like to have Ulster absorbed into the Republic of Ireland. So those six counties are part of Britain. Is that right? Do I get that correct?
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s correct. And even today, there are exceptional situations like you may recall when we were having the Olympics. that some of the good athletes who are in the northern six counties, a few chose to represent Ireland in international competition. McElroy, for example, was a classic example. He played in the golf competition in France last summer and representing Ireland, not representing England.
SPEAKER 09 :
Wow.
SPEAKER 04 :
They’ve been raised in Ireland. And there are other occasions where, because these things are close, but they have these divided… It’s an awkward situation.
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, my gosh. Well, Colonel Rutledge, thank you for bringing this to my attention. This is super interesting, particularly to broadcast during Easter week. So thank you, Colonel Rutledge.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you for the opportunity.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you for listening to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure to tune in again next Sunday, 3 to 4 p.m. here on KLZ 560 and KLZ 100.7.
SPEAKER 02 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
