Commemorative Events
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-25
============================================================

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (SF), Dublin South-Central

It is important, even though there will not be a State commemoration, that the State should get involved. We should try to encourage State institutions to mark the event. The National Museum has a flag. The Minister knows of Joe Clarke who fought in 1916 at Mount Street which is in the Minister's constituency. I have a picture of that flag being handed over and he is in it, as is my father. It was in 1972. Frank MacGabhann contacted me and when I looked up the picture I remembered it from when we were kids. There are connections there and, while this is personal to me, these connections go around the world. We need to recognise the events that shaped Ireland and the role that our diaspora had in shaping this nation. It is important that the message goes out that we respect it. Whether it is a small event or a big event in embassies in the United States and Australia to mark this event, whether it is a publication or a republication of material that was sent before, whether it is a pull-out in one of the newspapers, there are ways the State can get involved without having a full State commemoration. It is important that such an initiative happens.
Books have been published, one of the most recent of which is The Voyage of the Catalpa by Peter Stevens. We can also go to books by Joseph Clarke and others; there is a whole load of them. Let us try to encourage people to read them, and maybe try to encourage some of the film companies to look at them as scripts. We have seen adventures from every other piece of work, most of which are fictional, but this is a true-life story that could be very easily captured. It would send out the message that we remember the audacious plans of Irish republicans around the world, our exiled nation if we want, who helped shape the nation. It is important when we get the opportunity to do so that we mark those occasions, and whether it is a full State commemoration or the State supporting some local commemorations it should happen.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-25/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:41+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-25