We are surely living in blessed times when the focus of an Easter 1916 commemoration is not on whether some tradition or other is being mortally subverted or usurped, but on the footwear of the Army officer chosen to read the 1916 Proclamation from the steps of the GPO in Dublin yesterday, writes Kathy Sheridan
She wore high heels. Capt Therese O'Keeffe of the 1st Southern Brigade declaimed the 91-year-old text in a fine, ringing Cork accent, and possibly for the first time in those 91 years, an audience could listen without wincing to the provisional government's prayer for the Irish Republic, "that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine" (well, not the physically violent kind, anyway). We have had our own Easter miracle.
And yet it was notable that the same audience could observe the Taoiseach alight from his black Mercedes and, in this gloriously historic week, choose not to honour him with the round of applause accorded to the President on her arrival.
This was the week, after all, when Bertie Ahern's tireless labours and those of countless others culminated in that handshake with Dr Ian Kyle Paisley, a gesture that made it possible for some 7,000 of us to stand outside the GPO yesterday and bask in a low-key, relaxed, sunlit ceremony that at last has come to mark nothing more than a turning point in our history.
The balmy spring air was free of tension and bluster. There were no speeches. The crowd - comprising Army veterans in wheelchairs, vast numbers of Poles and Chinese, and a generous smattering of English and American visitors - was an extraordinary representation of the new Ireland, even if it was still just a fraction of the turnout for last year's charged anniversary, chiefly remembered for its odd assortment of tanks, gun carriages and gimlet-eyed generals saluting from flatbed jeeps.
There were far fewer troops, too, and the GPO facade was mercifully free of VIP viewing galleries and splay-legged, gum-chewing CIA types.
The historic building itself and the military cadets of Óglaigh na hÉireann formed an appropriately spare backdrop to the poignant flag-lowering and wreath-laying ceremonies.
Despite the best efforts of Capt Larry Heffernan to inject gravitas into his announcements, however, there was an incorrigibly friendly air about this year's "static" march.
"The Minister for Defence, Willie O'Dea, Teachta Dála, is now arriving on parade," Capt Heffernan pronounced.
And along comes Willie, swinging into O'Connell St in a dusty Lexus.
"The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Cllr Vincent Jackson, is now arriving on parade" - not in his Cinderella-esque mayoral coach, alas, but in a homely, 07-D-1-registered family saloon, from which we fully expected the entire family and panting family dog to erupt. Alas, it was just the mayor. The Taoiseach arrived in his shiny Merc followed by a fairly battered special branch car, then soon after came the piece de resistance: the President's Mercedes, amid a 30-strong motorcycle escort, pursued by a BMW, a jeep and a blue, unmarked Garda car.
The prayer of remembrance was by the Army Chaplain, Mgr Eoin Thynne, in smart uniform over his clerical collar. He prayed for "a land where different races live in tolerance and mutual respect . . . A land where the benefits of civil life are shared by everyone . . . A nation that loves life and grows in justice and solidarity". Just the kind of Camelot the 1916 leaders had in mind, no doubt.
The proceedings culminated in a robust rendering of Amhrán na bhFiannby the Army band, punctuated by a blink-and-you'll-miss-it Air Corps fly-past, involving four PC-9 planes and three helicopters. The entire event was over in less than an hour.
The outing had the warm approval of Pádraig Pearse's 72-year-old grand-nephew, Patrick Pearse. Although he is holding out for a statue or a monument of some kind to be erected on O'Connell St to the memory of the 1916 leaders, he has no doubt how the dead patriots would have viewed this week's events. "The leaders would have said 'yes' to the handshake," he said firmly. "They would have said that it's time to move forward".
With Patrick was his 20-year-old grandson, Kyle, not named after Dr Ian, disappointingly, but after an American television actor to whom his mother took a shine. Kyle, a student of international relations at DCU, thinks he might apply to join Óglaigh na hÉireann. And so the wheel turns full circle. Old ghosts will continue to haunt such events, of course.
Nora Comiskey, of the 1916-21 Club (formed to bring both sides together after the Civil War), sat among the dignitaries, remembering lost young lives and the young men such as Bobby Sands, as well as the entangled tragedies of people like Capt James Kelly, the Arms Trial veteran, who was twice president of the 1916-21 club. Yesterday she spoke without rancour, only with regret, in an atmosphere of peace and redemption.