Garristown will host the Fingal Old IRA Commemorative Society on Easter Sunday, April 1st next. For over 70 years the Society has staged an Easter Sunday Commemoration marking the 1916 Rising anniversary. The 5th Battalion of the Dublin Brigade known as the Fingal Volunteers played a strategic role during Easter week. They delivered the only military success of the week for the rebels. The volunteers moved through North Dublin capturing some RIC barracks before arriving at Garristown.

Entering the town on in the early hours of Thursday morning they captured the RIC station before moving on to their moment of destiny, the Battle of Ashbourne. The Commemoration commences with the reading, by Orla Connolly, of the Proclamation outside Garristown Library after the 10.30 mass in the village. The Proclamation was first read on Easter Monday by Padraig Pearse outside the GPO. Padraig was familiar with Garristown as Pearse &  Sons, the family Monumental Works had installed the alter in the parish church here.

The parade formed by the Society’s re-enacters will march behind the Black Raven Pipe Band to the local graveyard. A Wreath in symbolic recognition of all who gave service during Easter Week and all who aided the Fingal Volunteers, during the War of Independence, will be laid on the grave of James J Heery a local who served in the GPO in 1916. A pipers lament will be played in their memory. The bugler will sound the Last Post, and Revellé as the National Flag is attended to.

On conclusion of the graveyard ceremonies, The parade will march to the Community Centre for light refreshments arriving 12.15pm. An exhibition of memorabilia and photographs will be on display there. A talk on the Fingal Volunteers will conclude the day’s events. The day’s events will conclude at 1.30pm.

The Society has events planned for the remainder of the year. Of particular note are, Balbriggan on the 26th August when they will recall the Sac of the town and the killing of Gibbons and Lawless. Later in the year, there will be a full parade in Swords when the achievements of Captain Richard Coleman who died in Usk Prison in 1918 will be remembered. Richard had in Easter Week led the twenty Fingal men to assist in the relief of the Dublin Garrison. In 1918 he also played a central role in the establishment of the New Ireland Assurance Society which was part of the overall program to establish the Irish State.