Time for us to draw on memory of the heroes of 1916

Dave Kenny’s family is steeped in Easter Rising history. And, on the anniversary of Eamonn Ceannt’s death, he recalls finding a letter from the executed hero’s son, revealing how he lived his life in his father’s shadow

MY MOTHER was watching us from the sink, through the steam rising from her potato pot: “Come in for your tea and bring my good blue tray with you.” Her “good blue tray” had been discarded and was leaning against the blackened anthracite bunker.

It was bearing up remarkably well, considering it had spent the morning being used as a sleigh. It was a great tray, bought as a wedding present in Switzer’s by a friend of my father’s family: the Walkers. A man named Ronán. He was a “sad figure”, my mother said.