Location for Cork City's first Michael Collins statue revealed
Grand Parade was chosen given its historic connection to Collins. Picture: Independent News And Media/Getty Images
The first Michael Collins statue in Cork City will be installed on the Grand Parade — the scene of one of his most famous public orations, it has been confirmed.
The decision, announced on Thursday, follows a series of meetings between City Hall and members of the Michael Collins 100 committee over recent months following a decision by Cork City Council last year to proceed with the statue.
The near life-size piece will feature Collins standing alongside a bicycle, based on the iconic photograph of him taken with a Pierce bicycle in Wexford in 1922 when he cycled around Dublin at a time when there was a bounty on his head.
It is understood that a number of potential locations were shortlisted, assessed and visited.
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And in an email update to city councillors on Thursday, it was confirmed that a location on the Grand Parade, understood to be close to the city library, has been agreed.
While another location on St Patrick’s St was in the running, the Grand Parade was chosen given its historic connection to Collins, who addressed a massive pro Treaty rally on the wide thoroughfare on March 12, 1922, with estimates putting the size of the crowd at close to 50,000.
According to reports in the then , Collins and a number of pro Treaty TDs, who addressed the crowd from platforms, received an enthusiastic reception.
“The enthusiasm and magnificence of the reception accorded Mr Michael Collins and his pro-Treaty colleagues on their arrival in Cork on Saturday night left no room for doubt that the citizens of the capital of the Southern Province are whole heartedly the majority of the Irish people in support of the Treaty," it was reported.
The paper described the "demonstration of enormous dimensions" with "the spacious thoroughfare having been densely crowded, the whole length from the South Mall to Patrick Street, while the streets converging on the animated scene were congested to an extent rarely witnessed on occasions of similar popular outpouring".
There were reports of some organised demonstration, which included heckling from small groups in the crowd, the firing of revolvers into the air, and the kidnapping of train drivers earlier so special trains for supporters were prevented from reaching Cork City.
Collins used the platform to launch an attack on the leader of the anti Treaty side, Éamon de Valera, whom he accused of deserting the ship of the Irish state while absent in America during the War of Independence and leaving it to men like him to steer it into calmer waters.
He also highlighted what he saw as the obvious benefits of the Treaty to the ordinary people of Cork — the exit of British forces who had burned the city about a year earlier.
Fine Gael Cllr Shane O’Callaghan, whose motion asking the city council to facilitate the placing of a statue of Collins in the city centre was agreed unanimously last September, welcomed the decision on the location for the statue.
“It is right in the heart of the city centre, and in the context of plans for the redevelopment of Bishop Lucey Park, and for the redevelopment of the city library itself, it is in the middle of a cultural area earmarked for regeneration,” he said.
A crowd-funding campaign was launched last December to help pay for the statue, which will be created by sculptor Kevin Holland, who created the landmark statue of Collins in Clonakilty, unveiled by Oscar-winning actor Liam Neeson in 2002.
Mr Holland said at the time: “This statue will be funded by public donations — the public is directly involved in this commission. So this is a commission from the roots up, this is a monument for the people, funded by the people."
