Irish troops and tanks salute Easter Rising
Because of political sensitivities, it was the first military parade to commemorate the rebellion - long regarded as the springboard for Irish independence - in more than 30 years. The Easter march was abandoned at the height of the Northern Ireland conflict, but last year's pledge by the IRA to lay down its arms paved the way for the Irish government to revive the ceremony. Even so, it has stirred debate in the republic over whether the rebels were romantic heroes or a band of thugs.
The prime minister, Bertie Ahern, President Mary McAleese and several hundred descendants of the rebels watched yesterday's parade from viewing stands as it threaded along O'Connell Street, and past the battle-scarred General Post Office which served as the rebels' headquarters. Tens of thousands of Dubliners lined the route, while hundreds of thousands more watched the event live on television.
"Today is a day of remembrance, reconciliation and renewal," Mr Ahern said in a speech shortly before the parade. "Today is about discharging one generation's debt of honour to another. Today, we will fittingly commemorate the patriotism and vision of those who set in train an unstoppable process which led to this country's political independence."
As the green, white and orange flag of the Irish Republic was lowered to half mast over the General Post Office, an army officer stepped forward to recreate the moment when Ireland's eventual independence was proclaimed by the rebel leader, Padraig Pearse.
"In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom," the soldier read, as Pearse had done 90 years before - though historians say that in 1916 passing Dubliners either met the proclamation with bemusement or took it as a signal to begin looting shops.
Earlier, Mr Ahern laid a memorial wreath to the 15 rebel leaders whom the British army executed in the wake of what, by any measure, had been a military disaster for the rebels. They had seized several buildings and a park, then waited for British troops - many of them Irishmen - to bombard them into submission.
The 15 men's deaths by firing squad in Kilmainham jail inflamed Irish public opinion, and surviving leaders of the uprising went on to organise a war against the British which in 1921 brought independence for 26 of the 32 counties.
In deciding to revive the parade, the government has gone some way towards recognising calls to view the Rising in a broader context by honouring the many Irish soldiers who died in the Battle of the Somme, in the same year. The revival also enabled the government to reassert its nationalist credentials - since Mr Ahern's Fianna Fail party was headed by Eamon de Valera, a leader of the Rising.
The British ambassador, Stewart Eldon, was among the invited guests who joined the minute's silence, and watched as the flag was returned to full mast.