"I AM of Ireland… come dance with me in Ireland,” declared Erin’s greatest poet, WB Yeats. It is hard to overestimate the significance of Yeats to the development of modern Ireland. The Sligo poet was the artistic father of the Irish Literary Revival, and co-founder of the Abbey Theatre, which put Irish creativity at the centre stage of the emergent cultural Nationalism in the late 19th century.

ON EASTER Sunday and Monday, commemorative ceremonies took place in Glasgow cemeteries to honour Glasgow-based Irish Republicans who rendered service as members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, Briogaid na h-Albain, Óglaigh na hÉireann, Cumann na mBan, Na Fianna Éireann and Sinn Féin.

MY DAUGHTER, Roisín asked me recently what I thought was a fairly logical question. Why does the date that Easter falls on change each year? And the answer is simple; because it’s a ‘moveable feast’ based on the lunar calendar and not a fixed date like Christmas.

AT THE junction of North King Street and Church Street on Dublin’s northside stands a now-derelict public house that many Dubliners remember simply as ‘The Tap.’