That week he spent in Stephen's Green, barely out of his teens, fighting with the Citizens' Army at the shoulder of the Countess, defined him thereafter. He was out again in the War of Independence, but who wasn't?

If the whole country claimed to have been in the GPO, then the diaspora was practically recalled for the subsequent guerrilla conflict.

But Tom was one of the 1,600 thrust into the maelstrom of a nation's conception in Easter 1916, a foot soldier of history rather than officer class. He didn't possess the fanaticism of Pearse. Neither had he lived through the long struggle for freedom that defined Tom Clarke's life. Connolly's clear-eyed vision for a nation released from the shackles of imperialism was probably beyond the ken of this man from a farm on the southwest periphery of the island.

What drove him was that which calls many, particularly the young, at vital junctures in a state's evolution, whether it be in Ireland at the beginning of the 20th century, or outposts of the USSR at the end of it.

Long after the smoke had settled on the new state, Tom came home to Cahirciveen.

Unlike others who came of age in that violent period between 1916 and 1922, his participation didn't provide him with a springboard to greater things. He didn't possess the neck to put himself forward for public office on the back of his fight for Irish freedom. Neither was he one of the settlers who follow the pioneers and get rich. He was a gentle soul who never married and lived out the latter half of his life on his brother's farm.

His exploits were known and respected locally, but on the off-chance that anybody wasn't aware of his past, he wasn't shy about filling them in. His propensity to recall those heady days was accentuated when he had partaken a few jars. These were years when the bitter aftertaste of the Civil War punctuated politics, when talk of that period was often guarded, in case it strayed into the struggle that had left festering wounds. But Tom had nothing to fear in this regard. He had refused to turn a gun on his fellow countrymen in the Civil War.

Before long, he acquired the name Tom 16. A local wag may have been responsible for it, but that suited Tom fine. In a part of the country where his surname was relatively common, he became known as Tom Clifford 1916.

And it wasn't just a nickname. On the Register of Electors, his entry was recorded as "Tom Clifford 1916" right until his death in 1970.

He must have liked that touch.

The document which symbolised that for which he had fought, recognised his association with the week that was the high point of his life.

The rebellion being commemorated this weekend couldn't have taken place without foot soldiers like my grand uncle Tom 16, who at the appointed hour answered a clarion call, did what they regarded as their duty, and then melted back from whence they came.

Irish history threw up many leaders, but it was the quantity and quality of the followers that fashioned success from failure 90 years ago. They in turn were products of the time, one which justified armed insurrection.

Daniel O'Connell, a townie of Tom's, wouldn't have gone along with a rebellion, but he too was a product of his time, the peak of which was 100 years before 1916.

As we are products of our time. That is why commemorating the conception of the modern state is a good thing.

And it is also why doing so with a military parade is not.

Saluting the patriot dead today should be undertaken by means that reflect the values of today, not the gun and uniform, which lost their primacy when the modern state came into being.

The form of commemoration probably has more to do with prevailing political imperatives - Fianna Fáil's quest to reclaim the Republican mantle - rather than a celebration of advancement.

Let's hope the whole affair doesn't end up looking like something out of the old Soviet Union.