THE HISTORY of the world is but the biography of great men, or so goes the saying. However, yesterday in Dublin more than 200 people turned out to celebrate some less well-known figures from Ireland’s past.
Remembering forgotten heroes was the almost paradoxical rallying cry of the day as a plaque dedicated to the composer of Amhrán na bhFiannwas unveiled.
In 1907, Patrick Heeney composed what was to become Ireland’s national anthem.
Four years later he died, in poverty, buried in an unknown grave.
In his honour and to mark 100 years since his death, the North Inner City Folklore Project unveiled the plaque, located where Mr Heeney was born on the corner of Railway Street and Gardiner Street.
Also commemorated on the plaque are two other local residents, Peadar Kearney, who wrote the song’s lyrics and Liam Ó Rinn, who translated them into Irish.
The crowd had earlier made its way from Liberty Hall – led by teenagers dressed in Citizen Army and Cumann na mBan uniforms – where a re-enactment of the hoisting of the green flag that flew over the original Liberty Hall building in 1916 took place.
“This was the heart of the revolution, the old Liberty Hall,” said Tom Redmond of the folklore project. “It was the home of working-class life and working-class activity and it was the place that the Citizen Army was organised.”
Keeping with the spirit of the day, the actions of a little-known young woman 95 years ago were honoured at the ceremony.
Molly O’Reilly was just 14 years old when James Connolly gave her the honour of hoisting the green flag of the Republic over Liberty Hall a week prior to the Easter Rising.
Thousands had gathered on that day in 1916 as the Citizens Army assembled in full military regalia, when a small girl was chosen to present the flag of the Republic.
In fact, O’Reilly was so small that she had to be lifted on to a chair to hoist the green standard embroidered with the gold harp, which at the time flew alongside the Tricolour as the flags of the Irish Republic.
Some 95 years later and her daughter Constance Corcoran was on hand to once again raise the flag, presented to her on this occasion by James Connolly’s greatgrandson, James Connolly-Herron.