Rising commemorations lead to many family reunions

The centenary of the Easter Rising has led to the largest ever gathering of the MacBride clan.

Major John McBride was one of the 16 leaders of the Easter Rising to be shot though many historians believe he was executed, not for his activities during Easter Week, but for his involvement against the British in the Boer War.

MacBride was not even supposed to be involved in the Rising and only did so after a chance meeting with Thomas MacDonagh on Easter Monday 1916.

Some 35 members of the MacBride family attended the commemoration service at the Garden of Remembrance and posed in front of the pool of remembrance.

Many were meeting for the first time. Dan MacBride, a great grand-nephew of MacBride's from Cleveland Ohio, came with his children and his sister Anne from Chicago. "We've been planning it since last March," said Dan, "we made our plane reservations. Everything has come together. I figured Ireland would give him his due respect. We came here in my father's memory to celebrate Major John's life."

Another relative was Seán MacBride (the same name as the Nobel Prize winning son of Major John MacBride) who is a grand-nephew of the Major. He came from California. He had never met his American MacBride relatives before. "A couple of months ago I went on Facebook and looked through every McBride I could find and I found them."

The centenary commemorations provide the perfect excuse for a first visit to Ireland for Kathy O'Leary Michaud and her sister Pat from Massachusetts.

Their grandmother Bessie McGovern was a first cousin of Seán MacDiarmada, one of the signatories of the Proclamation.

MacDiarmada drove Bessie McGovern to the boat when she emigrated to the United States. "She never got back to see him before he was executed. She returned to Ireland a year after he died," Kathy said.

“I never had the privilege to come to Ireland before. We have heard my Dad, my grandmother talking about Seán MacDiarmada for many years. I planned to come anyway to Ireland, so the Rising celebrations allowed us to make that visit.”

Also present at the Garden of Remembrance was Independent TD Catherine Murphy in her capacity as a relative rather than as a politician. Two grandparents, Margaret Martin and Liam Murnane, were in the Four Courts garrison. They later married .

After the Rising Murnane was interned in Frongoch; Margaret Martin escaped from the Four Courts with the help of a Capuchin friar.

“The first thing he wrote in his journal in Frongoch is a poem to her. He didn’t know when he was going out. It was only when the Americans got involved that the internees got released.”

Ms Murphy said she hoped to attend all the commemorations. “I’m a glutton for this sort of thing,” she said.

Some 3,500 relatives of those who fought in the Rising will be present for the commemorations this weekend, which include a State reception in the RDS that will be addressed by President Michael D Higgins.

One of the biggest contingents will be relatives of Walter Bell, a printer who was in the GPO. Among those who will attend the Easter events are his surviving son, Louis, who lives in Alberta, Canada, and Louis's children, who are based in Edmonton, Vancouver and Montreal. Other relatives will attend from Canada, the United States, Germany, England, Wales and Ireland.

Bell's granddaughter Eileen Bell says: "This is our opportunity as a family to get together, which we love doing, and it is our opportunity to collectively mark that contribution for the next generation and to get an impression of what Ireland is like now."