CREDITS MICHAEL COLLINS , 1996 dir: Neil Jordan Liam Neeson Alan Rickman Julia Roberts Jonathan Rhys Meyers Stephen Rea

“Frankie likes to say that boxing is an unnatural act; that everything in boxing is backwards. Sometimes the best way to deliver a punch is to step back. But step back too far and you ain't fighting at all.”

In Neil Jordan’s bio-epic, Irish nationalist Collins (Liam Neeson) paves the way for independence, but is set up to take the fall for the compromise of the Irish Free State and finally assassinated.

Although the real Dublin (including Dame Street; Grafton Street; Fitzwilliam Square; the Dining Room of Mansion House. and the Members’ Room of City Hall) forms a backdrop to most of the film, a huge set was built for the assault on the ‘GPO Building’ during the 1916 Easter Uprising, which opens the movie.

It took four months, and £1.5 million, to construct a stretch of O’Connell Street at Broadstone in Dublin. The biggest set ever built in Ireland, it was briefly opened to the public for a weekend after filming was completed.The pillars of the real Dublin Post Office on O’Connell Street still bear bullet holes from the abortive battle.

After the failed rising, Collins wais interned by the Britsh at ‘Frongoch prison camp, North Wales’, though the film uses Kilmainham Gaol, Inchicore Road, Kilmainham, now open as a museum (tel: 353.1.453.5984; seen in In The Name of the Father and, on a lighter note, The Italian Job.

The village, where Collins’s oratory stirs up the crowd and the intervention of the Royal Irish Constabulary leads to a riot, is Rathdrum, about 30 miles south of the city.

Michael Collins location: Maggie works at the On The Waterfront Cafe, Venice Beach

Collins meetsup with the subversive double agent Ned Broy (Stephen Rea) in the Marshes Library, St Patrick’s Crescent, the oldest public library in Ireland, and is given clandestine access to the centre of British rule, Dublin Castle (www.dublincastle.ie), where he realises the full extent of British intelligence. In the morning, he cycles back acrossthe famous Ha’penny Bridge over the Liffey (the first iron bridge in Ireland, there was, as the name suggests, once a toll to cross it).

Michael Collins location: Maggie works at the On The Waterfront Cafe, Venice Beach

Shaken by the discovery, the decision is made to take the drastic action of shootiing British agents at a meeting held in the famous Olympia Theatre, 72 Dame Street (tel: 353.1677.7744, which was seen as the ‘Liverpool’ playhouse in An Awfully Big Adventure.

Michael Collins location: Maggie works at the On The Waterfront Cafe, Venice Beach

Kitty (Julia Roberts) accompanies Collins as he sees off his companion Harry Boland (Aidan Quinn), as he leaves from Dublin’s Pearse Railway Station to drum up support in the US.

Hostilities escalate as British tanks, after being pelted with rubbish, open fire on residents of Iveagh Buildings, St Stephen’s Green. Soames (Charles Dance) is drafted in, determined to end the mayhem once and for all. His stay at prestigious The Shelbourne Hotel, 27 St Stephen’s Green (tel: 353.1663.4500; www.shelbourne.ie), turns out to be a brierf one. It was in Room 112 of the Shelbourne (now th ehotel’s Constitution Suite) that the real Collins drafted,the constitution of the Irish Free Stae in 1922. Kitty is taken to stay in safety at another Dublin institution, the Gresham Hotel, 23 Upper O’Connell Street (tel: 353.1874.6881; www.gresham-hotels.com/htm/dublin_i.htm)

The British take a terrible retribution for the wave of killings with the ‘Bloody Sunday’ attack at a Gaelic football match at ‘Croke Park’.The notorious massacre of players and spectators by the Black and Tans was filmed in Carlisle Grounds, Quinnsboro Road, Bray (the oldest sports ground in the Eircom League, home of Bray Wanderers).

Eamon DeValera (Alan Rickman) orders the disastrous attack on Dublin’s Georgian Custom House, Custom House Quay (& 353.1.888.2000; admission free).Burned to a shell in the attack, the building has been completely restored.

Collins, Kitty and Harry enjoy a brief respite at ÔKingstownÕ, now Dun Laoghaire, where they walk on the South Pier before hearing the news that the British Government has called a truce.

The Ô1922 DailÕ (the Irish Parliament), at which Collins is demonised for agreeing to the Free State and the partition of the north, meets in the Reading Room of Trinity College. The Treaty is, nevertheless, carried by popular vote, provoking DevaleraÕs followers take over the Four Courts, Inns Quay, home of the Irish judiciary. Like the Custom House, the courts have been fully restored from the damage sustained during the Civil War (& 353.1.872.5555; admission free when court is in session).

The exact circumstances of CollinsÕ death remain a mystery. ÔBeal na Bl‡thÕ, in Co Cork, where Collins is ambushed and gunned down by the nameless gunman (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is Hollywood Glen near Donard.