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The Michael Collins Cup - a golf event run by the Irish Defence Forces - celebrated its centenary year on Monday at Royal Curragh Golf Club in Co Kildare. First played in 1926 at Milltown Golf Club in Dublin, the competition named after Irish revolutionary leader Michael Collins is a long-standing fixture. This year's event included a great grandnephew of Collins among the field. The inaugural running of the competition 100 years ago was won by a Lieutenant O'Flaherty of the Army Medical Services who was the first person to receive the cup donated by Liam Devlin in memory of Collins. Mr Devlin was an associate of Michael Collins while Devlin's pub on Parnell St was used as the general headquarters during the war of independence. "The cup itself comes out of McKee barracks once a year for the competition and then gets locked up for safe keeping again - it's basicaly priceless," David Swan, captain of Royal Curragh Golf Club for 2026, said. The competition lapsed during the second World War but was revived in 1945 when Commandant DJ Murphy of Baltray Golf Club won the cup at Newlands Golf Club in Dublin, beating a field of more than 60 competitors - after a tense last-nine-holes countback against a Captain O'Neill. In the decades since, the Collins Cup has become a fixture of the Defence Forces golfing calendar drawing serving and retired members to compete every year on the Curragh plains. This year's event was won by Corporal Richard Finn with the trophy presented by John Healy, grandson of Liam Devlin, the very man who first provided the prize a century ago. "Here we are in 2026," Swan pointed out. "Who knows what it was like in 1926 at the beginning of the state. Someone at one point decided it was a good idea for the Army to play golf... and here we are."