Easter Rising 110 Years Later: Memory, Ritual, and Irish Identity

There are dates that sit on the calendar like a pin in a map. You don’t have to live in Ireland to feel the pull of them. Late April arrives and, whether you’re in Dublin or Worcester, the air carries a familiar weight: not just history, but the act of remembering it.

This year marks the 110th anniversary of the Easter Rising. And if you’re expecting a neat recap, I’m going to disappoint you on purpose. Ireland doesn’t return to 1916 because it needs a refresher course. It returns because anniversaries are not trivia. They’re ritual. They’re how a people keep the past from becoming a museum display and instead let it remain a living, argued-over, prayed-over, sung-over part of the present.

That’s the part that matters to me, and it’s the part that connects directly to what I’m doing with Pints and Power.

What anniversaries are really for

A round-number anniversary (110, 100, 75) can look like a milestone. But it’s more like a mirror. It asks a country to look at itself and decide what it still believes, what it’s still wrestling with, and what it refuses to forget.

The Easter Rising lives in that tension. It’s courage and consequence. It’s sacrifice and disagreement. It’s a story people inherit, and then spend a lifetime figuring out how to carry without turning it into a slogan.

And that’s where Irish identity gets interesting. Not as a label, but as a practice.

Identity is not a costume. It’s a responsibility.

I’m not Irish by birth. I don’t get to treat Ireland like a mood board or a brand aesthetic. If I’m going to speak about Irish identity at all, it has to be with respect for the weight of it.

Respect, to me, looks like this:
learning context before I reach for conclusions, listening longer than I talk, being honest about what I don’t know, refusing to romanticize struggle while still honoring resilience
letting Irish voices lead, especially when the topic is pain, politics, or memory

That’s not a disclaimer. It’s the whole point. Inherited identity is complicated, especially when it comes to a place that has had to fight so hard to define itself on its own terms.

The pub as a civic space (and why the pint belongs in this conversation)

When people hear “Easter Rising,” they picture speeches, monuments, uniforms, proclamations. All of that matters. But identity doesn’t live only in formal places. It also lives where people gather without a script.

The pub is one of those places.

Not because it’s quaint. Because it’s civic.

A good pub is where history stays human. It’s where memory gets carried in stories, songs, arguments, silences, and the small rituals that say, “you’re here with us.” It’s where the past isn’t flattened into a lesson. It’s allowed to remain complicated, personal, and alive.

That’s why Guinness keeps showing up in my work. Not as a mascot. As a lens. A pint is never just a pint when it’s sitting inside a culture that uses gathering as a form of survival.

Why this matters to pints and power

Pints and Power is not a timeline of Guinness facts. It’s a book about how identity forms, how it’s protected, and how it travels. It’s about the way a country’s story can be carried in ordinary places, and how belonging can be felt in moments that don’t look “official” at all.

So when the 110th anniversary comes around, I’m not looking for a “topic.” I’m paying attention to a ritual that’s already happening. Ireland remembers. People gather. The story gets told again, not because it’s finished, but because it still matters.

And if you’ve ever felt that pull toward Ireland, whether it’s ancestry or adoption, whether it’s bloodline or longing, you already understand what I mean.

Your turn

What’s one ritual that makes you feel connected to a place, a people, or a past you didn’t personally live?

Reply, message me, or tell me the story next time you see me at the bar.

Settle in. THIS pint won’t drink itself.

— Mike