Michael Collins is Fine Gaels greatest historical figure according to Helen McEntee. Which is good going as he was dead for 11 years before Fine Gael was founded.

31 comments

  2. >11 years before Fine Gael was founded.

    Well Fine Gael was bourne from the Pro Treaty side and members.

    But it’s a bit like the Republicans making sure everyone knows Lincoln and Roosevelt were Republicans.

  3. He’s up there with Parnell and Wolfe Tone as the party’s greatest historical figure, but my vote goes to Cleisthenes.

  5. This is a stupid battle to pick. FG have plenty of things to criticise. This isn’t one of them. Fucking hell.

  8. 100 years ago you could just take a castle off some pricks it didn’t belong too. These days I can’t even build my own 2 bed in a field.

  9. >took back Dublin Castle and Irish freedom on behalf of our country

    Well on behalf of part of our country, maybe.

    Unlike Collins who said he would not abandon them, FG gave two fingers to their fellow Irish people in the other part.

  11. they’re trying that “national pride” angle that the american republicans run on. “if you don’t like our party, you don’t like michael collins and therefore are you even irish???” logical fallacy.

  12. The President of a Fraternal Secret Society of Physical Force Republicans who “hadn’t gone away you know”, who operated in the background, pulling the strings within the political and military apparatus is FG’s “greatest historical figure”?

    Timelines notwithstanding, the irony of this claim alone would choke a horse.

  15. For those of you who vote for Fine Gael, here is a history lesson for you since you obviously didn’t take history in school

    Michael Collins was forced by De Valera to sign the treaty agreed in London, being quoted as saying ‘I have signed my own death warrant’

    It was De Valera who was suppose to be in London to sign, since he was state leader and had been negotiating the previous meetings. De Valera knew that he would have to give northern Ireland to the Brits along with the treaty ports and like any spineless politician, he sent someone else for damage control of his image.

    Michael Collins was sent over and signed the treaty, unwillingly. They were all Sinn Fein along with James Connelly who should have been Ireland first leader were it not for him being shot as a cripple by the Brits.

    When the treaty was signed, De Valera was Fianna Fail and Collins was shot in 1922 before Cumann na nGael was formed. He was Sinn Fein politically. Cumann na nGael was formed in 1923 lead by Cosgrave

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumann_na_nGaedheal

    Many years past with historical moments.

    This is the origins of Fine Gael, the specifically fascist (their only political aspiration was fascism to copy the political parties on the continent) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueshirts

    Fine Gael founded in 1933, merging Blue Shirts and Cumann na nGael along with the farmers party

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine_Gael

    Collins has zero to do with Fine Gael

    Voting for Fine Gael is voting for liars and people who think you are stupid.

  16. Do FF and SF still have rival annual pissups in Bodenstown? Just gonna Google when Wolfe Tone’s birthday is…

  23. The FG claim to Collins is more familial than political or military. In Collins short life he was mainly a soldier and a politician who organised military operations.

    Looking back to try to tap into that legacy is ridiculous for FG today. They are the party of Bruton and Flanagan: their opposition to the revolutionary generation is explicit.

    We’re FG fascist at foundation? There are good posts putting forward their version of it here: the usual historical verdict I’ve seen is that FG foundation was quasi fascist in a state that like most in Europe had fascist characteristics.

    The thing about FG continuing to try to claim Collins as theirs is what political utility do they hope to derive from it? Nationalist legitimacy? Republican credibility? Resurrection of a Free State mentality for a future UK rejoin? Distracting naive voters from the thrust of their policies for the last 11 years? Internal party struggle between Brutonites and rural TDs? Maybe it indicates a party that uses Collins as some sort of unifying icon when the reality is he is irrelevant to who they are today.

  26. This thread is great. People arguing that Fine Gael aren’t the successors of Cumman na nGaedheal but are definitely blue shirts lmao

  29. I feel like the fact that this post is top of /r/Ireland just goes to show the extent of ignorance about the history of Irish politics and the rewriting of history.

    Fine Gael is the pro-treaty party that was rebranded from Cumann na nGaedhael when it merged with smaller parties and is absolutely the party founded by Michael Collins. It should also be noted that modern day FF and FG are borne from the split of Sinn Fein along treaty lines and the modern SF has exactly nothing to do with the party of the day, it was a political party name adopted in the 1970’s.

    Now I know this wont be popular, but facts don’t need to be popular to be true, it’s the embracing of narrative and ignorance over correctness in recent years that I find so disturbing.

  30. Quite shocking that a women supposedly so talented that she got a minister job three years into being a TD would say that, without saying that she was raised in a Fine Gael household and her dad was a close friend of Enda Kenny

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