Catherine Brigid Kiernan grew up on the main street of Granard, County Longford, and was educated first at the Loreto Convent in Wicklow and then in St Ita’s, in Rathfarnham, Dublin. Her parents died within months of each other in 1908, leaving sixteen-year-old Kitty and her four siblings, Chrys, Larry, Helen and Maud, to run the family business, the Greville Arms Hotel in Granard. They were a respectable and prosperous little family, and all four Kiernan girls were acknowledged beauties.
As well as being very attractive, Kitty had a lively personality. She was bright and affectionate and something of a party animal. She liked fine clothes and sleeping late and romantic novels. She was fond of singing and dancing, but she was also deeply religious. She was unpredictably moody, and could be rather vain and self-centred. Surprisingly for the woman who was loved by Michael Collins, she seemed completely apolitical.
Michael Collins, then a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), first visited Granard in 1918. It was said that he was attracted initially to Kitty’s sister, Helen, but Helen was already spoken for so he switched his attentions to the lovely Kitty and a flirtation ensued. He was not long making his presence felt in the town in other ways too: in April 1918 he made a seditious speech, was arrested and charged, but then broke bail and went on the run, cheered on by the inhabitants of the town, including Kitty Kiernan.
At the same time there was also another senior IRB man interested in Kitty – Harry Boland. Harry and Michael were friends and colleagues and were quite open in their rivalry for Kitty’s affections; Harry referred to Michael as his ‘formidable opponent’. But in the early days, Michael had a reputation as a womaniser, and Harry was much more serious about Kitty. The only thing stopping Harry Boland from proposing marriage was ‘the Chief’ – Eamon de Valera – who sent him to the USA in 1919, 1920 and 1921 to campaign for Sinn Féin. However, their relationship was considered serious enough for Harry’s mother to write affectionately to her ‘future daughter-in-law’.
By the time of the Truce between the rebel forces and the Crown in the summer of 1921, the situation was a triangle: Kitty was regularly seeing both Harry and Michael. But when Harry returned to the States in early autumn 1921, Michael took the opportunity to redouble his attentions towards Kitty. In winter 1921, Michael went to London to negotiate the Anglo-Irish Treaty. From London he wrote daily love letters to Kitty. Harry wrote frequent love letters from the US, pleading with her to come out and marry him there. Instead, Kitty visited Michael in London – she seemed to have made up her mind. Relations between Harry and Michael soured as Harry realised Michael was going to win the woman that, after all, he had seen first.
In spring 1922, after the Dáil had passed the Treaty by seven votes thereby creating a ‘Free State’ of only twenty-six counties, all hell broke loose in Ireland and the Civil War erupted. Michael, who had been chairman and finance minister for the pro-Treaty provisional government that set up the Irish Free State, became commander-in-chief of the Free State Army. Harry, who had opposed the Treaty, joined the Irregulars and worked ‘like the devil’, as Michael said, against his rival. However strenuous his efforts to defeat his rival politically, he was apparently gracious in his personal defeat. After Michael announced his betrothal in the Dáil, Harry sent a letter to Kitty congratulating her on her engagement.
As the summer approached, the war was fraying Michael’s nerves, and he was suffering from extreme stress and exhaustion. Kitty desperately wanted to name the wedding day so she could take on the responsibility of caring for him full-time as his wife. But it was not to be. On 22 August 1922, just over a fortnight after Harry was killed in Skerries by the Free State Army, Michael Collins was ambushed and assassinated by the Irregulars at Béal na mBláth, in his own home county of Cork.
After Michael’s funeral, Kitty’s own health declined. She had invested everything in becoming Mrs Michael Collins, but as a mere fiancée she had no status, no money and no future. For more than a year she wandered from relative to relative, carrying the precious souvenirs of her dead lover wherever she went. Eventually, in 1925, she married Felix Cronin, an ex-Free State soldier who had known Michael. She had two sons by him: Felix Cronin Junior and Michael Collins Cronin. The marriage was unhappy and money was scarce. In 1945, after years suffering from an inherited kidney disease (nephritis), Kitty Kiernan Cronin died in a Dublin nursing home. She is buried in Glasnevin, not far from her true love, Michael Collins.