{"id":383899,"date":"2026-04-06T00:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T00:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/383899\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T00:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T00:07:08","slug":"relatives-of-1916-rising-participants-honour-contribution-at-gpo-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/383899\/","title":{"rendered":"Relatives of 1916 Rising participants honour contribution at GPO \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Under contrasting skies \u2013 of glorious spring sunshine and later of dark hail-clouds \u2013 relatives of some of the hundreds of men and women who took part in the 1916 Easter Rising<\/a> gathered to honour them on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The now annual event at Dublin<\/a>\u2019s GPO \u2013 the epicentre of the fighting 110 years ago \u2013 was led by the Defence Forces<\/a>, centred on a reading of the proclamation of the Irish Republic and overseen by President Catherine Connolly<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The hour-long event was described as \u201crespectful\u201d, \u201cvery fitting\u201d and \u201cmoving\u201d by some of those whose fathers\u2019 and grandparents\u2019 contributions to the Rising were being commemorated.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connell Street<\/a> was closed to road and Luas traffic from early morning though several hundred pedestrians gathered freely on the footpath opposite the GPO as the event got under way. <\/p>\n

From shortly after 11am band and pipe music was provided by the Army<\/a> number-one band.<\/p>\n

A tri-service guard of honour \u2013 comprising members of the Army, Naval Service<\/a> and Air Corps<\/a> \u2013 marched on parade, taking up line positions in front of the GPO, before the arrivals, several minutes apart, of Minister for Defence Helen McEntee<\/a>, Dublin Lord Mayor Ray McAdam and An Taoiseach Michael Martin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Connolly\u2019s arrival was greeted with loud cheers and applause for her first Easter commemoration as Uachtar\u00e1n na h\u00c9ireann.<\/p>\n

At noon, as she joined Martin before the GPO, the building\u2019s Tricolour was lowered to half mast. A piper, Corporal Enda McGrath played a lament before Capt Eva Houlihan stepped before the portico to read aloud the proclamation.<\/p>\n

\"CaptCapt Eva Houlihan read the Proclamation outside the GPO on Sunday. Photograph Nick Bradshaw <\/p>\n

As she read the names of the document\u2019s seven signatories the crowd began to applaud, reaching a cheer as she finished. <\/p>\n

The President then stepped forward to lay a laurel wreath before the GPO portico, bowing her head to lead a minute\u2019s silence. As the last post was sounded and the Tricolour raised to full mast, the Army band played the national anthem. <\/p>\n

An Air Corps fly-past completed the event.<\/p>\n

Farann\u00e1n Tannam (74) was there to remember his father Capt Liam Tannam from Harold\u2019s Cross, who was captain of E-company, third battalion, in 1916. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe died when I was 13, so I didn\u2019t really get to talk to him much about it. It is sad now. It was a very nice ceremony \u2013 a nice balance and not over the top.\u201d <\/p>\n

Mary Llewelyn, there to honour her grandfather Denis Byrne, who fought in St Stephen\u2019s Green, \u201cloved\u201d the ceremony. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very proud of him. My grandfather and grandmother met in at Easter 1916 in St Stephen\u2019s Green. She was in Cumann na mBan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Breda O\u2019Halloran and her daughter Aoife thought the event \u201cvery fitting and moving\u201d. Breda\u2019s grandfather, Edward Burke, from the Liberties, was in the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland garrison.<\/p>\n

\"CaptCapt Jack Setright and retired Sgt Maj Gerry Setright at the GPO on Sunday. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw <\/p>\n

From Suncroft, Co Kildare, were Capt Jack Setright, who was in charge of Sunday\u2019s cadet guard of honour, and his father, retired Sgt Maj Gerry Setright. \u201cIt is a very proud day for the family,\u201d said Capt Setright. \u201cThere is a lot of training before events like this. We are delighted and proud of how it turned out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Under contrasting skies \u2013 of glorious spring sunshine and later of dark hail-clouds \u2013 relatives of some of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[81746,81336,3656,13308,615,37837,109388,61,60,93447,4187,1843,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-383899","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-1916-rising","9":"tag-air-corps","10":"tag-catherine-connolly","11":"tag-defence-forces","12":"tag-dublin","13":"tag-dublin-1","14":"tag-easter","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-irish-army","18":"tag-irish-naval-service","19":"tag-micheal-martin","20":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}