![President attends National Day of Commemoration](/images/made/44d1dc18a2367c64/NAT_COMMEMORATION_MX-16_720_480.jpg)
President Higgins attended the National Day of Commemoration at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham
The National Day of Commemoration commemorates all Irishmen and Irishwomen who died in past wars or on service with the United Nations. At the ceremony, the President lays a wreath on behalf of the people of Ireland, after which one minute of silence is observed.
The day for the National Day of Commemoration was chosen to be the nearest Sunday to July 11, which is the anniversary of the 1921 truce.
President Higgins has made the ethical commemoration of our past one of the core themes of his Presidency.
Between December 2020 and November 2022, the President hosted a series of six seminars at Áras an Uachtaráin inviting reflections on the War of Independence, the Treaty Negotiations, the Civil War and Partition in his Machnamh 100 initiative.
Click here for a detailed breakdown of each of the six Machnamh seminars.