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Historians and the Decade of Centenaries in Modern Ireland
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 January 2023
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The Irish ‘Decade of Centenaries’ is, at last, drawing to a close, ending the ‘interminable round of national soul-searching’ which one prominent historian warily anticipated in 2013.1 The final major event to be commemorated is the Civil War of 1922–3, when the Irish republican movement split bitterly and violently over the terms of the treaty granting the southern part of Ireland partial independence from Britain. As it turns out, the government in charge of overseeing that commemoration is a coalition made up of the two principal political parties that emerged from the aftermath of that civil war. Where for a century these parties had formed the binaries of the Irish political division, now their peaceful cooperation in government could be seen as proof of the ‘end of history’, Irish-style. Even erstwhile political enemies – whose ancestors one hundred years ago executed and assassinated each other – could unite in a shared project of ‘inclusive’ and ‘ethical’ commemoration informed by an expert advisory panel made up of prominent academic and public historians. Their unprecedented political cooperation would be encapsulated by the peaceful swapping of the position of Taoiseach (Prime Minister) half-way through the government's term. The third great strand of the Irish Revolution, the labour movement, was fortuitously represented by the election to the Irish Presidency in 2007 of Michael D. Higgins, an academic sociologist and former Labour Party TD (member of parliament). Casann an roth, as Higgins declared in one of his many addresses during the ‘Decade’, as it is colloquially known in Irish history parlance.2 The wheel turns, and this time had come full circle, repairing the fractures in the national movement and restoring national political unity.
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References
1 Fitzpatrick, David, ‘Historians and the Commemoration of Irish Conflicts, 1912–1923', in Horne, John and Madigan, Edward, eds., Towards Commemoration: Ireland in War and Revolution (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2013), 129Google Scholar.
2 Speech by President Michael D. Higgins, 28 Mar. 2016, available at https://president.ie/en/diary/details/president-gives-an-address-at-the-live-broadcast-of-centenary/speeches (accessed 5 Sept. 2022).
3 Beiner, Guy, ‘Between Trauma and Triumphalism: The Easter Rising, the Somme and the Crux of Deep Memory in Modern Ireland’, Journal of British Studies, 46, 2 (2012), 366–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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7 Initital Statement of the Advisory Group on Commemorations. Available at: https://www.decadeofcentenaries.com/wpcontent/uploads/publications/Initial/Initial/index.html.
8 Ibid.
9 President Michael D. Higgins, ‘Of Centenaries and the Hospitality Necessary in Reflecting on Memory, History and Forgiveness’, 4 Dec. 2020. Available: at https://president.ie/en/diary/details/president-hosts-machnamh-100-event/speeches (accessed 5 Sept. 2022). See also Higgins, Michael D., When Ideas Matter: Speeches for an Ethical Republic (London: Head of Zeus, 2016)Google Scholar.
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11 Evershed, Jonathan, 'A Matter of Fact? The Propaganda of Peace and Ulster Loyalist Hauntology during the "Decade of Centenaries"’, in Larkin, Fiona and Murphy, Fiona, eds., Memory and Recovery in Times of Crisis (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019), 13–15Google Scholar.
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13 It was revealed in 2012 that the ‘apology’ was in fact penned by civil servants, without Blair's approval. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/20/tony-blairs-apology-for-irish-famine-written-by-aides-papers-reveal. As a young teenager I was present at this concert, but my abiding memory is of singer Shane McGowan having his cigarette replaced between his lips by a flunkie running on stage between songs.
14 See Dunne, Tom, Rebellions: Memoir, Memory and 1798, 2nd edn (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 2010)Google Scholar and Barlett, Thomas, Dickson, David, Keogh, Daire and Whelan, Kevin, eds., 1798: A Bicentenary Perspective (Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2003)Google Scholar.
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18 Both forces had been disbanded when the Irish Free State was formed. The RIC in particular is the subject of an extensive historical literature, ranging from that emphasising their colonial origins and facilitation of a widespread system of surveillance of the Irish population, to work stressing the change in the character of the RIC by the turn of the century, and recent work exploring the connections between the RIC and other colonial police forces. For examples of each of these themes, see Margaret O'Callaghan, ‘New Ways of Looking at the State Apparatus and the State Archive in Nineteenth Century Ireland: Curiosities from that Phonetic Museum -– Royal Irish Constabulary Reports and their Political Uses, 1879–91', Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy: Section C, 104c, 2, 37–56; Elizabeth Malcolm, The Irish Policeman, 1822–1922: A Life (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2008); and Seán William Gannon, The Irish Imperial Service: Policing Palestine and Administering the Empire, 1922–1966 (London: Palgrave, 2019).
19 Tweet by Mary Lou McDonald, President of Sinn Féin, 7 Jan. 2020, available at https://twitter.com/MaryLouMcDonald/status/1214610397023670273?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1214610397023670273%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fworld-europe-51026428.
20 Expert Advisory Committee on Centenary Commemorations, Decade of Centenaries: Second Phase Guidance, 2018–2023, 17.
21 Marie Coleman, ‘The Creation of Northern Ireland: Home Rule for Unionists’, available at https://www.agendani.com/the-creation-of-northern-ireland-home-rule-for-unionists/.