HISTORY EDITOR, DR DERMOT ANGRYMAN

THE MUSTACHE WORN by Irish revolutionary hero Michael Collins, while he was in London for negotiations which led to an independent Irish state, has been found in a Dublin suburban attic.

“Collins likely wore the mustache to disguise himself in case the talks broke down and he had to go on the run again. He had an airplane ready for just such an eventuality,” says Professor Owney Green, author of For Want Of A Nail, a compendium of small things that have changed history. “It was always thought that he had grown the hair, and his brother even teased him about it, but lately I have discovered that the mustache was a prop from the Disguises Section of the IRA’s Intelligence Department, which he had set up during the Irish War of Independence. Previously, this unit, which was entirely staffed by women from the Dublin theatrical community, had arranged for a disguise for Eamon de Valera when he was sprung from Lincoln Jail by Collins; and late it dressed future Irish leader William Cosgrave as a priest when he was on the run. Its most unusual achievement was to disguise an entire sitting of the then banned Irish Parliament, Dail Eireann, as a performance of William Shakespeare’s *Henry IV, in early 1921. The Collins mustache was thought to have been lost during the Irish Civil War but was found recently next to a Picasso sketch and a pair of underwear worn by Charles Stuart Parnell during his time as Ireland’s **uncrowned king.”

*Parts 1 & 2

**Uncrowned king has been used so often for Irish leaders that it is now accepted as an official title of nobility by Debretts Peerage – ED