Dáil debates

Wednesday, 24 March 2021

Ceathrú Chultúir 1916 Bill 2021: Second Stage [Private Members]

 

10:55 am

Photo of Dessie EllisDessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We are being given a once in a generation opportunity to preserve what is one of the most important historical sites of modern Irish history. For too long in our recent past, bad planning, disastrous development decisions and a disregard for our heritage lost us forever the Viking site at Wood Quay, the Georgian facades of St. Stephen's Green, the Metropolitan Theatre, and more recently the criminal destruction of the home of the 1916 leader The O’Rahilly. We have to learn from the mistakes of the past and not replicate them in the present. The decisions that must be made on this historic quarter must not be left to the vagaries of developers or speculators, whose only concern is profit. This is a site that even the National Museum of Ireland described as the most important historic site in modern Irish history. It is an area rich in the history of the Rising. After a week of shelling, fighting and fire at the GPO, the garrison fought its way to the houses on Moore Street, where the final acts of the Rising were played out and the decision to end the Rising was made. Each house on the Moore Street terrace has its own historical significance, not least, No. 16, the site of the last headquarters of the Provisional Government.

We have in this Bill a great opportunity to develop a historical and cultural quarter that would include a living museum that would recreate the historical events of the area and provide visitors with a practical interpretation of the Rising. There would be an economic and tourism bonus from the development of such a quarter and an opportunity for regeneration of the historic Moore Street market.

I have a very personal interest in all of this, as both my grandfathers were out in 1916. One fought with Pearse and Connolly in the GPO and the other with Markievicz and Mallin in the College of Surgeons. I have historical artefacts and medals connected with the Rising that have been passed down through my family and I could see no better home for them than in a museum situated on this battlefield site. This Bill and its proposals ends the uncertainty around the development of the site and raises it from its current state of ruin and decay to an area that is both revitalised and renewed, and also serves as a living memorial to the men and women of the Rising.

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