I struggle to write a letter about the Easter Rising of 1916, because I am overawed when I consider the profound sacrifice those visionaries made, in offering up their very lives for Irish freedom.

Your report on centenarian Kathleen Snavely, from Co Clare (Irish Examiner, February 16), the oldest living Irish-born person, who turned 113 on Monday, was a welcome respite from the media-led indulgence of so-called ‘celebrities’.

This weekend saw one of the first of many celebrations to mark the centenary of events that culminated in the Easter Rising of 1916.

On Friday, Mar 29, graves and headstones in St Finbarr’s Cemetery in Cork were vandalised. Graffiti was daubed on some headstones.

A review has been completed into the future of a prized Nama-backed development site in Dublin which the families of the rebels of the 1916 Rising are fighting to have protected.

The suggestion by Justin Kelly to name the new bridge across the river Liffey in honour of our Olympic gold medallist Katie Taylor (Letters, Aug 15) is, I believe, bordering on the ridiculous.

Sinn Féin has delivered a message to Government saying the Irish people have had enough of cuts.

A COLLECTION of Michael Collins’s letters has fetched €202,000 at auction.

PUBLIC sector pay should never again be set by a review body, but should instead be based on an average EU equivalent rate, according to Glen Dimplex managing director Sean O’Driscoll.

The Easter Rising of 1916 will be remembered today with ceremonies and wreath-laying across the country.

I MUST confess I was not one of the 0.2% of the population of Dublin that “bothered to celebrate” the 93rd anniversary of the Easter Rising in the capital (Niall Ginty, Letters, April 23).

Final preparations are being made today to commemorate the 90th anniversary of Ireland’s Easter Rising of 1916.

MAY I congratulate Mr Robin Bury of the Reform Movement for his non-reply (‘Pearse putsch in 1916 was against wishes of vast majority,’ Irish Examiner letters December 12) to my earlier letter of November 28 (‘Pearse the rebel was once a democrat who had been betrayed’).

IT is ironic that even as four very typical GAA units prepare for the most special of all GAA club days, the rank and file members throughout the considerable GAA world who make up those clubs will be denied a very basic right - the right to debate an issue that has risen to the forefront of GAA thinking.

Author Leon Uris, an immigrant’s determined son who made it big with the million-selling novel Exodus, has died, his ex-wife said today. He was 78.