While attending a state ceremony which aimed to honour the Irish Citizen Army and rebel leader James Connolly the president of Ireland said “the Republic of which they dreamt – the Republic which is yet to realised – was one that would enable a more equal redistribution of the fruits of prosperity among all of its children”
This event took place at Liberty Hall, the headquarters of the Irish Citizen Army.
The Irish Citizen Army was set up by James Connolly in 1913, before the Lockout in that year, and also was where the Proclamation itself was printed.
Michael D Higgins also praised the Irish Citizen’s Army for the respect and ranking it gave to the women involved with the army and how women were included the rebels’Â vision for a new Ireland.
The Helga, a British gunship demolished Liberty Hall during the Rising, however the president remarked that the hopes of the Citizen Army were not destroyed.
“Those hopes did not die. We are all here today”, Michael D Higgins said.