Ireland 2016 to bring ‘clearer understanding of past’

The 2016 programme of centenary events for schools and young people will be an opportunity for reflection on what happened in 1916, how it affected people throughout the island of Ireland and how all the people of Ireland might shape a shared future together, Minister for Education Jan O'Sullivan said on Tuesday.

Ireland 2016 will be “a reflection on our past, our present and our future, our futures indeed together on this island”, she said. She added that from engaging with events next year “will come a clearer understanding of the past but also a clearer vision of where Ireland is now and where Ireland ought to be, and can be, in the future”.

Ms O'Sullivan was speaking at the formal launch of the schools component of the Ireland 2016 Centenary Programme. It was held in CBS Westland Row, the school attended by the Pearse brothers, identified in the school roll as Patrick and William, of Brunswick Street (now Pearse Street), the sons of a sculptor. (Although the entry for Patrick has the incorrect surname of Pierse.)

Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Heather Humphreys said that as men, both brothers valued education and she hoped therefore "that they would approve of the wealth of initiatives and innovative programmes we are launching here today as part of Ireland 2016".

They include the 1916 Ancestry Project in which primary and post-primary children are encouraged to research their own family history back to the Rising, using the 1911 census records, military archives and local history societies and historians in order to tell their family and community story through the prism of the rebellion.

School children are also going to write a Proclamation for a New Generation, taking as their cue the ideals and aspirations of the 1916 Proclamation and applying them to their own hopes and dreams for the next 100 years.

Proclamation Day

March 15th, 2016, which has been designated Proclamation Day, will be marked by the formal raising of the national flag in every school, a reading of the 1916 Proclamation and showcasing of the newly written version.

Already, officers of the Defence Forces have started visiting all schools to present them with the Proclamation and the national flag, explaining to children its symbolic significance – how the green part of the tricolour represents the nationalist tradition of Ireland, the orange represents the unionist tradition and the white stands for peace between them.

The 2016 schools programme includes also a range of art events and competitions, involving music, painting, drama, and history. Ms O’Sullivan said she was “particularly delighted that most of these are all-island competitions with a significant emphasis on recognising all perspectives and opinions on 1916”.

She noted that CBS Westland Row pupils participated in both the Rising (Lt Michael Malone was one of a handful of Irish Volunteers who pinned down the Sherwood Foresters in the Battle of Mount Street Bridge) and the first World War.

Past pupils include not just the Pearses but also Patrick and Willie Brennock, the first dying at Gallipoli in August 1915, predeceased by his brother on the Western Front in November 1914.

They came from Island Villas off Pearse Street and they too “fought and died for Ireland”, said Ms O’Sullivan.

One of the school's pupils, Shaina Hevey (16) read Patrick Pearse's poem The Mother written on the eve of his execution and in which he foresaw the immortality of those who died for their country, "in bloody protest for a glorious thing".

“. . . They shall be spoken of among their people,

The generations shall remember them,

And call them blessed. . .”