THE KILKENNY MUSICAL Society who are staging “Michael Collins – A Musical Drama” say they are “disheartened” after life-sized promotional road signs they placed along routes into Kilkenny City have been removed.

Speaking to TheJournal.ie, the chairperson of the society Seamus Reade said that as part of their promotion they erected seven road signs over a week ago.

The signs were quite impressive with a life size image of the iconic Michael Collins.

On Friday morning we discovered that the image of Collins had been cut from one of the signs on the Bennettsbridge Road.

Our sense, at the time, was that this was removed by a Collins fan who wanted the image for his or her own house. But each night since then the remainder of the signs have had the same treatment.

Civil War politics

There is now much speculation around Kilkenny as to who would have removed these images or for what reason. “We are aware that feelings on this time in Irish history still run high in certain quarters,” said Reade.

“It is very frustrating as it cost about €700-€800 to design and mount these signs,” he said, adding that there are conspiracy theories spreading that it has something to do with civil war politics, he said.

“It was a very divisive part of Irish history and perhaps someone doesn’t like to see emulated in such a way around the city. Perhaps they are on the other side of the political fence, that is my feeling anyway,” he said, stating that he did not believe it was anything against the production itself.

Cost

He added that some might say that they were removed intentionally to gather publicity, but he denied this, stating,” it has nothing to do with with the society”. He added that the play is costing €60,000 to put on and every penny counts.

The musical drama takes place at Kilkenny’s Watergate Theatre from April 6th to 12th. It tells the story of the republican leader Michael Collins from 1916 onwards and stays rather close to the film Michael Collins starring Liam Neeson.

“It really is disheartening that we have worked so hard at this production, giving up all of our free time, that someone has done this and disturbed out promotional signs. I hope we still see the production supported,” he concluded.

Read: Defence Forces celebrate birthday of Michael Collins>

Read: Fury in Cork as brochure calls Michael Collins a ‘langer’>

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