ABSTRACT
Michael Collins’ early working years are in London, where he starts in a financial, administrative position in the British Civil Service and then moves to a variety of positions in banks, finance and investment houses, acquiring substantial specialist finance knowledge and expertise. To avoid conscription after Britain enters the First World War, he moves to Dublin, taking up a small financial management position on the estate of Count Plunkett, an Irish nationalist supporter and works closely with one of the future leaders of the 1916 Rising, on planning the Rising. Imprisoned for participating in the Rising, he is eventually released and returns to Ireland, and is entrusted by Kathleen Clarke, the widow of Thomas Clarke, one of the executed Rising leaders, with the monies and the distribution of benefits of the fund set up for the Dependants of those Irish killed or imprisoned in the Rising. After the massive Sinn Fein gains in the elections in Ireland, he is included in the government of the proclaimed Irish nation as Minister of Finance. In this role, one of his greatest achievements, the raising of the National Loan, awaits him.
