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On the morning of March 27th, 2016, Captain Peter Kelleher, of the 27th Infantry Battalion of the Irish Defense Forces in Dundalk, left his home in County Louth early and repeated the 514 words of the 1916 Proclamation to himself on the way into Dublin, “like a mantra,” he says.
“I was quite nervous that morning, but, as I had practiced so often and delivered it so many times, felt enough had been done to mitigate against any major problem.” He was due to read the proclamation at noon sharp. That morning, Easter Sunday, an estimated 250,000 people turned out in the streets of Dublin’s city center, according to Gardaí figures, for the showcase event of Ireland’s Easter Rising centenary – a military parade past the GPO. It was, he says, a “daunting time.”