Editing Michael Collins (Irish leader) (section)

===Conspiracy and collusion===
Numerous questions remain about the events surrounding the death of Collins because the only witnesses to his death were the members of the Free State Army convoy and the anti-Treaty ambushers. As no two stories match and participant statements from both sides are contradictory and inconsistent, unanswered questions linger about what happened that day.{{cn|date=May 2025}}

The man generally believed to have fired the fatal shot at Béal na Bláth, Denis "Sonny" O'Neill,<ref>{{cite book | last = Dolan | first = Anne | title = Commemorating the Irish Civil War: History and Memory, 1923–2000 | publisher = [[Cambridge University Press]] | year = 2008 | page = 68 | isbn = 978-0521026987 | quote = Sonny O'Neill, the man generally believed to have fired the fatal shot}}</ref> was a former officer from the [[Royal Irish Constabulary]] who served as a sniper in the British Army during the [[First World War]]. O'Neill had joined the IRA in 1918 and had met Collins on more than one occasion, but when the [[Irish Civil War]] started in June 1922, O'Neill joined the [[Irish Republican Army (1922–1969)|Anti-Treaty IRA]].<ref name="Sonny"/>

O'Neill remains a mysterious figure because of the contradictions in his biography, such as serving in the British Army but then joining the IRA. He provided them with information concerning the [[Igoe Gang]] that worked for the [[Intelligence Corps (United Kingdom)|British Army Intelligence Centre]]. In the 1940s, twenty years after Collins' death, the Irish State granted O'Neill a captain's military pension.<ref name="Sonny">{{cite news|title=Gunman believed to have killed Michael Collins was granted a military pension|newspaper=[[The Irish Times]]|date=3 October 2014|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/gunman-believed-to-have-killed-michael-collins-was-granted-military-pension-1.1949934|access-date=3 September 2018|archive-date=3 September 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180903215311/https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/gunman-believed-to-have-killed-michael-collins-was-granted-military-pension-1.1949934|url-status=live}}</ref>