Dead and gone: Europe changing as rapidly now as it did in 1916

APRIL FOOL’S and Spy Wednesday fall together today, as bedfellows. Last night, the Taoiseach outlined the Ireland 2016 centenary programme in the riding school in Dublin’s Collins Barracks.

Next Monday, President Michael D Higgins will stand outside the GPO in O’Connell Street. The proclamation will be read, a wreath will be laid, and the republic that was proclaimed on Easter Monday, 1916, will enter into its 100th year.

Fools and traitors are a trope of our republic. Some took the boat, others took pieces of silver. More were fooled. Padraig Pearse, who gloried in being a fool of sorts, proclaimed the republic. His retort to the world was: