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| | ireland.com / Focus / The 1916 Rising |
 | | This Easter Rising is, depending on one's point of view, the founding act of a democratic Irish State, a historic act of treachery, a mandate for any unelected group to take up arms in the name of the Irish Republic, a supreme expression of unselfish idealism. |
 | | One's view of this Easter Rising is determined very largely by one's view on other subjects: on the Northern Ireland conflict, on nationalism and socialism, on the awkward relationship between the terrorist and the freedom fighter. |
 | | Above all, we have tried to remember one thing: that before they were saints or sinners, heroes or villains, those involved were human beings animated, as we are, by hope and hatred, by humour and horror, by the desire to shape history and by the need to survive it. |
| www.ireland.com /focus/easterrising (1533 words) |
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