>"At every station people opened the carriage door at the sight of him, apologising, asking for a handshake or throwing in a word of welcome. Some wanted to show him to their children, so the child could grow up to boast that they had met that Collins fellow once."
The words of Clare Sheridan-a cousin of Winston Churchill, who travelled Ireland with Collins for a while.

In 1920, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George declared that the IRA was on the verge of defeat. In response, Collins organised the assassinations of a dozen British intelligence assets in Dublin in a single morning. When he was criticised for the "brutality," he said:
>"My one intention was the destruction of the undesriables who continued to make miserable the lives of ordinary decent citizens."
>"There is no crime in detecting and destroying in wartime the spy and informer. They have destroyed without trial. I have paid them back in their own coin."
>"If I had a second motive it was no more than a feeling such as I would have for a dangerous reptile. By their destruction the very air is made sweeter."
>"For myself, my conscience is clear."