The Government is to begin planning for the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising early next year, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said last night, as he launched a book recounting the events surrounding the 50th anniversary in 1966.
Today, he said, it was impossible for anyone, regardless of their political allegiance, if any, to know how they would stand in 1916 and in the events that followed, including the Civil War. "To ask today what side would you have been on?" was a superficial question which ignored the fact that personal experiences and connections were central to most people's actions, he said.
"We simply cannot know how we would have reacted in similar situations. What matters today is their idealism and what we have built on the foundations they laid," he said at the launch of 1916 in 1966 - Commemorating the Easter Rising.
Ireland's more mature democracy is "hopefully arriving at a situation where all parties accept that Ireland's history belongs to every Irish person and is beyond political posturings".
An Oireachtas committee led by Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea, which organised the planning for the 90th anniversary military parade in Dublin, will be reformed in January.
The committee will have representatives from all of the political parties and one from among the Independent TDs and senators.
Voicing his admiration for Seán Lemass, Mr Ahern said: "Lemass, despite being a veteran of the Rising, interpreted 1966 in terms of the present and the future. The message of the commemoration was that what Ireland needed was . . . a new and different form of patriotism."