Michael Collins (referee)

Michael Collins is a Gaelic football referee from Clonakilty in County Cork. He took up refereeing in 1985 when he officiated a West Cork Junior B Football League game in Barryroe, and four years later he joined the Cork GAA referees' panel. He made his inter-county debut in 1994, overseeing a Munster minor football championship game between Waterford and Tipperary, and his first senior inter-county match was Limerick against Tipperary in the 1998 Munster Senior Football Championship. He went on to referee the 2001 Ulster Senior Football Championship final, an All-Ireland quarter-final and the 2001 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final between Galway and Meath, and he received a Celtic Ross Sports Star of the Year Award in 2001. His inter-county refereeing career ended in 2013 with a Division 2 league game between Longford and Laois, and as of 2018 he worked in a supermarket in Clonakilty.