People who believe commemoration ceremonies should not take place because they rekindled old enmities underestimated the political maturity and common sense of the Irish people, the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation, Dr McDaid, said yesterday.
The Minister was speaking at a Liam Mellowes commemoration ceremony at Castletown Gorey, Co Wexford.
He said it was strange that there were some people in Ireland who believed that such commemoration ceremonies should not take place.
They saw these ceremonies as unwise reminders of past conflict and of troubles best forgotten.
"They imagine that these occasions rekindle old enmities. They are wrong.
"That superficial assessment underestimates the political maturity and common sense of the Irish people," he said.
Dr McDaid said he would ask those who wanted to rewrite Irish history why they thought that, of all the people and nations on Earth, only the Irish had to refrain from honouring those who fought for their country's liberty.
The Minister said Irish people would be strange if they did not honour and pay respects to those who, like Liam Mellowes, fought to win the freedom and independence that made all the achievements of this country and the genuine progress possible.
Mellowes, as a young republican, led the attempted rising in the Athenry area in Galway. He fell before an Irish firing squad in one of the most distressing incidents in the tragic Civil War, he said.
"Despite some misguided opinions, commemoration ceremonies like this one here in Castletown today are not, and never were, intended to revive old bitterness."