6 April 2015: RTÉ Road to the Rising, O’Connell St, Dublin 2

On 6 April 2015—Easter Monday—RTÉ organised a major commemorative event entitled Road to the Rising. The event was being conducted in collaboration with An Post, Dublin City Council, and the Ireland 2016 initiative. The over-arching theme was to explore life in the the Ireland of 1915 in as a broad a manner as possible. Road to the Rising took place between 11am and 5pm on O’Connell St, Dublin 2, which was closed off to traffic for the duration. More than 60 individual events took place on the day both on O’Connell Street itself and in a wide range of venues in the immediate vicinity: lectures, debates, displays, exhibitions, readings, screenings, walking tours, and re-enactments.

Amongst a huge variety of events scheduled for the day, staff members from the National Library of Ireland  conducted assessments of memorabilia in the GPO; there were also be geneological consultations conducted by Eneclann and Timeline, along with valuations of artefacts by Whyte’s Auctioneers.

A History Ireland ‘Hedge School’ debate took place in the Gresham Hotel: listen to a recording of the debate here. ANU Productions performed a specially commissioned dramatic piece at intervals throughout the day on O’Connell St, and a rare screening of the 1966 RTÉ production Insurrection took place in Liberty Hall. RTÉ Radio conducted live broadcasts throughout the day.

Click here for full details of the Road to the Rising programme and watch the RTÉ news report on the event. Explore the Ireland of 2015 via Century Ireland, read Fearghal McGarry’s account of the Rising from the International encyclopedia of the First World War, and explore the National Library of Ireland’s online exhibition on the Easter Rising.