Commemorations to mark the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising may have caused some mild unease in political circles in Ireland, because, for some time, now Britain and Ireland have buried the hatchet and built a healthy working relationship.

The Rising itself still raises issues concerning democracy and the rule of law.

On Easter Day 1916 a group calling itself “the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic” issued a proclamation declaring that “the Irish Republic is entitled to and hereby claims the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman”.

Unelected and self-appointed, it had no democratic mandate to take up arms to overthrow British rule.

The question now is this - by honouring those who were shot by the British and regarding them as martyrs do we not somehow justify similar claims and intentions in the present day?

It is not surprising then that a body, calling itself the New IRA, has promptly stepped forward to do precisely that.

It had recently murdered a prison officer in Northern Ireland as part of its “unfinished revolution”.

“A century on,” it declared, “and the IRA armed actions against Britain and her agents are as legitimate as they were in 1916.”

Or as illegitimate – that is the point.

This was the unspoken concern beneath the celebrations in Dublin recently.

History records that while public opinion in Ireland was at first generally hostile to the rebels, their execution by firing squad caused a dramatic reversal in popular sentiment.

It allowed the creation of a religious mythology surrounding those events – that they spilled their ‘sacrificial blood’, as Pearse called it, for Catholic Ireland against an alien, oppressive and indeed officially Protestant occupying power.

So something like a democratic mandate gave retrospective authority to the Rising, though it led to a civil war as eventually republicans turned on each other.

“No British person can look back on Britain’s long record of misgovernment in Ireland with anything but sorrow’,” says the editor of the Tablet.

“It is hardly surprising that for generations, one of the pillars of Irish identity was anti-Britishness.’’

But the Peace Agreement is working and has changed attitudes on both sides of the Irish Sea.

The Irish contribution to British life is widely acknowledged as is the fact that Britain made welcome generations of Irish who could not find employment at home.

That other pillar of Irish identity, Catholicism, is passing through a time of crisis.

Thankfully the Church no longer holds the oppressive power of the past. I have already told you how my god- mother was excommunicated.

And so the relationship of the ordinary Irishman in the street with the Catholic Church and with Britain are both passing through a time of transition and hopefully emerging in a healthier condition.

The Irish economy has regained a little of the vigour it had prior to the 2008 crash.

Ireland is an appreciated member of the European community, a valued U.N. peace keeper and one of the most respected smaller nations in the world.

All of these should certainly be celebrated. It is such a pity that –at the time of writing – we cannot let go of our old tribal loyalties to form a new government. Yes, hatchets may be buried but do we still mark the spot?

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