Put Civil War finally to bed with gesture - General election 2016

THERE is a poignant scene in Michael Collins, the 1996 Neil Jordan film, that shows Collins and Éamon de Valera standing side by side outside the GPO in Dublin in 1916 as they face defeat by the British army.

This never actually happened and was a bit of poetic licence on Jordan’s part but there is no doubt that both men stood shoulder to shoulder during the Easter Rising.

It is not beyond comprehension that, despite the horror of the Civil War in the aftermath of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, Dev and Collins might have reached some accommodation had the latter not been gunned down at Béal na Bláth in 1922.