A Dublin museum which celebrates the memory of Patrick Pearse has added a new exhibition which aims to give a wider, more rounded view of his life and times.
The exhibition at Hermitage House in St Enda's Park, Rathfarnham, where Pearse ran a school, emphasises the influence of his unusual family background, which eventually led to him assuming the role of a leader of the 1916 Rising.
Included in the new exhibition is some work by his English father, James Pearse, a stone-carver and sculptor. The original, hand-written manuscript of a pamphlet James Pearse wrote, entitled "England's Duty to Ireland as it Appears to an Englishman", published in 1886 in support of Parnell and Home Rule, is on display in the exhibition.
There is also information about James Pearse's first family, with the discovery of two extra daughters by his first wife.
From 1910, Pearse ran St Enda's School in Hermitage House, which embraced the Irish language, culture and folklore.
Patrick Pearse was very close to his brother, Willie, who also taught in the school, and the museum now houses a collection of Willie Pearse's sculptures. Willie Pearse's work was greatly admired by his teacher at the Metropolitan School of Art, Oliver Sheppard, the leading Irish sculptor of his generation.
Another new addition to the museum is a rare example of the kilted uniform worn by many of the boys in St Enda's.
It seems that this Gaelic revival costume, which Pearse favoured among his pupils (although he never wore it himself), made quite an impression on Dublin society.
Writing in his autobiography, former government minister Tod Andrews said of the kilt: "A number of the boys in St Enda's wore kilts. This they probably hated doing, and for that reason were all the more ready to resent derogatory remarks about them - remarks which no Dublin boy could resist making, and I made them . . . I seemed to be always involved in quarrels."
For many, Patrick Pearse will always be remembered most for his role in the Easter Rising, and the museum has recently put on display a handkerchief made in 1972 by republican prisoner Micky McAteer while he was in Long Kesh.
The handkerchief is embroidered with the familiar profile of Pearse and his famous words: "Life springs from death, and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations."
The curator of the museum, Mr Pat Cooke, received a complaint about this new exhibit from someone who felt that it was inappropriate to display the work of a republican prisoner, a complaint Mr Cooke rejects.
"History doesn't stop and Patrick Pearse is still a live ingredient in recognising it. Pearse is a very important part of how Northerners and, particularly, republicans define themselves," he said.
According to Mr Cooke, while Pearse was fascinated with the myths and legends of Irish stories, he was a "shy, aloof character who adored the Irish peasantry from a distance".
Certainly, founding an elitist, fee-paying boarding school in south Co Dublin is not exactly the work of a Marxist. But St Enda's was revolutionary in other ways.
Pearse felt that the conventional education system was devoid of understanding and did not treat children as individuals, "but like a piece of machinery that performs an appointed task".
Pearse set up St Enda's School in Cullenswood House, Ranelagh, in September 1908. With his brother, Willie, his assistant headmaster, Thomas MacDonagh, and his mother and sisters, Pearse wanted to embrace the individual traits of each child and believed that self-expression was more important than cramming for exams. The school moved in 1910 to the impressive Hermitage at St Enda's Park in Rathfarnham.
For all his talents, Pearse was not good with the financial side of running a school, and St Enda's was always teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.
After Easter 1916, when four of the teachers at St Enda's (Patrick and Willie Pearse, MacDonagh and Con Colbert) were executed, the school was kept going under the headmastership of MacDonagh's brother, Joseph. But it had lost its visionary founder and it was forced to close in 1935.
Pearse's sister, Senator Margaret Pearse, lived in the building until her death in 1969, and it then passed to the State.
The museum is open in January daily from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 2.30 to 4 p.m. Admission is free.