What does 1916 mean to you?
A set of ideals, a set of aspirations - I think they're still alive and very meaningful for people
Were commemorate not only the deaths of these people, but the foundation of the southern state. Partition was one of the outcomes of 1916. So we cant just take it that 1916 leads towards the fulfillment of its own aspirations. The outcome of 1916 would have horrified most of those who took part in it.
We're mature enough now... we don't need to demonise the event, we don't need to go back... but we don't need to sanctify it.
If I had a euro for every time people use the phrase about cherishing all the children of the nation equally to mean children - it doesn't. It's standard kind of rhetoric, it's enfants de la Patrie - the children of the nation, the nation is our mother, we're all her children. So there's a certain amount of rhetoric that gets twisted and misunderstood.
The most radical thing in the proclamation is the very first words - 'Irish men and Irish women.' We forget how radical that was.
On his new version of the proclamation written for the Irish Times
There are actually two documents - more interesting is the Democratic Programme of the first Dáil
[Those elected in 1918] met in 1919 to try to put flesh on the proclamation. Its a really extraordinary document ... I've tried to stitch a bit of that back into the proclamation itself.
[It says] the first duty of the republic will be to children - that's not the rhetoric, that's actual children - children shouldn't be poor, children shouldn't be hungry...
How well have we done?
There is cause for a certain sober celebration. A democratic state did arise out of this process, and it remained a democratic state.
I stole a phrase from the Irish political philosopher William Bennett - a republic is "a place in which people can look one each other in the eye without fear of deference." That is still a challenge to us. We're still a very hierarchical society.
On the Celtic Tiger
The experience of the Celtic Tiger was a very scarring period for us collectively... We didn't have the excuses any more. We always had the excuse that we would fulfill all of these ideals that if we had the resources... did we use them in a wise way? I think most people would say no.
On next year's centenary
I think at the core of all this process that we were formed out of some kind of republican idea. And I think that is still very precious for people. This is why we need two articulate it around real things, not just abstractions... like mental health, the welfare of children and the education system.
Our greatest strength is that for historical reasons we're brilliant at muddling through... we're a great people at just coping. Of course, that's a great weakness because when you cope, you don't ever imagine things could be different.
One way that we should celebrate 1916 is that we don't have a far right anti-immigrant party - we're one of the very few countries that doesn't have that. Why do we not have it? because actually, at the core of our society, there's a decency.
You can listen back to Fintan O'Toole on The Sunday Show below:
