Momentum building in campaign to erect Michael Collins statue in Cork City
Michael Collins: Fine Gael councillor Shane O’Callaghan has called on the council to facilitate the placing of the statue in city centre.
Efforts to erect a statue of Michael Collins in Cork City are gathering pace as the 100th anniversary of his assassination approaches.
The has learned that a group of Collins enthusiasts, some of whom played key roles in the erection of a statue of Collins in Clonakilty, which was unveiled by actor Liam Neeson in 2002, have agreed to raise funds for a new statue of Collins that they will then hand over to the city for placement in the city centre.
The men, Cork businessman and Collins enthusiast, Jerry Carey, Noel Scannell and Tim Crowley, of the Michael Collins Centre and Museum, near Clonakilty, have based their statue design on one of the most famous photographs of the revolutionary leader, which shows him standing with the bicycle he cycled around Dublin while he was leading the military resistance to British rule and managing the finances of the outlawed Dáil government.
Mr Crowley and Mr Scannell are also members of the Collins 100 committee, the historical, non-political organisation whose goal is to honour the memory of Collins.
It is understood they would like to see it placed at ground level, and not on a plinth, so it would be "amongst the people", as Collins was.
Fine Gael councillor Shane O’Callaghan, who has been liaising with the group, has now submitted a motion that should come before Cork City Council for debate within weeks, calling on the council to facilitate the placing of the statue in city centre. He said he would like it placed on St Patrick's Street.
“The funding for the statue will be provided and the statue itself will be presented to the city council," he said.
"All the city council will have to do is facilitate its placement at a suitable location in the city centre.
The site of Collins’ assassination in Béal na Bláth is undergoing an extensive upgrade ahead of a special centenary commemorative event on August 21, which will be attended by Taoiseach Micheál Martin and the Tánaiste Leo Varadkar.
The Taoiseach is under pressure to commission a national commemorative statue of Collins and other leaders of the Civil War, for Dublin.
OPW minister Patrick O’Donovan told the Seanad on Wednesday that the OPW can only initiate national arts projects once a request comes from the Department of the Taoiseach and that despite writing to the Taoiseach’s department earlier this year about it, he said the OPW has had no such requests.
“I know of nowhere in the democratic world, certainly where a leader of a democratic nation is assassinated, and there is no national commemoration to him,” Mr O’Donovan said.
“It happens in all democratic countries across the world. And in my view, it should happen here.”
