Lenihan at Béal na mBláth: FG senator’s disgraceful attempt to reignite the tragic divisions of civil war

I WAS shocked to read the comments of Senator Liam Twomey in relation to Minister Brian Lenihan’s speech at the annual Béal na mBláth commemoration (Irish Examiner, August 12).

Senator Twomey claims that Brian Lenihan, as a member of Fianna Fáil, is unfit to give this year’s oration on the basis that his party is the political descendant of the anti-Treaty forces who killed Collins.

The civil war was a tragic period in Irish history when men and women who had fought together in the struggle for independence found themselves at war with each other over the best way to fulfill their common desire to achieve Irish freedom.