I was out of step with the great military parade for two reasons

I DIDN’T go to the military parade in Dublin on Sunday. There were two reasons. First, with the best will in the world I don’t believe military parades represent anything about Ireland today.

I worked for the Department of Foreign Affairs for four years, and I know that Ireland has a proud international reputation in the peacekeeping area. It was not the number of soldiers we could put into the field that earned us that reputation, but the background from which they came.

That background is encapsulated in Article 29 of our constitution: "Ireland affirms its devotion to the ideal of peace and friendly co-operation amongst nations founded on international justice and morality (and) Ireland affirms its adherence to the principle of the pacific settlement of international disputes by international arbitration or judicial determination."

The sight of a country's military might rolling through the main streets of the capital city might be necessary to underpin some forms of government, usually totalitarian. It's never been necessary in a democracy.

I have the highest respect for the work done by thousands of Irish soldiers in peacekeeping missions abroad, and I strongly believe they reflect nothing but credit on Ireland. But I have just as much respect for the work and sacrifice of people with non-governmental organisations in the developing world, and for the work carried out by Irish people who work for human rights organisations around the world.

I cannot think of a single reason why the Irish army, whatever its merits, should be singled out to be honoured in this way. And several Government spokespeople made the point that this was one of the things last Sunday was about the reclaiming of the title Óglaigh na hÉireann for the Irish defence forces.

We don't need to do that. For the vast majority of citizens there has always been only one Irish army. To concede otherwise, to argue that there is a need in any sense for the Irish army to reassert itself, is a mistake of profound foolishness.

The British celebrate their military history with colour and pomp, usually dressing their ceremonial soldiers in rather silly looking uniforms. The Americans honour their soldiers usually by rewarding individual valour and courage. Why we feel it necessary to ask all ours to muster in one place is a mystery to me. Could it be that we have a bit of an inferiority complex about our army, that there are some among our leaders who would like to see more soldiers or bigger guns, or a nice big collection of tanks? If so, they should be encouraged to relax.

We had a day of celebration a month ago on St Patrick's Day, and whether by accident or design it was much more reflective of the colour and vibrancy of modern Ireland. We need to develop that idea much more to celebrate the way Ireland has changed and grown, to encourage as much as possible a sense of welcome. We really don't need another day to look back on our history because we do almost too much of that already. One of the people I worked with in the Department of Foreign Affairs used to say it was sometimes difficult to identify the nationality of a speaker if all you heard was the simultaneous translation used in large international conferences. But, he added, some nationalities used phrases that were an instant giveaway. You could immediately spot that the speaker was British if his emphasis was on a "pragmatic solution". Germans would urge others to be practical, while the French relied on law. The Irish, on the other hand, always began with a reference to history.

We are bound up with our history, to the point of obsession. I don't know who it was who said that to ignore history made you a fool, but to be obsessed with history made you a slave. Our obsession with 1916, it seems to me, is a perfect example of the point and, incidentally, the second reason I didn't go on Sunday.

When we were in school we were taught that the men of 1916 (there were seldom references to women) were unalloyed saints and heroes, martyrs who took up arms against an unjust oppressor. They knew they were unlikely to win, but believed that their certain death would galvanise their country like nothing else could.

The revisionists came later. To them, Pearse and his men were somewhere between misguided fools and traitors, driven by motivations that had nothing to do with the love of country, but were all tied up with complex personal neuroses. To the revisionists, there was nothing to celebrate about 1916.

THE passion and temper of that debate rages to this day, to the point where we're almost not allowed to make up our own minds about 1916, what it meant at the time, and its significance since. The facts (which are, after all, the raw material of history) have been so clouded by the argument that I sometimes think we need a tribunal of inquiry to give us a definitive account.

Was Pearse, for example, the leader because of his military brilliance, the fire of his oratory, or his skills as a political strategist? None of the above. He was leader because Thomas Clarke, who essentially designed the Rising, refused the post of president when it was offered to him by the military council of the IRB. Pearse was the council's second choice.

Were the republicans guilty of atrocities, as the revisionists claim, and did those atrocities undermine the Proclamation, with its solemn prayer that "no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine"?

There were atrocities, of that there is no doubt, and men who served the republican cause committed a number of them. People were shot dead in cold blood, weapons were fired indiscriminately, little or no care was taken in situations where the presence of a crowd made any use of a weapon dangerous. A combination of inexperience, nerves and arrogance contributed to needless and cruel deaths.

There were also, undoubtedly, atrocities on the British side. More than half the people killed during the Rising, nearly 250, were civilians, in most cases innocent bystanders in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some were killed by republicans, some by British soldiers.

Of course we've forgotten the 450 people who died during the Rising. We've forgotten that the Rising was an abject failure a week of fighting followed by complete and unconditional surrender. And so it would have remained, in all probability, had the British not made the most profound mistake of all. They created the real and enduring legend by executing the leaders and establishing the beginning of all the myths that have grown since.

So Pearse, Connolly and the others won in the end. But by accident almost. The cruel and stupid decision to execute them nothing else led directly to the War of Independence and the Treaty. And it's that act of cruel stupidity we celebrate to this day.