President Michael D Higgins led the Easter Rising commemorations in Dublin today, which culminated in four Air Corps planes flying over O’Connell Street.
At the invitation of Taoiseach Enda Kenny, President Higgins laid a wreath outside the GPO in remembrance of those who died during Easter week 1916 and the Proclamation was read by Captain Kate Hanrahan.
Monsignor Eoin Thyne, the defence forces chaplain, said a prayer of remembrances honouring “without hierarchy of victimhood, the women and children and all the dead of the rising”.
“We stand together in our determination to ensure that our country will honour the ambition set out in the Proclamation, to be a republic which cherishes its children equally not just in lofty words but in everyday deeds,” Msgr Thyne added.
Others present included Tánaiste Joan Burton Minister for Defence Simon Coveney, Minister for Arts Heather Humphreys, Attorney General Máire Whelan, Chief Justice Susan Denham, Government Chief Whip Paul Kehoe, Ministers of State Tom Hayes, Simon Harris and Aodhan Ó’Riordáin, Fianna Fáil leader Michéal Martin, Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary-Lou McDonald and SDLP leader Alastair McDonnell.