Under an oak tree in a quiet country graveyard, a simple memorial stone was unveiled last night carrying a message of deep remorse for the worst atrocity of the 1798 rebellion.
Catholics and Protestants gathered for a service of reconciliation to remember the victims, well over 100 men, women and children, who were massacred at Scullabogue Barn in Co Wexford, by their rebel captors.
Most of those who died were Protestants, and the bitter legacy of the slaughter is still strong today. Orange Order representatives had been expected to attend the ceremony, but cried off at the weekend, reportedly because they did not consider the term "reconciliation" appropriate.
The memorial stone stands in the graveyard of St Mary's Church in Old Ross, a few miles from Scullabogue. Most of the victims were buried there in a mass grave with no individual headstones.
The Comoradh '98 organisation, which organised the event with the small local Church of Ireland Select Vestry, listed 113 names of those who died on June 5th, 1798, some by shooting but most by suffocation or burning, when the barn in which they were held prisoner was set alight.
The service was conducted by the Rev Paul Mooney, the Rector of St Mary's, with local Catholic curates Fr Murty Byrne and Fr Frank Murphy.
The victims had been ordinary people, "farmers and servants, tailors and weavers, cattle dealers and butchers, slaters and masons, and one pipe player," said Mr Patrick Comerford, of The Irish Times, in an address.
The Scullabogue massacre, he said, stood out above all other events and was one of the single worst atrocities to take place in Ireland. For Christians, he added, the message should be, not "forgive and forget", but "remember and be reconciled".