"Enjoy the conference and the rows it will surely rise," President Mary McAleese urged at the conclusion of her recent speech on the 1916 Rising in UCC. She cannot have been disappointed by the subsequent rows; whether she or anyone else should "enjoy" them is another matter. Until recently, people were being killed on this island in its name and others were - still are - willing to die to fulfil their interpretation of its goals.
The Easter Rising clearly still has a potent power 90 years on. It is not merely an academic or historical issue or a debate to be simply enjoyed. It is still a live political issue, not just in terms of whether Fianna Fáil or Sinn Féin can best claim its mantle - a debate from which President McAleese should stand clear - but also in terms of this country's view of itself and of its values.
One can agree easily with the President's view of the 1916 Proclamation as a document that was ahead of its time in terms of universal suffrage and inclusivity. Unfortunately, she used that fact to launch a surprisingly crude piece of myth-making, breathtaking in its revisionism of recent history. Giving the Proclamation credit for the largely liberal society, stable democracy, prosperity and opportunities we have today is a gross rewriting of the history of the past 20 years. Not alone does it studiously ignore intervening decades - when Irish nationalism proved itself capable of being every bit as narrow in social, cultural and economic terms as its critics claimed - it turns on its head the fact that most of Ireland's recent changes grew out of a reaction against the narrowness of the vision that developed from the Rising.
We should ponder, the President suggested, the extent to which "today's freedoms, values, ambitions and success rest on that perilous and militarily doomed undertaking of nine decades ago and on the words of that Proclamation". Yes, we can find inspiration for these attributes in the words of the Proclamation; we could also find them, should we care to look, in the so-called Glorious Revolution, the American Declaration of Independence and the French Revolution. To suggest that the liberal democracy that we have in Ireland now stems only from Easter 1916 - as the President implied but did not say - is ridiculous.
Major strains of the movements that took their inspiration from the Rising included those who derided democracy on the basis that the people had no right to do wrong; Anglophobia (still sadly evident in the President's jibes at Britain); and sickening sectarianism that was all too pervasive in the Northern conflict in spite of the rhetoric of the likes of the Provisional IRA.
Our history is what it is, neither wholly heroic nor totally ignoble. We need to know it in all its complexities to be able to learn from it, and to rise above it. We do not need to relive it. We need to fashion our own values from the best of our own past and from the experiences of other countries and in the light of what we want for our own and our children's futures.
We need tolerance, openness and inclusivity - not characteristics truly associated with the Rising and its legacy, whatever about the fine words of its Proclamation. What we do not need for the 21st century is another series of myths woven from 19th century visions of nationalism. Let the debate continue.