It is impossible not to be moved at least a little, when one stands on the very site of what is being commemorated.
The Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916 was a ramshackle, poorly planned affair in which the primary immediate result was the execution by the British of some of the key participants.
Those executions, however, were the kerosene on the spark of Irish Nationalism, and led to the indepence of the southern counties.
All of the sites of the Rising are considered shrines to one degree or another, but the primary one is the mass grave of the executed leaders in the old prison yard of Arbour Hill prison.
It is stark and bleak, a ribbon of grass in stone yard, with the Proclamation of 1916 inscribed on the wall in both Erse and English.
