The Easter Rising did not spring from Christianity

Some years ago, I received a very unusual (but very beautiful) card from a gentle friend in West Australia. It pictured a mother kangaroo guarding her baby in a manger, capturing something of the essence of Christmas in an authentic Australian setting.

That image keeps invading my consciousness. And I wish, this anniversary year above any other, we could produce (for Ireland) an Easter card of such singular simplicity and beauty .... without paying homage to the men of 1916 and their armed rebellion.

That particular uprising had as little to do with the Easter Rising of Christian tradition as the attack on the World Trade Centre had to do with Islam, but was simply meant to subvert this wonderful feast of Easter, and co-opt it into the canon of Republican violence.