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This spring Ireland will commemorate the centenary of the Easter Rising - the insurrection against British rule in 1916 which triggered the secession of 26 Irish counties from the United Kingdom into an independent state. But commemoration raises awkward questions, not least, the fact that the rebels' aspiration for a 32-county independent Irish Republic was not achieved. North and South, the Rising commemoration requires the Irish to engage with the violent nature of the uprising, its lack of mandate and its mythologization as a moment of national rebirth as well as with the memory of brutal British repression. How can such a traumatic and complex event be sensitively commemorated? And what will be the lessons of this years commemorations for Ireland north and south?