Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has used a keynote speech marking the 90th anniversary of the 1916 Rising to call for "a new culture of active citizenship" in Irish society, writes Liam Reid, Political reporter.
He urged a renewal of republicanism "by marrying new ideas to steadfast values", and said there was a need for "a great national conversation" on what it means to be Irish.
Speaking at the launch of a new 1916 exhibition in the National Museum in Collins Barracks, Dublin, yesterday, Mr Ahern asked people to look "beyond our purely private roles and rights as consumers".
The opening of the exhibition marked the start of what Mr Ahern described as "a week of remembrance, reconciliation and renewal".
He said that the generations since 1916 had sought to honour the sacrifice of those volunteers, but that modern Irish society faced a new set of challenges arising out of its success and prosperity.
"Patriots today are people who are at least as fully aware of the needs of their community as they are of their own individual rights," he said. "Ireland now needs to develop a strong and corresponding sense of duty and community.
"Today, when the scarcest resource of all is time, this role of active participation is being devolved to fewer and fewer people. In the process, we all risk being impoverished, especially those who opt out and leave the responsibilities of citizenship to others."
He said there was a need to identify and understand how public policy hindered and helped active engagement.
"At the beginning of the 21st Century Ireland needs to reimagine a new culture of active citizenship to build a vibrant civic society," he said.
He said it was a challenge and calling "as citizens to honour our country in the way we live and in the esteem we attach to achieving the public good over purely personal satisfaction". In an off-the-cuff remark during the speech, Mr Ahern also referred to the decision in 1993 when he was minister for finance to introduce a tax amnesty, saying it "wasn't one of the great political projects of the time".
The theme of active citizenship in Mr Ahern's speech yesterday is one that Mr Ahern has returned to on various occasions since September. He is establishing a taskforce on active citizenship to address what he sees as the current deficit in voluntarism.
It is also one his party has been focusing on in its bid to win the next general election, and it has included the word "community" in its new party slogan unveiled at its ardfheis last October.
Last September Harvard professor Robert Putnam, a mentor of Mr Ahern, who has chronicled a breakdown in civil society in the US, addressed a Fianna Fáil parliamentary party meeting in Co Cavan.
Speaking to journalists outside the museum, Mr Ahern rejected suggestions that the commemorations and next Sunday's military parade could be seen as glorifying and validating republican violence of the past four decades. He said the parade was to mark the achievements of the Defence Forces.
"They are the descendants of 1916," he said. "I think people will want to acknowledge the sprit and achievements of our Army."