51勛圖厙

Taoiseach Simon Harris has criticised attempts to silence elected politicians through violence and intimidation at a ceremony marking the death of Michael Collins. Mr Harris said the Irish revolutionary���s death 102 years ago, when he was finance minister, marked a turbulent time in Ireland. He said lessons learned from that time now inform Irish values that ���are gifts to the world, if we have the courage to live by them ourselves���. Fidelma Collins, a grandniece of Mr Collins, was among those in attendance at the commemoration in west Cork on Sunday. Mr Collins was shot and killed during an ambush by anti-Treaty forces on August 22 1922, near Beal na Blath in Co Cork during the civil war. The 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, which was negotiated and signed by an Irish delegation including Mr Collins, provided a pathway to establish an Irish Free State. There was strong pushback against the treaty���s provision for an oath of allegiance to the British monarchy and for partition, which led to a civil war.