SIPTU To Host Series Of 1916 Commemoration Events

SIPTU is to host a major programme of cultural events to commemorate the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising, including a gala concert on Easter Saturday, 26 March, in Liberty Hall featuring performances by singers Christy Moore and Damien Dempsey, poet Paula Meehan and flute player, Matt Molloy.

'Glórtha 1916' will also feature drama and music by uilleann pipers, Louise Mulcahy and Conor McKeon, and will recall the various contributions to music and culture of those who fought in the Rising. President Michael D Higgins and his wife, Sabina, will attend the performance.

SIPTU Head of Communications, Frank Connolly, said: "The event will remember the role of Liberty Hall where the Proclamation of the Republic was printed and from where the Irish Citizen Army (ICA), Cumann na mBan and Irish Volunteers marched to the GPO and other centres of the Rising on Easter Monday 1916. An exhibition of memorabilia from 1916 will be displayed on the night."

The first major event is a showing of the iconic films Mise Eire and Saorise? The screening in Liberty Hall on Sunday, 13 March, will feature a presentation by President Higgins to the director of the two epics, George Morrison, and a music interval with Peadar O’Riada.

On Easter Monday, 27 March, in a SIPTU/RTE co-production, singer Frances Black will be joined by trade union activists, Francis Devine and Michael Halpenny, writer Nell Regan and broadcaster, Joe Duffy, to discuss the role of the ICA and of women and children in the Rising. Rachel Phelan will discuss the 'flags of the resistance'.

On Easter Tuesday, 28 March, President Higgins will lay a wreath at the statue of James Connolly opposite Liberty Hall on Beresford Place in a State commemoration of those who lost their lives fighting with the ICA in Easter week 1916 and in the executions that followed. A plaque to mark those who died will be unveiled by the President at Liberty Hall following the wreath-laying ceremony.

'Pull Down a Horseman' a play by Eugene McCabe first produced in 1966 for the 50th anniversary of the Rising will be performed by Dublin Lyric Theatre at lunchtimes from Wednesday, 30th March to Friday, 1st April.

'Women at Work: A Historic and Contemporary Reflection of Women's Role in Society over the last 100 years is the theme of a conference in Liberty Hall on Thursday 31 March.

Poet, Theo Dorgan, Karan Casey, Niall Vallely and Declan O’Rourke among others will feature in a night of traditional music and remembrance in Liberty Hall on Friday, 1 April.

(MH/CD)