Easter Rising centenary parade Easter Rising centenary parade The Easter Rising centenary parade took place in Dublin city on Easter Sunday, 27 March 2016 to commemorate the centenary of the Easter Rising. It involved all branches of the Defence Forces, including the Army, Air Corps, Naval Service and Reserve Defence Forces, as well as the Garda Síochána, Dublin Fire Brigade, the HSE National Ambulance Service, the Irish Coast Guard, the Irish Prison Service and Customs, the Red Cross, the RNLI, Civil Defence Ireland and St John Ambulance Ireland. The parade was one of the largest of its kind ever held in the state, involving
Easter Rising Belfast and other towns celebrating the actions of Pearse and his comrades, and annual parades in remembrance of the Rising. The Irish government, however, discontinued its annual parade in Dublin in the early 1970s, and in 1976 it took the unprecedented step of proscribing (under the Offences against the State Act) a 1916 commemoration ceremony at the GPO organised by Sinn Féin and the Republican commemoration Committee. A Labour Party TD, David Thornley, embarrassed the government (of which Labour was a member) by appearing on the platform at the ceremony, along with Máire Comerford, who had fought in the Rising,