Enda Kenny to address Michael Collins memorial

Enda Kenny is to become the first serving Taoiseach to address an annual commemoration of the death of Irish republican leader Michael Collins.

The ceremony on Sunday comes ahead of the 90th anniversary of Collins' death in an ambush during the Irish Civil War at Béal na mBláth in County Cork.

Mr Kenny will deliver a keynote address and lay one of four wreaths at a monument on the site.

The Irish army will also fire an artillery salute in honour of their first general.

An armoured Rolls Royce, which was part of the convoy he was travelling in and used to bring his body to hospital, will return to the site for the first time in 90 years.

Michael Collins played a central role in co-ordinating IRA forces in the fight against the British during the Irish War of Independence.

He was part of the Sinn Fein delegation that negotiated the treaty leading to the foundation of the Irish Free State.

Collins fell victim to anti-treaty forces in the subsequent Civil War.

Mr Kenny's Fine Gael party has its roots in the Michael Collins faction.