Harris denounces threats against politicians at ceremony marking Collins’ death

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.