By
BERNICE HARRISON
Soldiers & Chiefs
The anniversary of the Easter Rising went by this year without much commemoration – there's still time during the last days of the long Easter holidays to mark it with a visit to National Museum at Collins Barracks in Dublin where the new Soldiers & Chiefsexhibition has enough large exhibits and curiosities to fill a long afternoon.
The exhibition traces our military history from 1550 to the 21st century and is divided into three areas: Irish soldiers at home; Irish soldiers abroad; and Irish soldiers in the 21st century.
It’s a huge exhibition with over 1,000 objects from the 18-pounder field gun used by the British during the Easter Rising and the Irish Civil War to the personal possessions of Irishmen who fought on both sides during the American Civil War.
There are uniforms, letters and interactive displays helping to bring the history alive and show how the various wars and battles impacted on ordinary people. In the museum’s permanent exhibition space there’s the Easter Rising section with an original copy of the Proclamation, as read by Pádraig Pearse outside the GPO on Easter Monday.
It’s worth noting the museum’s slightly unusual opening hours to avoid hanging around at the gate: Tuesday to
Saturday, 10am-5pm; Sunday, 2pm-5pm; and closed Monday.
* museum.ie