Michael Collins The Terrorist?

[Westsidex]

Ladies and gentlemen, I present for debate this snippet from today's Kevin Myers column in the Indo. In it he was referring to Brian Lenihan's address of the Collins commemoration, and drew comparisons with the actions of the modern IRA. I have highlighted the most likely contentious comment.



"...Now our history is unlike any others, and I'm just telling you this as a simple truth: if you venerate Michael Collins, you must also venerate his methods, and central to these is the killing of unarmed men in front of their wives. Moreover, for all the minister's remarks about Collins's "success", the cause for which Collins introduced this policy -- a united Irish Republic -- is as far away today as it was when Collins's boys padded through Dublin streets, to shoot sleepy men in their pyjamas. And though his memorialists annually applaud Collins's acumen as Minister for Finance, the actual methods that he most enduringly bequeathed to Ireland were about bloodshed, not banking...."


Discuss!

And what about the black and tans? Cromwell?

Westside.