1916 commemorations: Say no to grave robbers and revisionists

THE year is barely a wet week old and already 1916 is being milked like a prize cow. As might have been expected, Sinn Féin are first in line to claim the Rising as theirs, writes Michael Clifford

While they engage in the standard rhetoric about the events of Easter week not belonging to anybody, this is usually followed by a treatise on why it belongs to them. We are also witnessing the wailing of those who claim that the men of 1916 were betrayed by those who governed the new State. Oh Lord above, please keep us safe during the coming year.

On January 7 in the Mansion House, Sinn Féin launched its Join The Rising programme of events for the year. Gerry Adams urged his followers to join the rising against Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour in the pending election. He mentioned much of the dark aspects of the State, particularly through the early and middle decades of the last century, inviting his devotees to speculate that things would have been so much different if Sinn Féin had been in charge.