After you've been to Mass on Easter Sunday and dropped your generous donation in the plate, lived through dinner with the family and done your bit with the washing up, raise a glass and toast to Ireland, ninety years old this Easter Monday.
And is everyone happy with the parade that's planned? In the nation of begrudgers, such would never be. One side argues about the need of armed violence to achieve freedom, while the others insist that Ireland would have broken free of England eventually, just like Canada and Australia. After all, the Irish are lovers, not fighters, and they've gotten bad press down the years but they don't resort to violence, oh no, and what's on those American military planes stopping over at Shannon?
What's past is done and cannot be changed. Pundits can argue until hell freezes over, postulating on the what ifs. No one can ever state with certainty that something might have happened if done differently, because the Easter Rising cannot be undone; the clock cannot be turned back.
Most of Ireland is a nation, and to not celebrate because of the way it came about is a silly gesture. Look to the future, instead of the past. There's plenty of problems that need solving in the here and now. In the meantime, Happy Ninetieth Birthday, and many more.
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