Why has spotlight been turned away from Collins the cultural nationalist?

I WAS pleased to see Michael McDowell start with a copy of the collected articles of Michael Collins, published in a booklet entitled The Path to Freedom, in the first of the RTÉ series Ireland’s Greatest (September 20).

This booklet gives a clear insight into the ideas and philosophy which motivated this great man. Foremost among his ideas was the absolute necessity to have a Gaelic Ireland if true freedom were to be realised. He was as much a cultural as a political nationalist. He believed in the necessity to revive the Irish language and culture. It was very surprising therefore that there was no reference in the programme to this most basic belief of Collins.

Indeed there seems to be a deliberate attempt to airbrush his cultural nationalism out of history. I hope this book will be republished so that in the true philosophy of Michael Collins philosophy will become clear to all.