No longer black and white

Enda Kenny’s partisan speech at Béal na mBláth missed the chance to appeal to a broad national consensus, writes Micheál Martin

TAOISEACH Enda Kenny’s speech in Béal na mBláth has led to a lot of critical commentary. One point which has been missed so far is that by being so partisan he did a disservice to both the modern position of Michael Collins as a genuinely national hero and the progress in building a shared public engagement in our history.

For many years the more bitter events of the Civil War and the years following led to different parts of Irish society having their own set of heroes and events to commemorate.