President: Regard for Michael Collins’ efforts is international

Michael Collins’ efforts to gain independence for Ireland drew admiration from as far away as India, Africa, and Latin America, President Michael D Higgins told attendees at the annual Béal na Bláth commemoration in Co Cork.

President Higgins claimed Ireland won admiration as a “beacon” for other struggling peoples. He said that in a guerilla campaign led in the early 1940s against the administration of the British Mandate of Palestine, Yitzhak Shamir took the nom de guerre ‘Michael’ in homage to Collins.

“On visits to Africa and Latin America as President of Ireland, I have received countless expressions of admiration for the Irish people, conveying the memory not just of Ireland’s independence struggle, but also of its later role, as a member of the League of Nations and then the United Nations, in defending decolonisation and the freedom of oppressed nations.”