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The twenty fifth anniversary of the Insurrection of Easter Week, 1916 was celebrated in Dublin yesterday by the largest exhibition of military strength seen in the capital in recent years.

After the President, Dr Douglas Hyde had spoken a few simple words to the enormous crowd which had assembled outside the General Post Office and filled the entire length of O’Connell Street, Mr de Valera reviewed over ten thousand regular troops drawn from all branches of the Army and approximately fifteen thousand members of the Volunteer Force, Local Defence Force, Local Security Force, the Marine Service, Red Cross, St. John Ambulance Brigade and A.R.P. Services.

The combined parade took two and a half hours to pass the saluting base.

PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS

The President said: ‘Up to twenty-five years ago we were a people without power in our own land. Twenty-five years ago in Easter Week the chains that bound us began to be broken at last, and gradually they were thrown off, so that we here today are a free people. We are assembled in this great gathering to pay honour and homage to the men who went before us. We shall never lose the freedom which we have gained so long as we remain united, faithful to ourselves and loyal to the spirit of our ancestors.

"We pray to God that He will help us in the future as He has helped us in the past."