News From Ireland
 by
Frank Shouldice
Over 100,000 people thronged into Dublin’s O’Connell Street
to honor the 90th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising.
In a spectacle regarded as a dress rehearsal for the Rising’s
centenary in 2016, a military parade involving some 2,500 members of the
Irish Army and Defense Forces passed by a review stand near the General
Post Office, rebel headquarters in 1916. Three planes from the Air Corps
made an overhead pass and Captain Tom Ryan of the 6th Infantry Battalion
read aloud the Proclamation of Independence. The crowd then offered a
minute’s silence in memory of all those who died in the
historic revolt.
The day’s commemoration began when Taoiseach Bertie Ahern laid a
wreath at Kilmainham Jail, where captured 1916 leaders were executed by
the British forces. “By gathering here today, 90 years on from the
Easter Rising, our presence is testimony to the fact that our generation
still cherishes the ideals of the courageous men and women who fought
for Ireland in Easter week and during the War of Independence, that we
honor and respect their selfless idealism and patriotism, and that we
remember with gratitude the great sacrifices they made for us,”
he told those gathered at the jail’s stonebreaker’s yard.
The parade was observed by President Mary McAleese, and all the main political
parties were represented with the notable exception of Sinn Féin.
With preparations for the 2016 centenary already being
discussed, the mainstream parties have been accused of opportunism in
reclaiming a memorial tradition they virtually ignored for years. The
Provisional IRA claim to be successors of the 1916 tradition, but many
commentators see Easter week’s pageantry as a government effort
to distinguish the 1916 rebels from the present-day IRA.
The spectacle went off without incident, in contrast to serious rioting
which prevented a loyalist march from passing down O’Connell Street
two months ago. Other Easter commemoration services were held in Belfast,
Cork, Galway and Kilkenny. |
