Speech by Mary Lou McDonald at “Preserving Our Past, Rising to Our Future” Moore St conference

Every nation that has fought for its independence has its sacred soil, its revered buildings, its hallowed ground. Ireland is such a nation.

Places imprinted with the legacy of our proud revolutionary history, touched by noble rebellion, which today echo still with the courage and inspiration of those who made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom. We meet in the GPO.

One hundred and years ago today, outside this building, Padraig Pearse read aloud the proclamation of the Irish Republic. Not only was it a notice of revolt, it was a clarion call to the future. A parchment that poetically expresses a hope that has reverberated through the generations. An Irish republic: Ireland; free, united, equal, and prosperous.

Today, we still reach with hopeful hearts for that Ireland that can be. If we walk a just short distance from here, we come to Moore Street.

Moore Street is part of the 1916 Battlefield site – the laneways of history. This includes the historic terrace at 10-25 Moore Street, as well as the GPO, the “White House” and O’Brien’s Bottling Store in Henry Place, and the lanes, streets and boundaries of Moore Street, Moore Lane, Henry Place and O’Rahilly Parade. The area is at the heart of our fight for independence.

16 Moore Street is where five of the seven signatories of the Proclamation met for the final time. It was the last HQ of the 1916 government of the Irish Republic. It was in the buildings, streets and laneways surrounding Moore Street that the Irish republic was born and where it was defended for six days by gallant patriots who believed in a better future with all their hearts. The battlefield site has been described by the national museum of Ireland as the “the most important historic site in modern Irish history.”

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