When Dev was leader of Fine Gaedheal

THERE are two reasons, based on past history, why it might be considered appropriate for Brian Lenihan to have addressed the Michael Collins annual commemoration last Sunday.

Firstly, Éamon de Valera, following a meeting of the Irish Race Congress in Paris during the last week of January 1922, was elected the founding president of a new organisation, Fine Gaedheal. This party was established some 10 years before the present Fine Gael.

Secondly, Brian Lenihan, as Minister of Finance, may well have lessons to learn from Collins who held that portfolio in 1919. In August of that year, Collins launched a Dáil Éireann loan for establishing “in foreign countries consular services to promote Irish trade and commerce, for developing and encouraging Irish sea fisheries, for developing and encouraging the reafforestation of the country, for developing and encouraging Irish industrial effort ... for the establishment of a Land Mortgage Bank, with a view to the reoccupancy of untenanted lands, and generally for national purposes”.