The Stephens, O'Leary and Ashe graves, Glasnevin Cemetery

Thomas Ashe's grave represented a rival political tradition to that of O'Brien and Redmond; it was located beside those of the Fenian leaders James Stephens and John O'Leary, and was also adjacent to that of Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa. Republican funerals, such as those of O'Donovan Rossa and Ashe, were orchestrated to assert the continuity of the separatist cause and mobilise support for it. Patrick Pearse's famous oration at O'Donovan Rossa's graveside, months prior to the Easter Rising, sought to bring militant republicanism back into the limelight and remind listeners of its relevance; the same could be said of Michael Collins' terser oration for Ashe, as the latter's funeral became a milestone, in symbolic and actual terms, in the development of the independence movement that came to prominence after the rising.