On Tuesday, May 3, 2016, ceremonies to mark the 100th anniversary of the executions of Tom Clarke, Patrick Pearse and Thomas MacDonagh are held in the Stonebreakers’ Yard in Kilmainham Gaol, the first executions of the leaders of the Easter Rising. Pearse, Clarke and MacDonagh are remembered in similar but distinct commemorations which take place on the spot where they died on May 3, 1916.

The transcripts of the short courts-martial are read aloud. In the case of Tom Clarke, who offered no defence and made no statement prior to his execution, the proceedings take only a few minutes to recount.

The presence of Capuchin friars from Church Street lends a sense of continuity to proceedings. Their predecessors had been there for the men in their final hours and their testimony is read aloud by their contemporaries.

The Government is represented by Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly, Minister for Foreign Affairs Charles Flanagan and Minister of State at the Department of Heritage Joe McHugh. Kelly speaks of living up to the ideals of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, namely a nation that “cherishes all of the children equally.” He says Pearse was well aware of the effect on his family of his pending execution and had written his poem “The Mother” foreseeing his death.

Capuchin friar Adrian Kearns recalls the testimony of Fr. Columbus Murphy, who ministered to Pearse in his final hours. He did not “quail before the possibility of death . . . but faced his last moments with dignity and with grace.” Fr. Murphy remembered Pearse being a “sad, forlorn figure weighed down by the sense of responsibility” who lamented the loss of life and hoped it would not be in vain.

A wreath is laid on behalf of the Pearse family by his namesake Patrick Pearse, a great grandnephew.

Brother Peter Rogers recalls that Clarke was defiant rather than melancholic in his last hours. Fr. Murphy visited him as well. Clarke, the friar recalls, was “relieved that he was to be executed. His one dread was that he would be sent to prison again.” There is no member of Clarke’s family present to represent him at the commemorations, so a wreath is laid on behalf of the family by the staff of Kilmainham Gaol.

Several of MacDonagh’s surviving grandchildren are present. His granddaughter, Barbara Cashin, lays a wreath on behalf of the family. Her father Donagh and her aunt Barbara are left orphans a year after the Easter Rising when MacDonagh’s wife Muriel drowns off the coast of Skerries in July 1917. Cashin says her father had mixed feelings about the Rising, given the double tragedy that befell him and his sister a short time afterwards. “He had a horrendous childhood. He had a strange upbringing and hated to talk about it,” she says. “He had a split mind about it. I remember asking him as a child about it and saying he must be proud. Weren’t they wonderful. He said, ‘they may have been fools as well.’”

The ceremony takes place with full military honours. The “Last Post” and “Reveille” are played, and the service concludes with the national anthem of Ireland, “Amhrán na bhFiann.”

The commemorations are repeated the following day for the next four to have been executed: Joseph Plunkett, Edward Daly, Michael O’Hanrahan and Willie Pearse. Similar events are scheduled through May 12 to mark the exact centenary of the executions of the remaining eight men killed by a British Army firing squad at the Stonebreakers’ Yard.

Meanwhile, President Michael D. Higgins formally renames the East-Link Toll Bridge in Dublin the Tom Clarke Bridge.

(From: “Executed Rising rebels honoured at Kilmainham Gaol” by Ronan McGreevy, The Irish Times, http://www.irishtimes.com, May 3, 2016)