One of the many joys of road trips (that way offset the possibility of a breakdown, because, let’s face it, that’s just a possibility) is the freedom to follow the signpost that jumps off the road and screams, FOLLOW ME! Such was the case on the road from Kenmare to Cork.
When I spotted the sign for the village of Béal na Bláth, images of Liam Neeson and Michael Collins came to mind. (Liam Neeson played Michael Collins in Neil Jordan’s 1996 biopic.)
When my aunt died, many years ago, I asked if I could have the photo she had hanging in her sitting room. It was of a man in uniform. I was sure it was my grandfather.
Years later, having decorated the living room in my flat around it, a visiting friend burst my bubble.
“I never figured you for a ‘RA head”, he said, pointing to the photo.
“What?” I asked, somewhat aghast.
“Michael Collins”, he said. “That’s Michael Collins.”
“No, it’s not”, I replied. “That’s my grandfather.”
Embarrassment and disappointment tinged with a tincture of betrayal followed when I realised he was right.
Politics aside, the photo remains, perhaps misleading those familiar with Irish history about my political persuasions.
I’ve recited this story a lot.
Anyway, back to the road trip.
I saw the sign and had to visit the place of the ambush, where, on 22 August 1922, Michael Collins met his untimely death.
The night before, he had stayed at the Imperial Hotel in Cork, in room 115, now the Michael Collins Suite, a must for history buffs and Collins fans.
Cork County Council has developed a Michael Collins Trail, something I’ve a notion to follow one August evening, as the sun sets.
The memorial landscape stretches beyond the immediate assassination site while conserving the authenticity of the monument. The design is concerned to reveal the wide historic setting as the theatre of events that occurred on that tragic day. A curved wall made of Irish stone stands as a permanent tribute to Michael Collins’s life. Inscribed in the paving are the towns of his childhood and those he visited on his final fateful journey. As the August sun sets, shafts of light shine through the notches in the stones evoking what was Collins’s route through this valley in 1922.
A detour well made.
