Pádraig Belton

The Easter Rising centenary shows Ireland more at peace with its past

Here in Dublin, Ireland is busy marking 100 years since the Easter Rising of 1916. It is being celebrated, but with far less chest-beating and bombast than met the 50th anniversary in 1966.  And this is a good thing entirely.

The Rising lasted for six days.  Its leaders seized key buildings around Dublin and proclaimed an Irish Republic.  It started a series of events that led to an independent Irish state in the south, but also to the partition of Ireland and a bloody civil war which claimed between two and three thousand lives.

Emblematic of this year’s commemoration was an event on Good Friday, at a Unitarian church on St Stephen’s Green.  The names of all the dead of the Easter Rising were read out:  70 rebels, but also 116 British soldiers, 30 policemen, and 40 children under 17.  Between 488 and 550 altogether. Another notable event was a play performed by students in a national school in Balbriggan, where 85 percent of the pupils have immigrant parents. 

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