FF TD claims Collins legacy

MICHAEL Collins would have joined Eamon de Valera in Fianna Fáil had he lived, it was claimed yesterday.

Former Fianna Fáil minister Ned O’Keeffe raised the intriguing scenario in an oration at a 1916 Easter Rising commemoration in Mitchelstown, County Cork.

He said Fine Gael claimed Collins would have joined the ranks of its party. But there was no guarantee he would ever have done so.

Mr O’Keeffe said he believes that Collins and other comrades of his would have joined up with Eamon de Valera.

He said de Valera founded Fianna Fáil in 1926 and made it so attractive that people who took the other side in the Civil War became members.

“They did so because they believed in the party’s social and economic policies. They saw that de Valera and Fianna Fáil were prepared to face the challenge of driving Ireland both socially and economically for the decades ahead,” he said.

Mr O’Keeffe added that he believed Collins would have seen Fianna Fáil as the way forward with de Valera.

“The combination of these two men would have been a major success,” Mr O’Keeffe told the Fianna Fáil-organised commemoration at the graveside in Brigown Old Cemetery of an IRA Volunteer from the period, Thomas O’Dea, who was killed in action.