It is my considered opinion that in the fullness of time history will record the greatness of Michael Collins and it will be recorded at my expense.

It is indeed hard for the strong to be just to the weak, but acting justly always has its rewards.

Since this war began our sympathy has gone out to all the suffering people who have been dragged into it. Further hundreds of millions have become involved since I spoke at Limerick fortnight ago.

God has been pleased to save us during the years of war that have already passed. We pray that He may be pleased to save us to the end. But we must do our part.

Partition is after all only an old fortress of crumbled masonry - held together with the plaster of fiction.

For Irishmen, there is no football game to match rugby and if all our young men played rugby not only would we beat England and Wales but France and the whole lot of them put together.

The economic and social problems would tend to become, like the military situation, more and more difficult as time went on and we became more and more isolated.