Banners on the south Quays in Dublin announcing the Samuel Beckett Centenary Festival feature an image of the city's difficult native son glowering down upon the hometown he deserted as a young man.

john cogill / the associated press

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DUBLIN, Ireland — Ireland will mark two anniversaries in April. The first — 100 years since the birth of playwright Samuel Beckett — has provoked little drama.

The second, although not normally regarded as a significant year, has nonetheless sparked heated debate in parliament and a flood of media bickering, and has put the spotlight on the roots of Irish identity at a time when the country is undergoing radical change.

Beckett was 10 years old and still living in Dublin when the Easter Rising — 90 years ago this month — shook Ireland.

The anniversary of the Easter Rising will see a very different piece of theater altogether — and it is this that has unearthed such strong emotions.

Last year, Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern announced that, for the first time in more than three decades, Ireland would hold a military parade in Dublin to mark the anniversary of what for many is a key point in Irish independence from British rule.

In spite of the reverence accorded to the Rising and its executed leaders — cloaked in the romantic glow of founding fathers — no parade has been held to mark the event since the 1970s, when Irish Republican Army guerrillas began a campaign to end British rule in Northern Ireland.

Times have changed, however. The IRA's political ally Sinn Fein, which had not participated in the Irish parliament since Ireland was divided into the independent Republic and the British-ruled North in 1922, started to take seats here more than 20 years ago and eight years ago signed on to a power- sharing agreement with pro-British parties in Northern Ireland. Last year, the IRA pledged to lay down its arms for good.

It was against this backdrop that Ahern announced his plans to hold the parade, which was not just an attempt to dust down the image of 1916. In 1916, Ireland was — like much of the world at that time — a British colony, although it was accorded self-government in 1912. Thousands of Irishmen fought for Britain during World War I.

Against that backdrop, those who reject notion that the Easter Rising was the foundation of Irish independence as a myth say the rebels should be seen, not as heroes, but as a band of unelected thugs who caused more than 400 deaths and thousands of injuries and ultimately led to civil war.