Arts offered authentic retrospection, unlike State, media, and academia

The architecture of commemoration in 2016 was the State’s, but many of the ideas were bought-in, writes Gerard Howlin.

A little thing I learnt in 2016, which has fascinated me since, is Noblett’s sweetshop on Dublin’s O’Connell St as the opening tableau of the Easter Rising.

In John Bowman’s new Ireland: The Autobiography, the first gem he curates among many miscellanea is an account by the Archbishop of Dublin’s secretary on Easter Monday.