Cork students bring Michael Collins stateside

A group of J1 students has taken the Big Fella on tour, with a master plan of meeting the man who played him on the silver screen.

John Grace, from Dunmanway, along with friends from Kerry, Cork, Limerick and Kilkenny, has taken a cut-out of General Michael Collins to New York in the hope of meeting Liam Neeson, who played Collins in the 1996 film.

“There's a few of us from Cork, we'd want to be an almighty shower of charlatans altogether not to be,” said John.

“We actually found the cutout of Mick at the Ballinasloe Horse Fair there about two years ago, on our way up to Galway city. The stall was selling a load of historical memorabilia, along with DeValera's hat, and a signed copy of the 1916 proclamation by Liam Neeson. That's where we got the idea that we needed Michael Collins to meet Liam Neeson. So we set out about doing it, by getting him a J1 visa and jetting him off to New York.”

John was keen to stress that there was no political affiliation to the cause, and nothing ideological about bringing the Big Fella Stateside, somewhere he never got to in real life.

“We just want to spread the word of Michael Collins and educate the world on the achievements of the greatest Corkman that ever graced Ireland,” said John, who also revealed that the group call themselves the Flying Column, another hat tip to Collins’ military tactics during the War of Independence.

"Also we'd just like to give everyone at home a bit of a smile at what we're doing too. We're absolutely taken aback by the following that Mick's getting. So many people have really been encouraging us a lot.”

Not everyone in New York fully appreciates the seriousness of the situation, or even recognises the man who broke the British Empire. The group even brought him to the midnight screening of Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises while they work as lifeguards in Coney Island. 

“We've gotten a lot of ‘Why are you carrying Hitler around with you?’, on the other hand we've even got the few Americans on the subway who'd know who he is too, which is great when it happens.” 

“We don't mind telling people who he is though, it's all part of the adventure. Hopefully everyone will know who he is at the end of it. Sure anything’s possible if you wish hard enough.”

The adventures of Michael Collins can be found on Facebook and Twitter @Micksadventures.