https://www.1916rising.com/cms/ Archives - Jim Murty’s TravelTravelTravel

And because of the weekend that’s in it we pause for an Easter Reprising in Dublin.

Dubliners will walk like they do daily today by the Daniel O’Connell statue.

On the city’s most famous street, named for the Liberator and still with the bullets embedded from 1916.

And pass with a nod of the head or polite meaningless words.

Many, like the Irish-born picture editor I worked with who didn’t know the names of the Easter 1916 rebels.

But who could rattle off the Manchester United team.

The ideal guides

On shoulders of giants: Jim Larkin in O’Connell Streer

Like many of our cities around the world.

The knowledge and enthusiasm for those who did great deeds on our streets is kept alive by tour guides.

As ever we rely on ourselves and the recommendations of Visit Dublin for the best Easter 1916 tour to take.

And that would be The 1916 Rebellion Walking Tour.

Led since 1996, on the 80th anniversary by Lorcan Collins, author of The Easter Rising and of James Connolly.

Of course no historical event is ever in a vacuum and Lorcan and his colleagues will walk you through the years from 1798.

Dwelling on the Dublin of 1916 and right up to today.

You’ll meet at the International Bar on Wicklow Street, off Grafton Street, 11.30am Mondays to Saturdays and 1pm on Sundays.

The tour costs €23pp and €14 for children 8-16 and free for under-8s and is a gentle two hours.

Stamp of approval

You’ll visit arguably the most significant working post office in the world.

The GPO (General Post Office) in the centre of O’Connell Street where Padraig Pearce made the Proclamation of the Irish Republic.

Dublin Castle, the headquarters of British rule where the first casualty of the rising fell.

Gaolhouse rock

Kilmainham Gaol where the leaders were executed.

And fellow Scot James Connolly was gunned down strapped to his chair with a gangrenous leg.

Film buffs will recognise the prison too from the opening scene of The Italian Job and In The Name Of The Father.

And the Custom House, central to the Civil War, among other landmarks.

Footsteps of legends

In truth, evidence of the Easter Rising is all around you on the streets of Dublin.

And in my 13 years an Irishman, living, working and influencing the direction of the country I love.

The nation of my Dear Old Mum and my Dad’s people.

And for my erstwhile colleague who doesn’t appreciate the sacrifices whose deaths allowed him to be a free Irishman.

Words of history

I write it out in verse.

MacDonagh and MacBride

And Connolly and Pearse

Now and in time to be,

Wherever green is worn,

Are changed, changed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.

And more of this and much besides in your Easter Reprising in Dublin.

Perhaps it’s testimony to how Modern Ireland has moved on that a fellow exec on the Irish paper I worked on didn’t know the rebels’ names… so for him here’s the Easter Reprising.

Another who worked for me thought that King Billy had won the Battle of the Boyne and passed that off jokingly as a lack of interest in history.

Ireland’s history, of course, would have been very different had its people and those of its neighbours left history where it was.

But then God did give his greatest creation a rewind button and the Irish (most of them) use it more than the pause or fast forward.

A new age

This time of year, Easter, is particularly poignant in the Land of Saints and Scholars.

With holy observance and the end of 40-day Lenten fast with family fun, beer and chocolaty children.

And remembrance of those who made a symbolic (and real) sacrifice by laying down their lives for the holy grail of Irish freedom.

Now the whys and wherefores of those six days from Easter Monday, 1916 have been addressed ever since that day.

With many considering Ireland’s unofficial poet laureate WB Yeats encapsulating it best in his retrospective piece Easter 1916.

Tour de force

Of course the Irish being the loquacious and oratory people they are.

It will surprise nobody that there is an Easter 1916 tour in Dublin for you.

Well, a number, but we’re picking out one just for you when you visit the Fair City.

Like all the best Irish tours it starts in a pub, the International Bar on Wicklow Street.

Where Scots-born James Connolly was shot dead by a British firing squad.

And you’ll finish where the heroic rebels ended their days., Kilmainham Gaol.

Tied to a chair on account of his gangrenous leg.

Walk through Dublin on any given day and you will find plaques of the fallen from those six days.

Lorcan good

And tour leader and writer on the Rising Lorcan Collins will walk you through it all.

It’s all an Easter Reprising for visitors who want to learn about the birth of the Modern Nation.

History nuts, and locals who should have listened at school and appreciate the sacrifices of those who laid down their lives for the Republic.