It’s time to make our own history - 1916 Centenary celebrations

YESTERDAY’S 1916 centenary celebrations were a spectacular success. Even the weather gods relented and, for the most part anyway, weather, history and commemoration rhymed.

A bright, uplifting spring day made for bright, uplifting events and, like all encouraging, bracing spring days, it also brought a challenge — the duty of managing renewal, a window of opportunity to harness potential and another chance to build a better future for all citizens of this country — and this island.

We have looked back to 1916 with such pride for so long, and with such passionate if divergent views, that our immediate duty to those who did so much to help establish this Republic has been discharged. Now it is time to make the best of the opportunities 1916 bequeathed us. This recognition is not by any means new but so much is left undone, so many things need to be fixed, that the challenge is almost as daunting as the day it was first recognised. It is time to look forward and make our own history — even if those masked and sinister “pikemen” who marched to their own out-of-tune drum in Tralee yesterday afternoon are trapped in a bizarre and anti-democratic time warp of their own making.