“I cried, as did millions of others, because the spectre of slavery, of deep injustices, of the Ku Klux Klan was, at last, consigned to history books” Speaker’s Corner Áine Ryan 
IT was a bright, crisp spring day in 1966. I clearly recall standing in O’Connor Square, Tullamore, County Offaly, transfixed by the midland town’s jubilee celebrations of the historic 1916 Rising.
Minutes earlier, in full regalia, I had performed a jig – maybe it was a reel – with my classmates on the open-air stage. The sense of pomp, of ceremony, was a novel and moving experience.
It offered a first metaphysical moment, evoking a naïve sense of the import of history, of the heroism of humanity, of the relative insignificance of the individual. Three years earlier I had been much too young to grasp the deep impact of the assassination on a Dallas street of America’s first Catholic President, John F Kennedy.
TV’s talking horse, Mr Ed, was about the only character that impressed on my sepia-tinged and insular world.
However, in the intervening decades, a single, weighty, question that had briefly inhabited my childlike wonderment on that day four decades ago has often returned. What will the world be like when the centenary of the 1916 Rising is celebrated?
Of course, that is still eight years away and frankly, with each year, each momentous event, its continued significance pales into the shadows of history.
Last Wednesday morning, a new dawn broke as the world was suffused by feelings of ‘hope’ and ‘change’ evoked by an African-American called Barack Hussein Obama.
I cried, as did millions of other people of every creed, colour, gender and age around the globe. I cried, as did millions of others, because cynicism had been replaced by idealism, gung-ho platitudes by intellectual pragmatism, elitism by the potential for egalitarianism, mumbling inaccuracies by inspiring rhetoric.
I cried, as did millions of others, because the spectre of slavery, of deep injustices, of the Ku Klux Klan was, at last, formally consigned to history books.
This historic moment was the antithesis to the despair and ensuing global paranoia of 9/11. Ironically, too, it was the antithesis of the anti-climactic discovery of a dishevelled Saddam Hussein, found cowering in a cave. Not a weapon of mass-destruction in sight.
Despite the fact that Barack Obama had enlisted an army of 1.5 million grassroots volunteers, working from 770 offices nationwide, it is he alone that bears the burden of delivering his message of ‘change’. He is the new King of Camelot, and Michelle, Sasha and Malia, the new royal family. But, we all know, that just as kings are crowned, they can also be as easily crucified.
And no better executioner than the insatiable monster that is the insomniac and ubiquitous mass media.
Unsurprisingly, as an exhausted-looking President-elect Barack Obama fielded questions at his first post-election press conference last Friday, the polish of his characteristic, cool performances was a little scuffed.
When asked if he had a plan to consult with past presidents, he replied: “I’ve spoken to all of them who are living. Obviously, I didn’t want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about doing any seances.” An untypical and awkward faux-pas, particularly in light of the fact that Nancy Reagan is ill and was recently hospitalised.
Too soon for the media watchdog to bark at the new dauphin of Camelot. Too soon to maul him with the armour of banner headlines and screeching opinion pieces. Too soon to pick him apart with the forensic appetite of a carrion bird.
The masses and the mob have become addicted to instant gratification. They have already forgotten Obama’s warning in his victory speech that, clearly, the real substantive change will take much longer than one term in office. The inequities and flaws of Ronald Reagan’s – Margaret Thatcher’s and Charlie McCreevey’s – liberal economic ethos will not collapse like the fragile foundations of sub-prime mortgages.
History will judge whether Obama delivers ‘the change’ he promised. It will also manipulate and revise his legacy to suit the political and cultural context of the day.
Just like it continues to do with Pádraig Pearse, James Connolly and the signatories of the 1916 Proclamation.
