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Call to diaspora to commemorate 1916

Irish rebels during 1916
Irish rebels during 1916 Irish rebels during 1916

IRELAND'S contribution to the arts, drama, music and sport will be celebrated from New York to Paris as part of world-wide events to commemorate the 1916 Easter Rising.

Details of the Ireland 2016 Global and Diaspora Programme were announced in Dublin last night by the Republic’s heritage minister, Heather Humphreys, and foreign affairs minister, Charlie Flanagan.

The launch took place in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, where Michael Mallin and Countess Constance Markievicz were based during the Easter Week fighting.

There are already a number of key events planned for next year, including a three-week festival of Irish arts and culture at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC as well as a concert featuring Irish classical musicians and singers at the renowned London venue, the Wigmore Hall, and a schools’ Gaelic football blitz in Buenos Aires.

Seán O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars will be performed in Sydney, and next year’s Paris International Beckett Festival will focus on the Rising while the Irish Arts Center in New York will feature artists like The Gloaming, Corn Exchange and Camille O’Sullivan.

Film and history buffs will be able to see screenings of archival feature films relating to 1916 in New York and a new operatic version of James Joyce’s The Dead, will be presented at festivals in Canada.

The Irish government is now encouraging the Irish diaspora to get involved. Ms Humphreys yesterday said it was “vitally important” that Irish people living abroad are recognised for “the huge contribution they have made to this country over the last 100 years”.

Mr Flanagan said that events taking place “from Washington to Tokyo, and from Paris to Buenos Aires” would allow the island’s “global family and friends to come together” and reflect on its past, present and future.

Meanwhile, the state’s Minister for the Diaspora Jimmy Deenihan revealed that a Gala Concert in Dublin’s National Concert Hall in March would be beamed around the world while artefacts from 1916 would available in digital form on the website www.Inspiring-Ireland.ie.