RTÉ broadcaster David McCullagh is to deliver the oration at Béal na Bláth, Co Cork, this summer to mark the 104th anniversary of the death of Michael Collins in the Civil War.
The event is to take place on Sunday, August 23rd, at 3pm.
McCullagh, who is also a historian, said he was honoured to be invited to speak at Béal na Bláth and said he hoped to explore the main aspects that made up Collins’s life and his impact not just on Irish history but also on British political history.
“There are many different aspects to the life and career of Michael Collins: military organiser, intelligence chief, financial mastermind,” he said.
READ MORE
“But circumstances also turned him into a diplomat, a negotiator and a constitutional craftsman who played a key role, not just in the establishment of an independent Irish state, but in the evolution of Britain’s empire into a commonwealth.”
The journalist is the presenter of Today with David McCullagh on RTÉ Radio 1. He previously presented the Six One News and Prime Time on RTÉ Television. Before that, he was a political correspondent for the broadcaster for 12 years.
A graduate of University College Dublin, he has a PhD in politics and is the author of six Irish history books.
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 the evening of August 22nd, 1922, as he returned with a party of National Army troops from inspecting garrisons in his native west Cork.
