O'Connell Street will be closed to traffic on Easter Monday as RTÉ stages a celebration of everyday life 100 years ago, with the aid of hundreds of volunteer actors in period costume, High Nelly bicycle demonstrations, silent movies and high teas.
The RTÉ Road to the Rising event, organised in partnership with An Post, the Department of Arts and Dublin City Council, is inviting the public to step back to 1915 as the street is pedestrianised for the day.
A restored open-front tram will serve as a platform for readings and performances, while the street will also feature an oversized gramophone, a vintage carousel, a steam engine and – weather permitting – a hot-air balloon.
RTÉ director general Noel Curran said the reimagining of the period on the day would "help set the stage for many important conversations about our national identity and cultural roots".
The event takes place a year before the centenary of the Easter Rising, with the idea being to set the scene for next year's commemorations.
Actors will recreate a period wedding at one end of the street, and a funeral with a horse-drawn hearse at the other. The art of millinery, Edwardian tailoring and 1915 hair fashions will be demonstrated inside a “tented village”.
Gripped by austerity
A new piece of immersive theatre, Yellow – directed by Louise Lowe and featuring "a city gripped by austerity and gearing up for a fight" – will be staged at different times during the day.
There will also be live broadcasts of RTÉ Radio 1's The History Show and arts programme Arena, and a series of other Radio 1 shows will be recorded in front of an Abbey Theatre audience.
RTÉ presenters Miriam O'Callaghan, David McCullagh and Keelin Shanley will be among those introducing a series of talks, while venues including the Gresham Hotel, Wynn's Hotel and Clerys department store will serve afternoon tea and Clerys window will be dressed with a 1915 theme.
The event will convey the sense that "the very rich were living cheek by jowl with some of the poorest tenements in Europe", said RTÉ producer Yetti Redmond.
“We’re not trying to give the impression that Dublin in 1915 was a frivolous fun factory.”
Archivists from the National Library of Ireland will be at the GPO to assess Rising memorabilia that members of the public may wish to have preserved.
Anniversary drama
All eight 30-minute episodes of RTÉ drama Insurrection, which was made to mark the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising, will be shown at Liberty Hall.
The drama has not been shown for almost 50 years and is said to be both “of its time” and innovative for 1960s television, telling the story of the Rising as it might have unfolded had television existed in 1916.
Lorelei Harris, RTÉ's head of arts and cultural strategy, said RTÉ has been keen to hold more public events following its first World War roadshow at Trinity College Dublin last summer. Local businesses in the O'Connell Street area have embraced the idea, she added.
O'Connell Street will be closed to traffic from 6am to 6pm on April 6th and Dublin Bus services will be diverted or terminated in the city centre.
The day is free, but advance booking applies to some events. For details, go to RTÉ.ie/1916.
