Although many Irish people can sing along to the ballad Kevin Barry, few are aware that his remains lie within the walls of Mountjoy Prison.
Barry and nine other men have been buried there since they were hanged during the War of Independence. But 80 years later their remains are set to be removed.
This week the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, announced he is seeking permission from the relatives to exhume the remains.
With the consent of all families, they would be buried in the Republican plot in Glasnevin Cemetery where a memorial engraved with their names stands.
For many relatives the Minister's announcement comes after years of struggle for a proper burial for those executed.
Since she was five years old, Ms Eileen O'Sullivan has visited the grave of her uncle, Bernard Ryan, in Mountjoy. He was executed in April 1921 when her father, Patrick O'Sullivan, was nine years old and since then the family have tried to have his remains released.
"It was my father's dying wish that the remains be released," she says. The authorities cited the Capital Punishment Act as a reason for not releasing Bernard Ryan's body after the execution. Since then, Patrick O'Sullivan worked to have his brother removed from Mountjoy by petitioning local representatives.
"He always hit a brick wall. He was disappointed at various governments as there was no reason why," Eileen adds.
Mr Leonard O'Sullivan, the grandchild of Thomas Traynor executed in April 1921, said his family was initially involved in the campaign to remove the remains but also ran into problems.
While the family was allowed access to the prison once they had requested it, the idea of visiting a grave inside Mountjoy's walls was difficult.
"It is punishment enough to have these lives taken without being able to mourn them."
The National Graves Association, headed by Martesa Kearney until her death earlier this year, also put pressure on governments to release the remains. Finally, in February 1994, Ms Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, then Minister for Justice, agreed to the proposal subject to the consent of the relatives.
When contacted, however, the family of Patrick Moran objected to his grave being disturbed. Moran was buried along with five other men executed on March 14th, 1921, and shares their grave. According to those involved in the campaign, his sister opposed the removal of his remains because of difficulties in identifying her brother. She has since died and the family have recently said they agree to the removal of the remains.
The relatives of Frank Flood, Patrick Maher, Thomas Whelan, Thomas Bryan, Patrick Doyle and Edmund Foley have also agreed to have the remains removed.
MATT DOYLE, secretary of the National Graves Association, says successive governments have put obstacles in their way. They have considered taking legal action against the present Government to force it to act on the issue.
"As the years went on we felt there was probably a hidden agenda there as well," says Doyle.
"One of the families received a letter from the Department of Justice saying that the men in Mountjoy weren't being forgotten as the National Graves Association were remembering them and that there was no need for them to be removed at all or released. So we felt they were sort of using this as a stick to sort of block the removal." As a result the National Graves Association as a group has not been to the graves in Mountjoy since. Mr Doyle said he also felt governments were concerned about reburial because of the sensitive situation in Northern Ireland over the past number of decades.
Ms Nora Owen, who was Minister for Justice from 1994 to 1997, rejects this. "It had nothing to do with that at all. I have no memory of anyone saying this is a sensitive area or anything like that," Ms Owen said.
The only reason she would not sanction the removal was because of the dissenting family, she added. "I very much welcome the decision to release the remains. It is something I would have liked to have done as minister."
Ironically, Kevin Barry's family did not join the campaign for the release of his remains. His nephew, Mr Donal O'Donovan, said that while he respects the decision to remove the remains he did not want to get involved in bringing it about.
Mr O'Donovan also questions what will be found when the graves are excavated. "What the hell are they lifting? They are only digging up a bit of dirt and calling it Kevin Barry." Some of Barry's relatives have said they would like his remains to be buried beside other family graves in a cemetery in Tinneclash, on the Carlow/Wicklow border.
A map marking where the remains lie in Mountjoy will be used when exhumation takes place. But it is not known how successful the procedure will be given the time lapse and the fact that the bodies may have been buried in quicklime.
To most of the families the reburial of the remains will mean they will be able to visit their grandfathers and uncles, and in the case of the Whelan family, their brother, in a cemetery they can visit whenever they wish. For the National Graves Association, according to Matt Doyle, it will mean honouring 10 men who fought and died for Irish freedom. "Most importantly, it's a place where the people of this country can go and pay their respects to Kevin Barry and the other nine."