1916 commemoration - Rising can inspire the new Ireland

THE commemoration yesterday of the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising was, in the words of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, “a day of remembrance, reconciliation and renewal”.

It was also, he reminded his listeners, about discharging one generation’s debt of honour to another.

There is, indeed, a prodigious debt to discharge, one whereby the ultimate sacrifice of the men and women of Easter Week bequeathed an Ireland which ranks independently, and not without influence, today among the community of nations.