1916 Portraits and Lives was launched at the Royal Irish Academy on 2nd November 2015. In her opening speech, An Tánaiste Joan Burton praised the multifaceted nature of the book: “Portraits and Lives is like a prism that reflects all shades of contemporary thought on 1916 across the spectrum. It is fair, partial and balanced representing the prevailing political ideologies that fed into its planning and its outcome.The biographies are clear and concise, and the stories themselves show that regardless of background, life experiences and shared philosophies can forge a single ideology and identity that yields irrevocable change.The different perspectives reveal a great deal about the social, cultural and political complexities that served as the backdrop to Easter Week.They illustrate that a full appraisal of 1916 is only possible by examining the lives of a cross-section of those at its core.They themselves were open to and nurtured by the seeds of international ideologies that swept Europe and the globe in the 19th and early 20th centuries". 1916 Portraits and Lives is available online, on our website www.ria.ie/publications, and in your local bookshop.

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