We should concentrate on the values and ideals as expressed by tomorrow’s Irishmen and Irishwomen

On the eve of Proclamation Day, there were claims that two homeless men were moved on by gardaí from their sleeping positions outside the GPO. The gardaí said there is no policy of moving homeless people on from the locale, but there is increased security in Dublin’s O’Connell St ahead of the Easter commemorations, writes Michael Clifford.

The two men habitually bed down near the exact location where Pádraig Pearse read out the Proclamation, which has gone down in the annals of Irish history as scared text defining an egalitarian state.

On the morning of Proclamation Day, Adrian Ismay died from a heart attack associated with injuries he suffered in a bomb attack on March 4. He was a 52-year-old father of three who worked as a prison officer. The so-called New IRA claimed responsibility for the attack. They, and their predecessors in the Provisional IRA, claim direct lineage to Pearse and the other members of the Provisional Government of 1916, pointing to the Proclamation as evidence of their legitimacy.