Ireland's Decade of Commemoration: A Round Table

Beginning with last year’s centennial of the passage of the Third Home Rule Bill, Ireland commenced an extraordinary “Decade of Commemorations,” during which the entire island will recall the anniversaries of crucial historic events: the Dublin Lock-out, the Easter Rising, the “Ulster Sacrifice” of the Somme, Partition, and the Irish Civil War, to name a few. The high-profile public history that will be crafted to mark these events is likely to set the received narrative of the events for another century—and, in turn, will enter the interdisciplinary intellectual project of Irish Studies itself. With the special assistance of Dr. Mike Cronin, New Hibernia Review gathered four scholars (two historians, a literary scholar, and a social anthropologist) to discuss the implications, opportunities, and perils of the Decade of Commemorations. They conducted their discussion by e-mail over the summer of 2013.

Ritual, identity and nation: when the historian becomes the high priest of commemoration

This paper questions the use of 'memory', 'remembering' and 'collective memory' as a conceptual tool in historical study. It will ague that a synchronic model for commemorative practice needs to be highlighted, and in doing so questions the role of historians in commemorative practice.

The past never stands still ; negotiating the past and commemorating the Easter Rising in 1966 and 1976

This article looks at the role of commemoration in Northern Ireland before conflict -in the 1960's - and at the height of conflict in the 1970's. Through its comparative examination of Northern Ireland republican commemorations of the 1916 Easter Rising in 1966 and 1976 it is intended to contribute both to an historical and political understanding of commemoration practices in Ireland after partition and to current debates about commemoration and the past in the post-Troubles era.

Remembering 1916: The Easter Rising, the Somme and the Politics of Memory in Ireland

The year 1916 witnessed two events that would profoundly shape both
politics and commemoration in Ireland over the course of the following
century. Although the Easter Rising and the Battle of the Somme were
important historical events in their own right, their significance also lay
in how they came to be understood as iconic moments in the emergence
of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. Adopting an interdisciplinary
approach drawing on history, politics, anthropology and cultural
studies, this volume explores how the memory of these two foundational
events has been constructed, mythologised and revised over the course
of the past century. The aim is not merely to understand how the Rising
and Somme came to exert a central place in how the past is viewed in
Ireland, but to explore wider questions about the relationship between
history, commemoration and memory.

'Whatever You Say, Say Nothing' : Researching Memory & Identity in Mid-Ulster, 1945-1969

The influence of collective memory on political identity in Ireland has been well documented. It has particular force in Northern Ireland where there is fundamental disagreement about how and why the conflict erupted and how it should be resolved. This article outlines some of the issues encountered by an ‘insider’ when attempting to record and analyse the conflicting memories of a range of Protestants and Catholics who grew up in Mid-Ulster in the decades preceding the Troubles. In particular, it considers the challenges and opportunities presented by a two-pronged approach to oral history: using testimony as evidence about historical experience in the past and as evidence about historical memory – both collective and individual – in the present.

The contours of memory in post-conflict societies: enacting public remembrance of the bomb in Omagh, Northern Ireland

Drawing on the theoretical insights of Paul Ricoeur this paper investigates the geographies of public remembrance in a post-conflict society. In Northern Ireland, where political divisions have found expression through acts of extreme violence over the past 30 years, questions of memory and an amnesty for forgetting have particular resonance both at the individual and societal level, and render Ricoeur’s framework particularly prescient. Since the signing of the Belfast Agreement in 1998, initiating the Peace Process through consociational structures, discovering a nomenclature and set of practices which would aid in the rapprochement of a deeply divided society has presented a complex array of issues. In this paper I examine the various practices of public remembrance of the 1998 bombing of Omagh as a means of understanding how memory-spaces evolve in a post-conflict context. In Omagh there were a variety of commemorative practices instituted and each, in turn, adopted a different contour towards achieving reconciliation with the violence and grief of the bombing. In particular the Garden of Light project is analysed as a collective monument which, with light as its metaphysical centre, invited the populace to reflect backward on the pain of the bombing while at the same time enabling the society to look forward toward a peaceful future where a politics of hope might eclipse a politics of despair.

Violence and Commemoration in the New Northern Ireland: Space, Memory and Management

On June 27th 2012, the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland and former IRA commander, Martin McGuinness shook hands with Queen Elizabeth II for the first time at an event in Belfast. For many the gesture symbolised the consolidation of Northern Ireland's transition to peace, the meeting of cultures and traditions, and hope for the future. Only a few weeks later however violence spilled onto the streets of north and west Belfast following a series of commemorative parades, marking a summer of hostilities. Those hostilities spread into a winter of protest, riot and discontent around flags and emblems and a year of tensions and commemorative-related violence marked again by a summer of rioting and protest in 2013. Outwardly these examples present two very different pictures of the 'new' Northern Ireland; the former of a society moving forward and putting the past behind it and the latter apparently divided over and wedded to different constructions of the past. Furthermore they revealed two very different 'places', the public handshake in the arena of public space; the rioting and fighting occurring in spaces distanced from the public sphere. This paper has also illustrated the difficulties around the ‘public management’ of conflict and transition as many within public agencies struggle with duties to uphold good relations and promote good governance within an environment of political strife, hostility and continuing violence.

This paper presents the key findings and implications of an exploratory project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, explored the phenomenon of commemorative-related violence in Northern Ireland. We focus on 1) why the performance or celebration of the past can sometimes lead to violence in specific places; 2) map and analyse the levels of commemorative related violence in the past 15 years and 3) look at the public management implications of both conflict and transition at a strategic level within the public sector.

'Ancient Enmities' and Modern Conflict: History and Politics in Northern Ireland

This article investigates the role of history and historical consciousness in deeply divided societies. It looks at the case of Northern Ireland. It argues that, while the conflict here is caused by contemporary divisions, perceptions of the past have had considerable influence. Recent years have seen efforts to change historical attitudes and this has aided political accommodation. An important lesson from the conflict in Northern Ireland points to the need to challenge such historical perceptions.

‘Risk, Politics and the ‘Scientification’ of Political Judgement: Prisoner Release and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland’

Drawing on research in Northern Ireland into the process of release under the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, this article explores the identification and classification of risk in relation to prisoners released early under the Sentences (NI) Act. The main argument is that conflict, post-conflict and transitional conditions expose more starkly the political underpinnings of risk-management strategy and the article demonstrates the particular variant of Politicized Risk Assessment (PRA) recently used in the release of prisoners in Northern Ireland