Pikemen and women from around the country gathered in Dublin yesterday to commemorate the bicentenary of Robert Emmet's execution after his attempted rising.
Armed with traditional pikes, the group of men and women made their way from Smithfield to St Patrick's Cathedral through the streets of Dublin, stopping at St Catherine's Church, Thomas Street, to lay two wreaths.
A plaque outside St Catherine's reads: "In the roadway opposite this tablet, Robert Emmet died in the cause of Irish Freedom, 20th September 1803."
The French ambassador to Ireland, Mr Gabriel de Bellescize, and Mr Richard Roche, the first chairman of the Robert Emmet Association, laid the wreaths at St Catherine's before the group moved on to St Patrick's for an interdenominational service celebrating Emmet's life and values.
The French-style market running since Thursday in Smithfield, Dublin, is an unlikely place to see 400 pikemen, dressed in grandfather shirts and waistcoats, waiting to march in honour of the romantic hero of the United Irishmen.
However, the United Irishmen, inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution in 1789, had celebrated Bastille Day in 1803.
Mr Bill Murray, founder of the Carrigbyrne, Co Wexford, Pikemen Group, said the 1798 and 1803 Risings had to be remembered. "Twenty thousand people died in Wexford," he said.
"All the people you see here have ancestors who died."
Mr Michael Keating, of New Ross, Co Wexford, said the march was held to remember those who had to strive for freedom.
"This is what our ancestors worked for," he added.
In Paris on July 14th, 1789, French people began the revolution with an attack on the Bastille, a state prison and a detested symbol of royal absolutism.
Robert Emmet's rebel army celebrated Bastille Day in 1803 on Dublin's Coal Quay. However, the authorities were alerted to his insurrectionary plans and had arrived in Smithfield before the rebels when the rising took place on July 23rd of that year.
Mr de Bellescize said the 1803 commemorations were a good occasion to underline the links between France and Ireland.
"We have to remember what we did in the past, good or bad. It is a good basis to build something on," he said.