*Taoiseach Simon Harris (FG) with Cllr Pat Burke (FG).
WHITEGATE’s Cllr Pat Burke (FG) was among the political figures to attend the annual commemoration to Michael Collins at the annual Béal na Bláth commemoration.
Taoiseach Simon Harris (FG) led the ceremony, the 102nd commemoration of the death of Michael Collins in Cork. Senator Martin Conway (FG) and Cllr Pat Burke (FF) were among the Clare politicians in attendance.
Collins was just thirty one when he was ambushed and killed, during the Irish Civil War.
Harris is only the third Taoiseach to speak at a Collins commemoration in Cork.
During his maiden speech in Dáil Éireann in March 2011 when as the youngest member of Leinster House he nominated Enda Kenny (FG) as Taoiseach, Harris quoted the words of George Bernard Shaw in a letter to Hannie Collins, Michael’s sister who suggested that instead of mourning the leader we had lost, we should “rejoice in his memory” and “hang out our brightest colours in his honour”.
Speaking in Cork, the Taoiseach said, “It is a part of the Michael Collins story that has always resonated with me because it reminds us that even in the darkest of days we need words of hope, to light the way and direct us forward. Having provided hope to an entire nation during years of fear and uncertainty, Michael Collins would have understood that message better than anyone.
“It is no surprise that so many of us find inspiration in the life and legacy of Michael Collins. He was the idealist who dreamed of freedom. The revolutionary who brought a new energy to an old conflict. The administrator who made the War of Independence possible. The Minister for Finance who built up the administrative apparatus of this fledgling state, and who successfully created, marketed, and utilised the loan fund to make dreams a reality. He was the intelligence chief who laid the foundations for victory. The peacemaker who found a new path to freedom. The visionary who saw the enormous possibilities for the future. The statesman who believed in democracy, and the consent of the people above all else. The leader who became a martyr at Béal na Bláth. The realist who never stopped being an idealist.
“For so many of us, Michael Collins is not an abstract figure, far removed from our lives. We know him from books and television, from stories and films. In life, he was larger than life. In death, he has become even larger still. Every town, every community, has a Michael Collins story. My own hometown of Greystones has many. It is said that he proposed to Kitty Kiernan at the Grand Hotel in Greystones, and that they hoped to live on Trafalgar Road, near St. Brigid’s School, an area I know very well, after they got married. On the morning he sailed to Britain to negotiate the Treaty, he went to the Catholic Church in Greystones at 5.30 a.m. to make his confession and receive holy communion, before heading to what is now Dun Laoghaire, to board the steamship. Even more poignantly, he returned to the same church on the 19th of August 1922 to have his confession heard before making his final journey homeward bound”.
Meanwhile on Sunday last, Fianna Fáil members attended the Frank Barrett graveside commemoration at Killone Abbey in Ennis.
Those in attendance included Seamus O’Sullivan Commemoration Chairman, Frank Barrett, Michael McTigue who sang the national anthem, Cathal Crowe TD (FF), Mayor of the Ennis Municipal District, Cllr Clare Colleran Molloy (FF), Michael Neylon who raised the tricolour and Liam Hansbury.
