Why We Must Reclaim the Rising

"The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past."

Ninety-four years ago, these words were spoken by Pádraig Pearse outside the General Post Office, Dublin, marking the beginning of the rebellion that would become known as the Easter Rising. On a recent Saturday, Tom Stokes stood in front of the same GPO and recited those same words, hoping to strike similar feelings of national pride and allegiance into the hearts of the small crowd gathered on the anniversary of the Rising.
Despite the staggering influence this event had on the shaping of modern Ireland, the anniversary is still not a national holiday and has only recently begun to be recognised by the government at all. "Every other self-respecting democracy, and some countries that are not even democracies, have national holidays honoring certain historical days of significance," Tom Stokes said. "The French have Bastille Day, the British have Armistice Day, the US has Independence Day. We have nothing honoring the Uprising."
Until the 1970s, a commemoration in the form of a military parade was held every Easter Sunday. These stopped once the government began questioning whether the violence of the Troubles was mirroring the violence of the Rising. The military parade was resurrected in 2006, and has happened on every Easter Sunday since then.
However, for citizens like Tom Stokes, this is not enough. To start with, they want a nationally recognised holiday on the actual anniversary of the event (not on Easter which is often separated from April 24 by weeks). They also want to focus attention on the fact that, as Stokes claims, "the Irish State has abjectly failed to complete the task of building the progressive, modern republic that was promised in the Proclamation."
Robert Ballagh, president of the Ireland Institute, an organisation promoting international republicanism, spoke during the GPO ceremony about his attempts at properly commemorating the Uprising in the past. In 1991, the 75th anniversary of the Rising, Ballagh asked the Board of Works if he could stage a modern replay ceremony in the Garden of Remembrance. The board refused, but the ceremony proceeded anyway, with seven boys from St. Mary's School representing the seven sections of the proclamation and laying down seven lilies in the Garden.
Only one reporter showed up to cover this event. He was an American from The Boston Globe and he reported that while no-one in the Irish government commemorated the Uprising, both the American Senate and Congress observed a minute's silence.
"We have a national holiday for St. Patrick's Day, a day to get drunk, which is fun but irrelevant to history," Ballagh said. "We hope if we keep having this yearly ceremony, the powers that be will be forced to recognise the will of the people."
The ceremony this year was a modest, quickly put together affair, with preparation only starting on the Wednesday prior. However, Stokes and Ballagh seemed confident that this was just the beginning, and as a wreath was laid in front of the GPO next to a picture of those who joined together to draft the Proclamation, the crowd was reminded that in the history of Ireland, progress has rarely been dependent on the power of the government. It's been about the people taking the future into their own hands.