Troops provide funds for Collins memorial at base

Troops have funded and erected a memorial to Irish revolutionary leader Michael Collins at the barracks he set off from on the day he was ambushed.

The black marble monument was unveiled at Cathal Brugha Barracks, in the same spot where one of the most iconic photographs of ‘The Big Fella’ was taken, two weeks before he was shot dead.

A copy of the photo, dated Aug 7, 1922, had hung above the chair in the Barrack Barbers Shop for several years before barber Private Noel McDonnell decided to research the image and pinpoint its exact location.