FREE St. Patrick’s Day Show: Michael Collins sponsored by Fitzgerald Real Estate

What better way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day than having a Guiness at the GARDEN and watching a Fitzgerald Real Estate’s FREE show of the 1996 classic Michael Collins (R) starring Liam Neeson, Julia Roberts, Alan Rickman, Aidan Quinn and a host of fine Irish actors. Nominated for Academy Awards for best cinematography and original dramatic score the film also scored Liam Neeson a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor.

Also check out the poster for extras that the Garden salvaged in a Dublin antique shop outside the manager’s office.

After the disastrous defeat of Irish rebels by superior UK forces during the Easter Rising, Michael Collins develops new strategies for the independence of Ireland. His tactics include what is now recognized as urban guerrilla tactics and organized assassinations of those Irish who work as informers for the UK government, and later members of British intelligence. Although Collins is conflicted about the necessity of this violent course, by 1921 the British are willing to negotiate. Sinn Fein President Eamon de Valera sends a reluctant Collins to London to negotiate a settlement. When Collins returns with a compromise of a partitioned Ireland and an Irish Free State, not a Republic, within the British Empire he is vilified by de Valera and repudiated by lifelong friend Harry Boland after Boland learns that his girlfriend Kitty Kiernan is in love with Collins. Collins is now faced with civil war as he struggles against those who insist on complete and unconditional independence for all of Ireland.