A garden to remember the rebels who died in the 1798 insurrection opens at the Croppies' Acre.
A memorial service takes place at Croppies' Acre in front of Collins Barracks in Dublin where Wolfe Tone, the leader of the United Irishmen, died in 1798.
The pipe men and women from County Wexford marched today at the Croppies' Acre Memorial Garden, the site of hundreds of unmarked graves of croppies, so called because they cut or cropped their hair short as a snub to the aristocracy of the day.
Professor Kevin Whelan, of Notre Dame University, says that the names of around a hundred people buried at Croppies' Acre are known. There are hundreds more buried at the site who are unknown.
There was no formal record kept of who was actually buried on the Croppies' Acre.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern laid a wreath at the Croppies' Acre in honour of those who gave their lives for a united Ireland. Speaking prior to the event on radio, Bertie Ahern said that he hoped to see a united Ireland in his lifetime. He envisages a constitutional referendum on the issue within the next 10 to 15 years. Speaking at the ceremony, the Taoiseach said that the ideas of those who died in 1798 are still valid today and renewed his commitment to the principles of the United Irishmen.
1798 has never truly passed out of politics and into history.
In 1898, a stone was laid at Croppies' Acre as a memorial to Wolfe Tone, who died in the Provost's Prison a hundred years earlier. One hundred years later, the memorial has finally been completed.
At the ceremony, author Brian Keenan read the Seamus Heaney poem 'Requiem for the Croppies'
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 22 November 1998. The reporter is Aoife Kavanagh.
