Two thousand and six is a year of anniversaries in Ireland. We have already commemorated the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising and the Battle of the Somme, writes Rónán O'Brien.
It is not surprising, then, that another anniversary has been overlooked, namely the 1906 landslide election of the Liberal Party in a United Kingdom then including the whole of Ireland.
The Liberals have not won an overall majority in a UK election since. Having initially come into office prior to the election following the collapse of Arthur Balfour's administration in 1905, the Liberals were to remain in power until the advent of the war coalition in 1915.
The Liberal government elected in 1906 became dominated by two men, Herbert Asquith and David Lloyd George. Until the advent of Margaret Thatcher, Asquith was the longest-serving prime minister in 20th century Britain. He succeeded Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman as premier in 1908.
Lloyd George's tenure as chancellor, which began upon Asquith's elevation to Number 10, has only recently been passed by Gordon Brown. He eventually succeeded Asquith, having also served as minister for munitions and war minister in between jobs, in December 1916.
The two men's relationship with Ireland is as complex as that of their party. In particular, their careers were considerably influenced by the other two anniversaries we have remembered this year. Neither man is particularly favourably remembered in this country.
It was Asquith who visited Dublin as prime minister soon after the Easter Rising and whose government allowed the execution of the rebels. In the immediate aftermath of that event, Asquith handed Lloyd George the poisoned chalice of resurrecting a political process to resolve the outstanding Irish question.
The perceived failure of the British offensive on the Somme later that year was the final nail in the coffin of Asquith's tenure as prime minister. He was ousted in a palace coup and replaced by Lloyd George, ironically supported by the Tories.
The Liberals never recovered from being split asunder in this fashion. As prime minister, Lloyd George was critically involved in the Treaty negotiations with Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith in 1921.
So why then is the election of this group of Edwardian men worth even noting, let alone commemorating?
The answer is that the 1906 Liberal government is possibly the most radical government to govern Ireland in the 20th century.
In fact, despite the eclipse of the Liberals by the theoretically more radical Labour party, no less a commentator than Roy Hattersley, former deputy leader of the Labour party, has described the 1906 administration as one of the two most radical British governments of the century. The other is of course the Atlee administration elected in 1945.
Its legacy included the introduction of old age pensions (1908), labour exchanges (1909), trade boards (1909), a national insurance scheme to afford workers protection against sickness, invalidity and unemployment (1911) and legislating for the Taff Vale case affording trade unions the financial immunity to strike. In the latter case the Liberals facilitated the development of political trade unionism, the Labour party and probably their own demise.
Ireland became a particular beneficiary of the old age pensions legislation as birth certificate registration had arrived late in this country thereby making it difficult to determine who did, or who did not, qualify for the pension in this country. Seventy was designated as the original qualifying age.
Ironically Liberal interest in social issues, epitomised by the early career of Lloyd George, had come at the expense of Gladstone's crusade on Ireland. As interest in Irish issues declined, interest in social questions grew.
Indeed, as interest in social issues developed in Britain, so too did discomfort in the Irish parliamentary party.
So much so in fact that the Irish party initially voted against Lloyd George's famous "People's Budget" in response to Irish unrest at the additional alcohol duties it imposed. The budget, which imposed a series to additional duties and land taxes to pay for old age pensions and the naval building programme, was rejected by the House of Lords.
When it became clear that the budget would be the vehicle for the overdue clash between the Liberals and the House of Lords - the 1893 Home Rule Bill, for example, had passed through the Commons before being rejected by the Upper House - the Irish Party changed its view. The resultant clash gave rise to the most partisan period of British history and the ultimate victory of the Liberals over the Lords - a further notch on the radical bedpost.
Like all radical governments, the Liberals had their failures. Ireland is arguably one, although the extent of their failure here is qualified by what has happened since. In social terms, the failure to grant women's suffrage is as significant.
Ultimately, the government's importance is that its programme marked a decisive end to the Victorian concept of laissez faire economics and laid the groundwork for future reformers. They were Gladstone's men consigning Gladstonian liberalism to history.
In Ireland its key figures are remembered for their involvement in events that convulsed this country, Asquith in 1916 and Lloyd George in 1921. In truth their legacy is a broader one and in this year of commemoration deserves at least a mention.
The most radical government of Ireland in the twentieth century? Obviously the benchmark here is important - national independence is a radical achievement in itself!
But, it is unlikely that the next government in this country, of whatever hue, will contemplate as radical an agenda for change in the name of fairness, as these Edwardian gentlemen started, albeit falteringly, 100 years ago.