Michael Collins isn’t a name that will mean much to many readers of this blog. For present purposes it will suffice to say that he was a key figure in the War of Independence that led to Ireland winning its freedom from Great Britain. He was shot dead in an ambush during the Irish Civil War 88 years ago today.

Ireland is currently governed by a coalition led by the Fianna Fáil party, the political descendants of the losing side in the Civil War and those who killed Collins. Fine Gael, the party descended from the winning side in the Civil War sees itself as the guardian of Collins’s   memory and it normally provides the keynote speaker at the annual commemoration ceremony at the spot where he died.

Today, the act of remembrance was addressed by Brian Lenihan, the first senior member of Fianna Fáil ever to be invited to do so.

88 years after Collins was killed and 87 years after the end of the Civil War we Irish are still dealing with its consequences and attempting to heal the breach it opened between us. Meanwhile, some  Irish people would like the Jews to just get over what happened to their parents and grandparents in Europe between 1939 and 1945, accuse them of being the contemporary incarnation of their own worst oppressors and are prepared to boycott their state until it behaves as they would wish.