Kitty Kiernan

Catherine Brigid Cronin (; 26 January 1893 – 25 July 1945) was an Irish woman widely known as the fiancée of Irish revolutionary leader and Chairman of the Provisional Government, Michael Collins.

Early life Catherine Bridget "Kitty" Kiernan was born on 26 January 1892 in Granard, County Longford to Peter Kiernan and Bridget née Dawson. She was educated at Loreto Convent, County Wicklow. Hers was a very comfortably-off merchant family with five sisters and one brother. Her parents enjoyed a happy marriage, and life in the Kiernan home was joyous until Kitty reached her teens. On 27 November 1907, her sister, Elizabeth Mary (a twin), died aged eighteen of pulmonary tuberculosis, which is consistent with tuberculosis as a cause of death. Her mother Bridget died on 29 November 1908, of apoplexy, Kitty married Felix Cronin, who was Quartermaster General in the Irish Army. They had two children, their first born son, Felix Junior (d. 21 November 1999), and their second son, Michael Collins Cronin (b. 20 December 1929, d. 5 January 2021).

Kitty died, aged 54, of a cerebral hemorrhage on 24 July 1945, state that Kitty Kiernan plus several of her siblings died of Bright's disease; what one would class today as chronic nephritis. Her sisters Maud (2 October 1895–28 October 1940 who married solicitor Paul McGovern on 5 October 1921 though some reviewers were critical of the character's development.

A number of pubs are named in memory of Kitty Kiernan, such as one in Donnycarney, Dublin, Waterford, in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn and New York, US. A similar pub in Linz, Austria was closed in 2009.