‘Choreographed by the angels’? Ireland and the centenary of the First World War

Abstract

The centenary of the First World War in Ireland is just one event amongst a broader series of commemorations collectively known as the decade of centenaries. This context, in itself, is unique in comparison to the other national case studies reviewed in this special edition. While the First World War centenary in Ireland is certainly no sideshow, it does have to share its place under the commemorative spotlight with other, arguably more important (at least to a large section of the population), events in Irish history. After contextualising the difficult journey the First World War has traversed in achieving recognition as part of Ireland’s national story, this article seeks to explore the way Ireland has marked the centenary of the First World War between 2014 and 2016. A range of examples led by government (whether in the Republic, Northern Ireland or the UK) and community groups (broadly defined) across the north and south of the island of Ireland will be examined in order to consider how, from a set of different perspectives, the centenary has been approached so far in Ireland. How have Irish publics been engaged with the First World War over the course of the centenary so far? What is being emphasised in these commemorative activities; what is being left out? What meaning is being drawn from the war at the centenary moment and for what present-day political purposes?

Keywords:

• Ireland
• First World War
• commemoration
• centenary

Notes

¹ The official Decade of Centenaries programme is overseen by the Commemorations Unit in the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and commenced in 2012. See <http://www.decadeofcentenaries.com> [accessed 23 February 2017].

² Edward Madigan, ‘Introduction,’ in Towards Commemoration: Ireland in War and Revolution, 1912–1923, ed. John Horne and Edward Madigan (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2013), 1.

³ For a detailed examination of Irish First World War remembrance and commemoration since 1918 see Jason R. Myers, The Great War and Memory in Irish Culture, 1918–2010 (Palo Alto, CA: Academica, 2013).

⁴ The experience of Irish ‘entry’ into war was the subject of my book: Catriona Pennell, A Kingdom United: British and Irish Popular Responses to the Outbreak of the First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

⁵ Since the 1990s, owing to the changing political climate in Ireland (discussed below), there has been a proliferation of publications on the experience of Irish soldiers in the First World War. By no means exhaustive, some of the most important contributions include: Timothy Bowman, Irish Regiments in the Great War: Discipline and Morale (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003); Terence Denman, Ireland’s Unknown Soldiers: The 16th (Irish) Division in the Great War (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1992); Thomas P. Dooley, Irishmen or English Soldiers? The Times and World of a Southern Catholic Irish Man (1876–1916) Enlisting in the British Army During the First World War (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1995); Myles Dungan, Irish Voices from the Great War (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1995); Richard Grayson, Belfast Boys: How Unionists and Nationalists Fought and Died in the First World War (London: Continuum, 2009); Keith Jeffery, Ireland and the Great War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Tom Johnstone, Orange, Green & Khaki: The Story of the Irish Regiments in the Great War (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1992); Philip Orr, The Road to the Somme: Men of the Ulster Division Tell Their Story (Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1987); Niall Richardson, A Coward If I Return, A Hero If I Fall: Stories of Irish Soldiers in World War I (Dublin: O’Brien Press, 2010); Stephen Sandford, Neither Unionist nor Nationalist: The 10th (Irish) Division in the Great War (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2015); William Sheehan, The Western Front: Irish Voices from the Great War (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 2011).

⁶ Again, there is no shortage of excellent scholarship on the Easter Rising bolstered considerably by its centenary in 2016. Highlights include: Richard English, Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland (London: Pan Books, 2007); Ronan Fanning, Fatal Path: British Government and Irish Revolution, 1910–1922 (London: Faber & Faber, 2013); David Fitzpatrick, The Two Irelands, 1912–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); Keith Jeffery, The GPO and the Easter Rising (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2006); Fearghal McGarry, Rebels: Voices from the Easter Rising (Dublin: Penguin, 2011); Fearghal McGarry, The Rising: Ireland, Easter 1916 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Charles Townshend, Easter 1916: The Irish Rebellion (London: Penguin, 2006); Clair Wills, Dublin 1916: The Siege of the GPO (London: Profile Books, 2009).

⁷ For more on the period of Irish history between 1918 and 1923 see: Timothy Bowman, Carson’s Army: the Ulster Volunteer Force, 1910–22 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007); Ronan Fanning, Fatal Path: British Government and the Irish Revolution, 1910–1922 (London: Faber & Faber, 2013); Diarmaid Ferriter, A Nation and Not a Rabble: the Irish Revolution, 1913–1923 (London: Profile Books, 2015); Diarmaid Ferriter and Susannah Riordan, eds, Years of Turbulence: the Irish Revolution and its Aftermath. In Honour of Michael Laffan (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2015); David Fitzpatrick, Politics and Irish life, 1913–1921: Provincial Experience of War and Revolution (Cork: Cork University Press, 1998; 1st edn, Dublin, 1977); Roy Foster, Vivid Faces: the Revolutionary Generation in Ireland, 1890–1923 (London: Penguin, 2015); Peter Hart, The I.R.A. and its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork, 1916–1923 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); Michael Laffan, The Resurrection of Ireland: the Sinn Féin Party, 1916–1923(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Robert Lynch, The Northern I.R.A. and the Early Years of Partition, 1920–22 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2006); Charles Townshend, The Republic: the Fight for Irish Independence (London: Allen Lane, 2013).

⁸ Roy Foster, ‘Imagining the Titanic,’ in Returning to Ourselves: Second Volume of Papers from the John Hewitt International Summer School, ed. Eve Patten (Belfast: Lagan Press, 1995), 334.

⁹ ‘The Ulster division: memento of the Somme battle: painting unveiled in Belfast’, Belfast News-Letter, 2 July 1918, 2.

¹⁰ Nuala C. Johnson, Ireland, the Great War and the Geography of Remembrance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 107. However, it is worth noting that the Ulster Tower fell into disrepair in the decades after the Second World War, eventually restored in the mid-1950s owing to the efforts of Northern Ireland’s Prime Minister Sir Basil Brooke, himself a veteran of the first war (See Catherine Switzer, Ulster, Ireland & the Somme: War Memorials and Battlefield Pilgrimages (Dublin: The History Press, 2013). For all of Ireland, the Great War was overshadowed first by its successor and then by the conflict in the North.

¹¹ Jonathan Evershed, ‘Ghosts of the Somme: The State of Ulster Loyalism, Memory Work and the “other” 1916,’ in Remembering 1916: The Easter Rising, the Somme and the Politics of Memory in Ireland, ed. Richard S. Grayson and Fearghal McGarry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 249.

¹² Gillian McIntosh, The Force of Culture: Unionist Identities in Twentieth-Century Ireland (Cork: Cork University Press, 1999).

¹³ Evershed, 249.

¹⁴ The 16th (Irish) Division rose to prominence on 3 September 1916 with battles in Guillemont and Ginchy, which led to the successful capture of the two villages from German troops.

¹⁵ Ronan McGreevy, Wherever the Firing Line Extends: Ireland and the Western Front (Dublin: The History Press Ireland, 2016), 215.

¹⁶ Switzer, 167–8.

¹⁷ Síghle Bhreathnach-Lynch, ‘Commemorating the Hero in Newly Independent Ireland: Expressions of Nationhood in Bronze and Stone,’ in Images, Icons and the Irish Nationalist Imagination, ed. Lawrence W. McBride (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1999), 158.

¹⁸ Anne Dolan, Commemorating the Irish Civil War, 1923–2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 40.

¹⁹ Cited in ibid., 40–1.

²⁰ Myers, 208–9.

²¹ Evershed, 241.

²² ‘40,000 in Phoenix Park: the unbroken silence’, Irish Times, 12 November 1926, 7. See also British Pathé footage (ID 656.02) from November 1926, <http://www.britishpathe.com/video/armistice-day-thousands-attend-deeply-impressive> [accessed 24 February 2017].

²³ Tony Crowley, Wars of Words: The Politics of Language in Ireland, 1537–2004 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). See also the Claremont Colleges Digital Library collection, Murals of Northern Ireland, <http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/mni> [accessed 25 June 2014].

²⁴ Edward Madigan, ‘Salvaging the past in an uncertain present: Brexit, the peace process, and Anglo-Irish relations’, Historians for History, 7 July 2016. See <https://historiansforhistory.wordpress.com/2016/07/07/salvaging-the-past-in-an-uncertain-present-brexit-the-peace-process-and-angl0-irish-relations-by-edward-madigan/> [accessed 27 February 2017].

²⁵ <http://greatwar.i.e./association-information/> [accessed 27 February 2017].

²⁶ Keith Jeffery, ‘Echoes of War,’ in Our War: Ireland and the Great War, ed. John Horne (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2008), 268. See also Michael Hall, A shared sacrifice for peace (Belfast: Island Publications/Farset Community Think Tanks Project, 2007).

²⁷ Keith Jeffery, Ireland and the Great War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 2.

²⁸ See <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/2076528.stm> [accessed 24 February 2017].

²⁹ Evershed, 250.

³⁰ Tim Pat Coogan, Wherever Green Is Worn: The Story of the Irish Diaspora (London: Hutchinson, 2000), 94.

³¹ ‘President says Peace Park invites all to remember the past differently’, Irish Times, 12 November 1998, 10.

³² Ronan McGreevy, Wherever the Firing Line Extends: Ireland and the Western Front (Dublin: The History Press, 2016).

³³ John Horne, ‘Revisiting the Somme can help Ireland lay ghosts of war to rest’, The Irish Times, 22 April 2006, <http://www.irishtimes.com/debate/revisiting-the-somme-can-help-ireland-lay-ghosts-of-war-to-rest-1.1042087> [accessed 5 June 2014]; ‘Battle of the Somme: Two Irish icons go to an international exhibition’, History Ireland, 14, 3 (May–June 2006), 8.

³⁴ John Horne, ed., Our War: Ireland and the Great War (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2008).

³⁵ The book was officially launched in Northern Ireland at Stormont Castle by then First Minister Peter Robinson and then Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness. See <https://www.ria.i.e./annual-review-2008-2009> [accessed 22 February 2017]. In September 2007 Ian Paisley, as First Minister of Northern Ireland, and President Mary McAleese, shook hands for the first time — another symbolic milestone on Ireland’s road to reconciliation — on the occasion of an exhibition held at the Somme Heritage Centre, Newtownards on the role of the 16th (Irish) Division and its part in the Battle of the Somme.

³⁶ The conference proceedings were published in 2013: John Horne and Edward Madigan, eds., Towards Commemoration: Ireland in War and Revolution, 1912–1923 (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2013).

³⁷ <http://www.centenarynews.com/article?id=948> [accessed 24 February 2017].

³⁸ Keith Jeffery, ‘Commemoration and the Hazards of Irish Politics,’ in Remembering the First World War, ed. Bart Ziino (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015), 165–85.

³⁹ On 21 March 2012 hundreds of visitors from all around Ireland shared items and memories to be catalogued, digitised, and uploaded to the Europeana project archive, <http://www.nli.i.e./en/list/latest-news.aspx?article = 5adb5294–2d4a-46f1-b62e-91b9081cc58d> [accessed 5 June 2014].

⁴⁰ <http://wfadublin.webs.com> [accessed 23 February 2017].

⁴¹ ‘Kenny and Cameron make ‘poignant’ joint visit to WW1 sites’, RTÉ, 19 December 2013. See <http://www.rte.i.e./news/2013/1219/493745-enda-kenny-david-cameron/> [accessed 24 February 2017].

⁴² For more on the two memorial sites, please refer to the relevant pages on the Office of Public Works (OPW) Heritage Ireland website, <http://www.heritageireland.i.e./en/Dublin/> [accessed 2 June 2014].

⁴³ Edward Madigan, ‘Commemoration and conciliation during the royal visit’, History Ireland, 19.4 (July/August 2011), 11.

⁴⁴ Fearghal McGarry, ‘1916 and Irish Republicanism,’ in Towards Commemoration, ed. Horne and Madigan, 53.

⁴⁵ ‘Irish president begins British state visit’, Guardian, 8 April 2014, <http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/apr/08/irish-president-begins-british-state-visit> [accessed 2 June 2014].

⁴⁶ ‘Irish President Michael D. Higgins hails UK trade links at Guildhall banquet’, BBC News, 10 April 2014, <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-26949631> [accessed 2 June 2014].

⁴⁷ ‘Address by President Higgins to the Houses of Parliament’, 8 April 2014, <http://www.president.i.e./news/address-by-president-higgins-to-the-houses-of-parliament-westminster/> [accessed 2 June 2014].

⁴⁸ T.M. Kettle, The Ways of War (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1917), 72.

⁴⁹ Philip Orr interview for the 1916 and Me / 2016 and Us project, a collaboration between University College Dublin and Queen’s University Belfast funded by the Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Reconciliation Fund. See <http://historyhub.i.e./1916-and-me> [accessed 24 February 2017].

⁵⁰ See <http://www.decadeofcentenaries.com/31-July-2014-dedication-of-cross-of-sacrifice-glasnevin-cemetery/> [accessed 24 February 2017].

⁵¹ Stephen Collins, ‘President Higgins in Belgium to mark start of first World War [sic]’, Irish Times, 4 August 2014. See <http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/president-higgins-in-belgium-to-mark-start-of-first-world-war-1.1886458> [accessed 27 February 2017].

⁵² Keith Jeffery, ‘Symposium: Commemoration in the United Kingdom: A Multitude of Memories,’ Australian Journal of Political Science, 50.3 (2015), 562–67.

⁵³ See <https://www.dfa.i.e./irish-embassy/great-britain/our-role/commemorations-in-great-britain/ireland-2016-in-britain/first-world-war/> [accessed 28 February 2017].

⁵⁴ Ruadhán Mac Cormaic, ‘Higgins notes “silence” that hung over Gallipoli dead’, The Irish Times, 24 April 2015. See <http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/higgins-notes-silence-that-hung-over-gallipoli-dead-1.2186969> [accessed 24 February 2017].

⁵⁵ ‘President Higgins lays wreathe [sic] in France for Irish killed in Battle of Somme’, Irish Examiner, 1 July 2016. See http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/president-higgins-lays-wreathe-in-france-for-irish-killed-in-battle-of-the-somme-742688.html; Amanda Ferguson, ‘Somme: Heroism of Irish remembered at Belfast ceremony’, Irish Times, 1 July 2016. See http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/somme-heroism-of-irish-remembered-at-belfast-ceremony-1.2706975; David Young, ‘Irish soldiers of the Somme commemorated at Dublin memorial event’, Irish Independent, 9 July 2016. See http://www.independent.i.e./breaking-news/irish-news/irish-soldiers-of-the-somme-commemorated-at-dublin-memorial-event-34870130.html; ‘Battle of the Somme: 16th Irish Division commemorated in France’, BBC News Northern Ireland. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-37234267 [all accessed 27 February 2017].

⁵⁶ This is not to suggest that the only Irish state-led events were ceremonies, although it was those events that were certainly the most high profile. For example, the Irish Embassy in London has organised a series of lectures and public engagement events around themes stemming out of the decade of centenaries, including a number of events specifically related to Ireland’s involvement in the First World War. See <https://www.dfa.i.e./irish-embassy/great-britain/our-role/commemorations-in-great-britain/ireland-2016-in-britain/embassy-lecture-series/> [accessed 28 February 2017].

⁵⁷ See <http://www.community-relations.org.uk/programmes/marking-anniversaries/> [accessed 27 February 2017].

⁵⁸ <http://www.decadeofcentenaries.com/>; <http://ww1centenaryni.com/>; <http://www.unionistcentenaries.com/dynamic_content.php?id = 92>; <http://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2016/06/09/news/belfast-somme-100-launches-commemorative-events-553696/> [accessed 27 February 2017].

⁵⁹ <http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/research/casestudies/contested-commemoration-in-northern-ireland/> and <http://www.livinglegacies1914–18.ac.uk/> [accessed 27 February 2017].

⁶⁰ Jeffery, ‘Commemoration and the Hazards of Irish Politics’, 182.

⁶¹ Peter Murtagh, ‘St Patrick’s Cathedral memorial tree evokes trenches of first World War’, Irish Times, 28 July 2014. See http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/st-patrick-s-cathedral-memorial-tree-evokes-trenches-of-first-world-war-1.1879950. See also <https://www.stpatrickscathedral.i.e./the-tree-of-rembrance/> [accessed 28 February 2017].

⁶² For more on the evolution of First World War commemorative practices of Southern Irish Protestants, see Heather Jones, ‘Church of Ireland Great War Remembrance in the South of Ireland: A Personal Reflection,’ in Towards Commemoration, ed. Horne and Madigan, 74–81.

⁶³ Ronan McGreevy, ‘New Wicklow war memorial opens on 100th anniversary of Home Rule’, Irish Times, 18 September 2014. See <http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/new-wicklow-war-memorial-opens-on-100th-anniversary-of-home-rule-1.1932418> [accessed 28 February 2017].

⁶⁴ Note the explicit use of celebration rather than commemoration in the context of Ireland’s centenary of the Easter Rising. Speaking at the launch of the year-long Easter Rising commemorative programme in March 2015, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said Irish people should ‘celebrate and have pride in Ireland’s independence, and to honour those who gave their lives so that the dream of self-determination could be a reality’. Ronan McGreevy, ‘Easter Rising commemorative programme revealed’, Irish Times, 31 March 2015. See <http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/easter-rising-commemorative-programme-revealed-1.2160368> [accessed 27 February 2017].

⁶⁵ RDFA Schedule of Activities for 2014, 2015 and 2016. Kindly sent to the author by Tom Burke, founding member of the RDFA after email exchange 7 February 2017.

⁶⁶ Sean Connolly, ‘Report of RDFA Activities for the Period October 2013 to December 2014,’ The Blue Cap: Journal of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, 19 (December 2014), 38.

⁶⁷ Mary McAleese, ‘The Christmas truce’, Irish Times, 24 December 2014. See <http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/mary-mcaleese-the-christmas-truce-1.2048413> [accessed 27 February 2017].

⁶⁸ Tom Burke, ‘In Memory of Lieutenant Tom Kettle, “B” Company, 9th Royal Dublin Fusiliers,’ Dublin Historical Record 57.2 (2004), 164–73.

⁶⁹ Stephen Walker, ‘Tom Kettle: tributes in London and Dublin to MP killed at Somme’, BBC News Northern Ireland, 9 September 2016. See <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-37319451> [accessed 28 February 2017].

⁷⁰ Padraic Killeen, ‘Theatre Review: Pals: The Irish at Gallipoli’, Irish Examiner, 14 February 2015. See http://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/artsfilmtv/theatre-review-pals-the-irish-at-gallipoli-312509.html. See also Arminta Wallace, ‘The Dublin Pals who set off for Gallipoli’s killing fields’, Irish Times, 9 February 2015. See <http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/stage/the-dublin-pals-who-set-off-for-gallipoli-s-killing-fields-1.2093915> [accessed 28 February 2017].

⁷¹ Neil Jarman, ‘Painting Landscapes: The Place of Murals in the Symbolic Construction of Urban Space,’ in Symbols in Northern Ireland, ed. Anthony Buckley (Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1998), 81–98.

⁷² <http://www.sharedhistoryworkshop.com/index.html> [accessed 28 February 2017].

⁷³ From the Press Release issued by the project facilitator, Pete Bleakley, on 24 January 2016. Kindly sent to the author by Richard Grayson, after email exchange 28 February 2017. See also ‘Sacrifice and bravery of WW1 sailors remembered in city mural’, Belfast News Letter, 8 November 2015. See <http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/sacrifice-and-bravery-of-wwi-sailors-remembered-in-city-mural-1-7054736> [accessed 28 February 2017].

⁷⁴ Rebecca Black, ‘Chilling Belfast terror mural gives way to artwork remembering Somme’, Belfast Telegraph, 21 January 2016. See http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/chilling-belfast-terror-mural-gives-way-to-artwork-remembering-somme-34383217.html. See also <http://www.nihe.gov.uk/touch/index/news/news_September_2016/news-ww1_images_replace_sectarian_murals_in_fountain.htm> [accessed 28 February 2017].

⁷⁵ Roy Foster, Modern Ireland, 1600–1972 (London: Allen Lane, 1988), 596.

⁷⁶ Fionnán Sheahan, ‘A centenary for everyone’, Irish Independent, 10 December 2016. See http://www.independent.i.e./irish-news/1916/a-centenary-for-everyone-35275339.html; John Downing, ‘Centenary celebrations hailed a success for ‘helping to heal country’s divisions’, Irish Independent, 31 December 2016. See <http://www.independent.i.e./irish-news/1916/centenary-celebrations-hailed-a-success-for-helping-to-heal-countrys-divisions-35331740.html> [accessed 28 February 2017].

⁷⁷ Patsy McGarry, ‘1916 events done with objectivity and respect, says archbishop’, Irish Times, 29 December 2016. See <http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/1916-events-done-with-objectivity-and-respect-says-archbishop-1.2920411> [accessed 28 February 2017].

⁷⁸ Eunan O’Halpin, ‘Challenge is to mark Civil War in same tolerant way as 1916’, Irish Times, 29 December 2016. See <http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/challenge-is-to-mark-civil-war-in-same-tolerant-way-as-1916–1.2919383> [accessed 28 February 2017].

⁷⁹ It is also not exclusive to Ireland, as the famous image of German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and French President François Mitterand holding hands at Verdun in September 1984 symbolises.

⁸⁰ Madigan, ‘Salvaging the Past in an Uncertain Present’.

⁸¹ Diarmaid Ferriter, ‘Boris should spare us the patronising praise’, Irish Times, 25 February 2017. See <http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/diarmaid-ferriter-boris-should-spare-us-the-patronising-praise-1.2987112> [accessed 1 March 2017].

⁸² As of January 2017, the Irish government had spent €7.5 million on centenary commemorative events. The biggest spend was the 2016 Easter Sunday parade down O’Connell Street in Dublin (€2.3 million). See <http://www.breakingnews.i.e./ireland/here-is-how-much-was-spent-on-the-1916-commemorations-771612.html> [accessed 28 February 2017].

⁸³ Police Service of Northern Ireland Security Situation Statistics: <https://www.psni.police.uk/inside-psni/Statistics/security-situation-statistics/> [accessed 15 August 2017].

⁸⁴ Henry McDonald, ‘Police “are facing severe terror threat from IRA”’, Guardian, 15 May 2016. See <https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/may/14/police-severe-terror-threat-ira-northern-ireland-bomb-attacks> [accessed 15 August 2017].

⁸⁵ Fintan O’Toole, ‘The English have placed a bomb under the Irish peace process’, Guardian, 24 June 2016. See https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/24/northern-irish-peace-sacrificed-english-nationalism; Ian McBride, ‘After Brexit, Northern Irish politics will again be dominated by the border’, Guardian, 19 July 2016. See <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/19/brexit-northern-irish-politics-border-eu-good-Friday-agreement> [accessed 28 February 2017].

⁸⁶ ‘The Guardian view on the Northern Ireland assembly election: a warning to Brexit Britain’, Guardian, 5 March 2017. See <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/05/the-guardian-view-on-the-northern-ireland-assembly-election-a-warning-to-brexit-britain> [accessed 8 March 2017].

⁸⁷ Evershed, 242.

⁸⁸ Jeffery, ‘Symposium: Commemoration in the United Kingdom’, 565.

⁸⁹ Daniel McConnell, ‘Two arrested as Easter Rising memorial plaque unveiled in Glasnevin’, Irish Examiner, 3 April 2016. See <http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/plaque-unveiled-to-all-who-died-in-the-easter-rising--including-leaders-and-british-soldiers-727944.html> [accessed 31 March 2017].

⁹⁰ Anthony Joseph, ‘The world’s toughest diplomat strikes again!’, Daily Mail, 26 May 2016. See <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3611024/Diplomat-hailed-hero-shooting-dead-Ottawa-terrorist-wrestled-protester-Easter-Rising-ceremony-Ireland.html> [accessed 31 March 2017].

⁹¹ Sean O’Riordan, ‘Wreaths laid to commemorate Battle of Somme in Cork dumped in river’, Irish Examiner, 8 July 2016. See <http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/wreaths-laid-to-commemorate-battle-of-the-somme-in-cork-dumped-in-river-409171.html> [accessed 31 March 2017].

⁹² Kevin Magee, ‘Paramilitary tribute added to publicly funded WW1 memorial garden in Belfast’, BBC News Northern Ireland, 26 March 2015. See <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-32057367> [accessed 1 March 2017].

⁹³ McIntosh.

⁹⁴ Evershed, 251.

⁹⁵ Podcast of event available via <https://www.dfa.i.e./irish-embassy/great-britain/news-and-events/2016/embassy-marks-battle-of-the-somme/> [accessed 1 March 2017].

⁹⁶ Roy Foster, ‘Something to hate: intimate enmities in Irish history’, Irish Review 30 (spring/summer 2003), 11.

⁹⁷ Jeffery, ‘Commemoration and the hazards of Irish politics’, 182. See also Tom Dunne, ‘Commemorations and “Shared History”: A Different Role for Historians?,’ History Ireland 21.1 (January/February 2013), 10–13, and David Fitzpatrick, ‘Historians and the Commemoration of Irish Conflicts, 1912–1923,’ in Towards Commemoration, ed. Horne and Madigan, 126–33.

⁹⁸ Madigan, ‘Introduction’, Towards Commemoration, 5–6.

⁹⁹ Grayson, 184.

¹⁰⁰ Ronan McGreevy, ‘New memorials to commemorate Irish who died in Flanders’, 11 February 2017. See <http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/new-memorials-to-commemorate-irish-who-died-in-flanders-1.2971260> [accessed 1 March 2017].

¹⁰¹ Anne Dolan, ‘Divisions and Divisions and Divisions: Who to Commemorate?,’ in Towards Commemoration, ed. Horne and Madigan, 146.