One of the questions posed at this summer’s Galway International Arts Festival was what have we learned from our long decade of commemoration? It is interesting, at this point, to look back at how some historians wrote of the possibilities for deepening our knowledge, but also the pitfalls of what the late David Fitzpatrick in 2013 referred to as an “interminable round of national soul-searching”.
Fitzpatrick cautioned against losing sight of “the hard questions of history – what actually happened and who thought what, why and with what consequences” in favour of soundbite punditry.
There was a touch of snootiness to his assertions. Ever mischievous, Fitzpatrick also, in one of the landmark publications of the decade, The Atlas of the Irish Revolution (2017), expressed some scepticism about the preponderance of regional studies which was, he maintained, ultimately an “inane pursuit of infinite variety” because they yield no general pattern.
Those working hard at the coalface of local history will obviously raise an eyebrow at his claim, and to their credit, those historians have done much to enhance the overall research framework, ably assisted by the hard work of local authority libraries and schools. A strong sense of community engagement and buy-in was surely one of the positives of the decade. Early during the commemorative process, historian Catriona Pennell identified a public who “want to connect their personal family story with the events of the period”.
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But Fitzpatrick was attempting to illuminate a wider point, also raised by historian Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh at the arts festival; there is a danger, given the volume of new evidence and sources, of losing the sense of an overarching narrative of the revolution, as ever-increasing specialisation dominates.
That will probably rectify itself in time, with a renewed appetite for grand narratives, but such overviews will have to be infused with the texture of the much-expanded source base and the wider sense of what constitutes legitimate and relevant testimony and lived realities during the decade. They include the experiences of children, women, rank-and-file volunteers and the role of religion; it is notable that the intense religiosity of the revolutionary generation was too often neglected during the decade.
But overall, evidence was taken seriously, and particularly with the release of a multitude of veterans’ testimonies and pension applications, the State demonstrated that it took access to such material seriously. That commitment also facilitated important work on the nature (and volume) of death and violence, with a new prominence given to the experience of trauma.
Fashions and prejudices
None of us, historians or not, can stand detached from the force of contemporary developments, fashions and prejudices. The commemorative decade coincided with economic stagnation, progress and setbacks in the peace process, Brexit, the Waking the Feminists movement, Black Lives Matter, more revelations of historical abuse of children and women, a continuing housing crisis, climate catastrophe, economic recovery, the Covid pandemic, social media overload and the end of civil war politics.
Inevitably, there was a determination to attach some of the rhetoric of the revolution to current causes. I recall the late John A Murphy preaching from a pulpit in UCC as he decried those who used the 1916 Proclamation to justify their campaign for marriage equality and what he felt was the damage being done to historical context.
The failure to find an agreed way to commemorate the RIC and the defacing of the necrology wall in Glasnevin cemetery suggested limits to inclusiveness. A concert in the National Concert Hall to commemorate the Civil War fell flat and seemed deliberately designed to be under the radar. Partition proved to be an ongoing sore, but that was also a reminder that commemorative “parity of esteem” is a contrived notion; it should not be the role of commemoration to neatly tie up historical parcels.
The Covid pandemic, suggested historian Caoimhe Nic Dháibhéid, may have provided “a welcome distraction from full throttle commemoration wars” in Northern Ireland.
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Theatre companies, including the ever-inventive Anu Productions, sought to immerse audiences in the minutiae of the personal experiences, the exhilaration and torment and the social context. Countless documentaries provided an opportunity for production companies to find new ways of presenting the revolution and they too, while mostly taking evidence seriously, were guided by the lights of the present. It was also moving to hear the now elderly sons and daughters of the Civil War generation speak of their experiences and sometimes break long-standing silences and taboos.
Those researching the revolutionary decade in the years ahead will find their own perspectives and what they regard as the flaws of ours, and that is as it should be. What will assist them, thankfully, is a much-improved research infrastructure, and hopefully they will still be working in a State that takes its history and its historical sources seriously.