Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill will deliver the oration at Béal na Bláth later this summer to mark the 103rd anniversary of the death of Gen Michael Collins in the Civil War.
The event takes place this year on Sunday August 24th.
“Minister Carroll MacNeill has a deep understanding of Irish history, and we very much look forward to hearing what she will have to say in August,” said Béal na Bláth commemoration committee chairman Senator Garret Kelleher.
Ms Carroll MacNeill said it was an honour to have been asked to speak at this year’s commemoration.
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“This significant event allows us to remember and honour the legacy of Michael Collins, whose vision, leadership and unwavering dedication to our country and its people continue to inspire us all,” said Ms Carroll MacNeill, the first woman to give the oration since Heather Humphreys in 2021.
“His legacy of leadership and dedication to public service is something I see as I visit our healthcare community around the country and their unwavering dedication to caring for people. I am really looking forward to speaking at the commemoration and reflecting on Collins’s legacy and values.”
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Ms Carroll MacNeill said she had brought her then seven-year-old son James to the 2022 commemoration and she was looking forward to bringing him back to Béal na Bláth because of his family links to Collins.
She said James’s great-grandfather, Capt Hugo MacNeill, accepted the surrender of Victoria Barracks in Cork from the British on behalf of Collins and the National Army on May 18th, 1922. The barracks was subsequently renamed Collins Barracks in honour of the west Cork man.
The first chief of staff of the National Army, Collins was killed in an ambush by a party of anti-Treaty IRA men at Béal na Bláth on August 22nd, 1922, as he returned with a party of National Army troops from inspecting garrisons in his native west Cork.
