We had been thinking about doing "a defence of the Easter Rising" type post given the week that's in it, and may still, but that niche has already been amply supplied by Free Stater and even Bertie is getting in on the act. Instead therefore we point you to BBC Radio 4's excellent opening installment in their "Poetry of History" series devoted to Yeats' poem; truly a case where a historical event got shaped in our memories by a single brilliant nearly-contemporaneous interpretation. The show visited the key sites in Dublin and had comments from a fine panel.
We'd already been wondering if there is a little outpost of literary Irish nationalists at Radio 4, because we recall tuning in one night to Poetry Please, where Roger McGough introduces a selection of poems selected by listeners -- and they did full justice to Pearse's The Mother [here's a link to that night, which also includes a poem by Patrick Kavanagh]. More recently, Roger decided that he wanted nothing to do with Condi Rice's visit to Liverpool so he may have a soft spot for another rebel.
UPDATE: We're trying to figure out why the audio link to the Easter 1916 programme has disappeared. Also, here's a link to an Irish Times opinion piece by Diarmaid Ferriter (subs. req'd) to his thoughts prompted by the experience of being a commenter on the show.
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