Sir, - Though younger than Colonel David ("Dave") Neligan, I belong to his generation and, as he was a lifelong family friend, I wish to record my very great disappointment that he does not figure in the film on Michael Collins. The general's nephew and namesake rightly stated, on Radio Eireann, that Dave Neligan laid his life on the line inside Dublin Castle for 18 months, for love of Ireland and for his hero.
Collins, who valued and trusted him very much, persuaded him after the war to give up the idea of joining the Indian police and to enlist in the newly formed national army. He was later head of the CID. Of no one else could it be said that Collins could not have achieved what he did without him.
Film makers do not always aim at teaching history, but some viewers do not realise this and take their products as the whole truth. The absence of Neligan from the film is a serious flaw. Those who want the facts will get them in his own book, The Spy in the Castle. - Yours, etc.,
Blackrock College,
Co Dublin.