My grandfather's time in the GPO was part of a lifelong struggle, writes Eoin Ryan.
My grandfather, Dr Jim Ryan, was an infantry private in B Company, 1st Battalion, Dublin Brigade of the Irish Volunteers, and one of the GPO garrison during the Rising.
Luckily for me, he survived Easter Week 1916, the Four Courts battle and many other republican activities, to become one of the political leaders of our emerging State. Elected Sinn Féin MP in 1918, he served as TD for South Wexford for over 50 years.
He also fulfilled ministerial posts in many Fianna Fáil governments. As a child, however, it was difficult to recognise either the rebel or the political leader in the kind and thoughtful man, who showed such delight in my company and such attention to my questions.
He died in 1970, when I was 16, before my questions, or those of my siblings, on his experience had turned to more intellectual exploration of his motives or politics.
I now know, through a combination of history and family lore, of his precise activities in the GPO.
His intended role in the Rising was as a fighting volunteer.
However, the medical doctor who was meant to address emergencies in the GPO had not reported for duty on that fateful day.
As a final-year medical student, he was the most qualified member of the garrison and was put in charge of the medical unit.
He later wrote a full account of the activities of this unit, including tending to James Connolly's several wounds and, with the aid of a captured British medical officer, an operation on his shattered ankle.
His first impression of the GPO ". . . was of exhilaration. I need hardly say that there was a deep feeling of brotherhood and it seemed as if we had already got rid of all alien authority."
A surprising impression of his account of Easter Week is of the apparent ease with which the rebels moved around between buildings in the area.
"Whether the comparative safety was due to bad visibility or poor marksmanship on the British side I don't know," he wrote. His medical supplies, for instance, were retrieved from chemist shops in the area without major difficulty. ( His account is in The Easter Rising 1916 and UCD, Browne and Nolan, 1966.)
Although I had many opportunities to ask about his wider motives and politics, the childhood fascinations of my brothers and I were more directed to guns, war wounds, prison life and hunger strikes.
One of our particular fascinations was what happened to his gun.
On the days before the Rising, he was twice despatched to Cork.
He was first sent on Good Friday to carry orders from Seán MacDermott to Tomás MacCurtain for the intended general rising. He returned to Dublin on Saturday afternoon, only to be ordered back to Cork again later that night by Eoin Mac Neill to cancel the rising.
This time he was driven to Cork by James Mac Neill, brother of Eoin. The return journey to Dublin on this occasion proved more difficult through a countryside which was alive with contrary rumours about fighting in Dublin and subsequent transport disruptions.
Arriving back in Dublin on Easter Tuesday evening to find the Rising was indeed taking place, he went immediately to the GPO without returning home to retrieve his buried gun.
Prison and other events followed and he never went back afterwards to find this gun.
That it still lay buried in an oiled sack in a garden on Ranelagh Road was a fascinating possibility to us as children. Expeditions for its excavation were planned but thankfully never realised! I do not recall that he ever brought up the subject of 1916 or his other republican activities with us. My grandmother and mother were the ones who would usually provide the reminders that our grandfather was a part of this great event.
These reminders were sometimes of a somewhat mundane nature, such as: "Eat up your dinner. Your poor grandfather would have been glad of it when he was on hunger strike." The hero himself, however, would usually divert attention from his own role by telling us amusing stories about prison life and the characters and situations he encountered. It was probably during the commemoration in 1966 that my siblings and I first realised that his exploits were known outside the family.
I recall being brought to many parades, collecting spent bullet cases after the commemorative volleys were fired in Arbour Hill, and being patted on the head by a lot of men in big coats. I also recall a very long and noisy night at a form of pageant in Croke Park, which left me with the confusing impression that both Wolfe Tone and Robert Emmet were in the GPO.
It is now clear to me that my grandfather did not see the GPO experience as his big moment in history. He, many of his siblings and my grandmother Máirín Cregan were all part of a wider nationalist community, for whom 1916 was one step in a campaign which continued throughout their lives.
It was a campaign to bring self-determination into all aspects of Irish economy, culture and politics.
The armed struggle was part of the same canvas which also featured the development of Irish industry, arts and education. It was this spirit which drove his involvement in politics and my grandmother's involvement in Irish-language writing and publishing.
Looking back at these events today, I am proud of my family's role. This pride is not centred on the one big event represented by the GPO, but rather on the wider role which my family played then and ever since in the political development of Ireland. My grandfather and his generation played their full part in gaining our independence, and in showing the way for other small countries with similar aspirations to follow suit. Yet families, like all communities, have different facets. At the time my grandfather was serving in the GPO, contemporaries in my mother's family were serving in the British forces.
Five Daly brothers from Glasnevin, my great-uncles, served in the British army or navy during the first World War. Two of them, Patrick and James Daly, were killed.
History was to show that their contribution was of less significance to the development of our country than that of the men of 1916, but they did not have the wisdom of such hindsight to guide them at the time. In this context, I am equally proud of the way in which they did their duty.
As an MEP, I can also see 1916 and the independence struggle in the context of the modern history of small European nations. Ireland's struggle was an early example of a small nation opting for self-determination.
We now find ourselves in a modern Europe, much of whose strength is derived from the diversity of its small nations. In 1916-21 we gave an example to some of those countries in our struggle for independence, and we are now proving an example to many of them in our economic success. Most countries celebrate a national day of independence. Ireland never has.
I welcome this commemoration of the Easter 1916 Rising. It is a sign that we are finally throwing off our burden of doubt about our worthiness as a nation; a nation worthy of celebrating its independence. The heroes of successive Irish risings would be proud.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a n-anamacha uasal.
Eoin Ryan is a Fianna Fáil TD and MEP.
Tomorrow: Sinéad McCoole on the untold story of the wives of the 1916 leaders, and what happened to them in the years that followed.