Taoiseach signs off on Collins memorial
TAOISEACH Micheál Martin has signed off on ‘proper memorial’ on the site where General Michael Collins was shot dead in 1922.
Next year marks the 100th anniversary of the seminal historical event and speculation is mounting about who will give the August oration in honour of Collins, a revered Fine Gael figure.
‘[We are] putting resources into Beál na mBláth to create a proper memorial there. And I just signed off on that last week with Minister Catherine Martin and others across Government,’ the Taoiseach said in a Christmas briefing to journalists.
‘I met the Collins family recently. I was very taken by what Helen, the grandniece of Michael Collins, said. They much prefer Woodfield, the birthplace of Michael Collins than Beál na mBláth because to them Beál na mBláth is a death site. It has never been appealing to their family, whereas actually I got it when I was at Woodfield. The location is idyllic, where he was born and reared you can almost see him running around those fields.
‘She explained to us how the Essex regiment had burned it to the ground.’
Although Mr Collins is regarded as a founding father of the political movement that became Fine Gael, the Fianna Fáil leader insisted he does not want the event to be politicised.
‘We should commemorate the centenary of the death of Michael Collins in the manner we would commemorate the loss of a statesman,’ said Mr Martin.
‘He was an outstanding Irish leader in terms of the War of independence, great intelligence. All of that generation had extraordinary commitment to the country.’
The then-leader of the Free State forces was fatally struck by a bullet to the back of his head during an ambush on his convoy in the West Cork vale of Beál na mBláth.
Mr Martin said he is not in favour of an inquiry into the assassination.
‘History is complex. There are many variables, there’s never one simplistic narrative,’ he said.
‘There’ll be many stories written, but the idea of setting up a State inquiry would be anathema to me. I think that’s the wrong way to approach it.’