Date: 20th October 2016

Organised by: Ireland Japan Chamber of Commerce & Notre Dame Club of Japan

Under the Auspices of: Embassy of Ireland Japan & Sophia University

Narrated by actor Liam Neeson, the movie 1916 The Irish Rebellion tells the dramatic story of the events that took place in Dublin during Easter of 1916, when a small group of poorly-armed Irish rebels took on the might of the British Empire.

Location: Sophia University

Event

With close to 200 people in attendance, the screening of “1916 – The Irish Rebellion” was held at Sophia University.

The evening started with beautiful music from Mikie O'Shea. Followed by short speeches from the Irish Embassy and the IJCC which gave historical context and discussed the legacy of 1916. Fr Koyama spoke eloquently on the struggle for Irish Independence in a Japanese /Asian context.

The movie was then shown. It was a wonderful, detailed, and at times very emotional insight into the events that led to the Easter Rising as well as the fallout in the years afterwards. It used a mingling of pictures and video from that time, that were subsequently overlaid with current photos and videos from the same positions, which was an interesting way of showing the connection between Ireland of today and Ireland of 1916.

Following the movie, we had some words from Fr Donal Doyle S.J who was an invited guest to the national celebrations held in Dublin earlier this year. And we were fortunate to hear two wonderful poetry recitals from Conor Canavan (The Mother - Padraic Pearse) and from Dr Peter MacMillan (Easter 1916 - W.B. Yeats).

Music from Mikie then helped us close the evening.

More photo's from the evening can be found at https://flic.kr/s/aHskFFa4uu