Easter, 1916 of the poem resumes the first person narrative of the first and second stanzas. The stanza returns to the image of the stony heart: "Too long a sacrifice/ Can make a stone of the heart" (57–8), Yeats wrote, putting the determined struggle of Irish republicans in the Easter Rising in the context of the long, turbulent history of British colonialism in Ireland, as well as alluding to the immense psychological costs of the long struggle for independence. Indeed, the narrator cries, "O when may it suffice?", and answering his own question with the line, "That is heaven's part" (making an
Easter Rising centenary parade during the Rising in April 1916. A minute's silence was observed before the sounding of the Last Post. After the Irish flag was raised on top of the GPO, the Army No.1 Band played the national anthem, Amhrán na bhFiann while a flypast of 6 Pilatus PC-9 aircraft from the Irish Air Corps flew across the GPO to conclude the commemoration ceremony. 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