Nora Owen

Grandniece of Michael Collins

Nora Owen

“It must have been a very energising time for all the members of the first Dáil. These were a group of people essentially founding a State, and a lot of them would’ve been very young. It’s fascinating.

“It was a special time for Ireland, thanks to those courageous and brave people. It was the beginning of the end for British rule in Dublin.

“The first Dáil was so momentous that you could compare it to, say, the election of Obama. I’m thinking of rural cottages and people hearing on the radio that Ireland had its own parliament. It must have been very exciting and exhilarating for people who had got used to living under British rule.

“They would’ve been unmotivated by ego. They were soldiers, many of them, because they took leadership positions in 1916. Their aim was to create an independent Ireland. They were putting in place one of the most important elements of a democracy: a free parliament. On very, very poor salaries, I would imagine; they did it for love, not money.

Michael Collins

“Michael Collins seems to have been a very dominant character. He was a great orator. They didn’t have microphones and he could hold a crowd of several thousand. He was so young. In pictures he looks like a man in his forties, with the trilby, but that was how people dressed.

“He was a real lad, boyish and full of devilment. I feel sad that I didn’t have a chance to know him as an older man. We are immensely proud of him as a family. To me he was an inspiration.

“He was a terribly clever fellow. In those years he was writing about opportunities for Ireland in the wider world. He was looking outwards from very, very early on. Had there been an EU or an EC at that stage he would’ve been the first MEP.

“Because it was such a tough time in Irish life, my mother, who was his niece, didn’t talk about him. She was 10 when the Black and Tans burnt down the family home as a reprisal. She tried to run back into the house because her schoolbag was inside. She was worried about not having her books for the next day.

“My mother also remembered him coming to the house and greeting her and her sister before he went off on the journey on which he was killed. They were the last to see him.

“When the Neil Jordan movie came out it helped young people realise, here was a hero they could look to. He suddenly became the stuff of school projects and PhDs in universities.” – Mary Minihan