Speech of the Tánaiste, Leo Varadkar T.D, Annual Béal na Bláth Commemoration

Taoiseach, Ministers, Mayor of Cork County, Danny Collins, Lord Mayor of Cork City, Deirdre Forde, Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces, Lieutenant General Sean Clancy, members of the Defence Forces, Canon O’Mahony, members of the Collins family, colleagues and friends.

First of all, I want to our offer heartfelt thanks to Councillor Garret Kelleher, and the members of the Béal na Bláth Commemoration Committee and your forbears, for your admirable work in making this event a worthy tribute to our lost leader, this year and every other.

For so many who admire Michael Collins, the ceremony at Béal na Bláth is an annual pilgrimage but for you it’s months of planning and preparation. Working in particular this year with Cork County Council on the restoration of this site means so much to so many.

Colleagues, friends, this is a painful site of memory for so many connected with Michael Collins. It is a place of death, forever associated with a senseless killing in an unnecessary war in which brother turned on brother.

It is fitting that we gather here and remember, because what happened here one hundred years ago changed the course of Irish history.

Ever since that day, we have gathered at this solemn spot to pay tribute to the lost leader, our soldier politician, whose life helped create the Irish State, and whose death shocked and traumatised a divided nation.

By honouring Michael Collins, we reaffirm our belief in the principles he gave his life for. These are the foundation stones of our State: the right of all nations to self-determination;  democracy and the democratic institutions; freedom both personal and political; the rule of law; respect for others; and the unshakeable belief that Ireland can be ‘a shining light’ onto the world.

As the great historian, Professor Joseph Lee has shown, Collins despite his young age had a compelling vision of the future and how it could be achieved. He wanted an Ireland distinguished by social equality, economic efficiency, cultural achievement, and religious tolerance.

This dream was not achieved in 1922, but over the past 100 years it has been slowly realised by Irishmen and women who took courageous steps on the path to freedom he had identified. We still follow in their footsteps today.

For me Collins was the great prophet of freedom who was killed before we reached the promised land. That was the great tragedy of Béal na Bláth, and the curse of the Civil War. By commemorating his death each year, we remember his sacrifice and make an act of faith in the Ireland he and the revolutionary generation wanted to achieve.

This event is therefore an opportunity to remember his life, reflect on what has been achieved, and where we have fallen short, and renew our determination to do better.

Colleagues, friends the Béal na Bláth commemoration has often helped point the way to changes happening in our politics and society.

Twelve years ago, my constituency colleague, Brian Lenihan, made history here in giving the oration. In becoming the first Fianna Fáil Minister to speak here, he knew that he was performing a ‘public act of historical reconciliation’, to use his words.

It was also an act of courage, typical of the man. As we all know, it was a terrible time in his life, as he did everything he could to try to save the economy, while at the same time receiving treatment for the cancer that was to end his life only ten months later. His words here in 2010 still resonate today: ‘The spirit of Collins is the spirit of the nation’. It must ‘continue to inspire everyone in public life, irrespective of party or tradition.’

Today we make history of a different kind with two orations, one by the Taoiseach and Tánaiste of the day, the leaders of the two political parties which emerged out of the civil war, and which for too long were divided by mutual antagonism.

Civil wars, by their very nature, leave a bitterness which it can take a very long time to heal, whether in Ireland, Spain, the United States or Greece.

Undoubtedly the Irish Civil War was such a conflict and left a painful legacy which stunted our development in the years that followed.

It was only with the wider European vision of statesmen like Seán Lemass and Garret FitzGerald that we truly opened up to the world. We finally began to fulfil the promise that Collins had identified and allowed our light to shine.  His faith in our future affirmed.

Dear friends, colleagues, civil war politics ended a long time ago in Ireland, but it only ended in our Dáil when we formed the historic three-party coalition of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party in June 2020.

It is a partnership government, a government of equals, which has worked well, despite our different identities and traditions, because we have made its guiding focus finding solutions to the crises that affect our country, the international order, and indeed our planet.

Allow me to thank the Taoiseach for accepting today’s invitation, and for the leadership and dedication he has shown over the past two years, and also for keeping a portrait of Cork’s greatest son on the wall of his office.

The historical greatness of Michael Collins is hard to challenge. Writing in the Dictionary of Irish Biography, Michael Hopkinson recognises that ‘Collins can still be regarded as the essential man in the winning of a large measure of Irish independence’

His achievements were manifold. As Minister for Finance in the First Dáil, he created the framework for freedom. Thanks to the money he raised, an independent government was able to operate in a state that did not yet exist.

As Director of Intelligence during the War of Independence, he was able to paralyse an imperial war machine and expose its frailty to the world.

As a negotiator, he was able to secure a deal that went beyond anything ever conceded by the British Empire. Statehood, political and economic sovereignty. And a pathway to gain more including a Republic and unification by democratic consent.

During the War of Independence, Michael Collins had shown the courage to risk his life by taking on the British Empire.

Now he showed that he had the even greater courage to risk his reputation and his life in seeking a peace agreement.

As Chairman of the Provisional Government, after the Treaty had been ratified by Dáil, and later the country, he helped realise that dream of independence that had eluded Irish patriots for centuries.

Declared many times, the Irish Free State, Saorstát Éireann, was the first to be recognised internationally.

For me, Michael Collins is a profile in courage. In six short years between Easter 1916 and the summer of 1922 he packed in so much and achieved so much.

Chreid sé go bhféadfadh Éire Impireacht na Breataine a fhágáil. Chreid sé go bhféadfadh sí a bheith ina stát saor neamhspleách daonlathach. D’athraigh Ó Coileáin agus glúin na réabhlóidithe an domhan. Spreag scéal neamhspleáchas na hÉireann daoine in India, san Éigipt agus ar fud na cruinne.

Chruthaigh Ó Coileáin gurbh ann do theorainneacha impireachta. Léirigh sé an méid a d’fhéadfaí a bhaint amach de thoradh cogaidh. Léirigh sé i ndiaidh sin an méid a d’fhéadfaí a dhéanamh de bharr síochána.

He was both an idealist and a realist. And as he predicted, the Treaty gave us freedom and the freedom to achieve more freedom in the future.

Others fought on for decades, only to accept Collins’ approach almost a hundred years later.

He had the courage to make peace and accept that, in doing so, he could not take everyone with him. It cost him his life, but his legacy and mission live on.

The shot which killed Michael Collins at this spot was heard around the world. In the United States the immediate comparison was made with Abraham Lincoln – national leaders who were champions of freedom, who both fell victim to a gunman’s bullet during a bitter civil war.

We know that one of Collins’ favourite books was a book of poetry, Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, and he often quoted from it in meetings or when rallying his men.

Collins was especially familiar with Whitman’s poems on the death of Lincoln, lines which captured the emotion and the trauma of losing a martyred President.

They also capture the emotion and trauma of Béal na Bláth. ‘Hushed’ were the camps across Ireland one hundred years ago, at ‘our dear commander’s death.’ Both sides in the Civil War mourned his loss, those who were pro-Treaty, as well as those who had taken a different direction despite their great love and admiration for him. A nation at war, momentarily, united in grief.

I am struck again today, as I was last week at Glasnevin at the graves of Collins and Griffith, by the achievement of those who took on the mantle of leadership after their deaths 100 years ago.

Lead by W.T. Cosgrave they embedded democracy and had the imagination to initiate incredibly ambitious economic development projects like the Ardnacrusha power station. Renewable energy to bring heat and light to every home in the land 100 years ago.

They also upheld the principles of democracy by enabling a peaceful transfer of power in 1932.  In contrast to so many other new states which came into existence after the first world war, we passed our first great test.

Collins’ legacy was great; it contains multitudes.

Unlike others, whose defining idea was the achievement of the Republic, who found themselves unable to compromise to bring it into existence, Collins viewed freedom in a different way.

He saw it as something that was more than simply a description. To have real meaning, it had to be felt and experienced and lived.

For Collins, the 1916 Proclamation was our declaration of independence and the starting point on our path to freedom. It did not represent the end point of the journey.

Nor did the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

The genius of Michael Collins was that he saw the promise and the potential of Ireland. What made his vision so radical and original was that it was prepared to go beyond narrow definitions and rigid labels.

His stepping stones were not part of a linear path to a preordained conclusion.

Instead of a Republic, he could accept a Free State knowing that the name and designation could be changed at the right time. He helped create a new Constitution, knowing that it could be amended, and replaced in the future. He agreed to unity by democratic consent thus securing a state, with 26 counties instead of 32, knowing that these were the first words in the story of the Irish State and not the final ones.  He spoke of a nation, but knew that our destiny lay in our engagement with Europe and the world.

Shortly before he was killed, Michael Collins declared that our destiny, as I mentioned earlier, was to become ‘a shining light in a dark world’.  This philosophy has defined our foreign policy for a century. Through our membership of the United Nations, we have provided peacekeepers to protect the freedom and liberties of others.

Our international development policy helps the furthest behind first, and we are inspired by our history to help others especially those who experience hunger or are denied access to education. Through our commitment to the multilateral system, we strive to be a force of good in the world.

In Europe, at the heart of a community of nations, advancing the ideals of freedom, peace and solidarity.  Our membership of the European Union was another stepping stone to freedom.  It helped us replace an inward vision ‘ourselves alone’, with a new self-confidence about who we are and what we could achieve, all of us together.

I believe Michael Collins never intended his legacy to be the last word on Irish freedom. Instead, he gave us the freedom and opportunity to find our own path to it.

On the centenary of his death, we pay tribute on behalf of a grateful nation and join together in this place to say, ‘Thank you’.  Michael Collins’ life was Ireland and his legacy is Ireland too.