https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6413-736X
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ABSTRACT
When material culture is used for commemorative purposes objects become mnemonic devices through which we construct narratives of ourselves and other people. By exploring the “active lives” of an Irish Citizen Army flag, exhibited in Dublin, and a Chinese braid/queue included in Remembering 1916: Your Stories (Ulster Museum 25 March 2016– 19 March 2017), this paper provides insights into how objects are positioned as part of dominant or peripheral narratives. How these objects are experienced is shaped by the social structures in which they are encountered. In the earliest phase the flag represented the campaign for Irish independence, and the braid was the symbol of the wearer’s community identity. Violent interventions by others changed the meaning of the flag and the braid, leading both to become trophy objects. Later, in the museum and a private home, the keeping of the objects suggests awareness of cultural significance, whilst their concealment suggests avoidance of the most difficult issues associated with those objects. This article explores the intentionality revealed by each phase providing new thinking about the agency of commemorative objects.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Michael D. Higgins, cited by Creative Centenaries 2016.
2. “Personal Communication,” Curator History, National Museums Northern Ireland 2022.
3. Hicks, The Brutish Museums; Van Beurden, “Decolonisation and Colonial Collections”; and Wajid and Minott “Detoxing and Decolonising Museums.”
4. Assman, “From Collective Violence to a Common Feature,” 28.
5. Ibid., 43.
6. Levenson, “Re-Presenting Slavery.”
7. Cited by Wallace, “Collections Management and Inclusion,” 84.
8. Brück and Godson, Making 1916, 2.
9. Crooke, “A Story of Absence and Recovery.”
10. Crooke, “Artefacts as Agents for Change”; and Crooke, “Memory, Politics and material Culture.”
11. McDowell, “Heritage, Memory and Identity.”
12. Hirsch, The Generation of Postmemory.
13. Higgins, Transforming 1916.
14. Rigney, “Roundtable: Moving Memory,” 170.
15. Mullan, “Decade of Centenaries.”
16. Jones “Making Histories of Wars.”
17. Bartlett and Jeffery, A Military History of Ireland; Jeffery, Ireland and the Great War..
18. Phelan, “James Connolly’s ‘Green Flag of Ireland’.”
19. Halliday and Ferguson, “When Peace is not Enough.”
20. Mullan, “The Decade of Centenaries.”
21. See note 13 above.
22. Ibid.
23. Armstrong, “Personal Communication with the Author.”
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. See note 18 above.
27. SIPTU (Citation2016).
28. Ibid.
29. Responses collected from https://en-gb.facebook.com/inniskillingsmuseum/.
30. Exhibition developed as a partnership between the AHRC-funded First World War Engagement Centre “Living Legacies 1914-18” and National Museums Northern Ireland. Find out more here http://www.livinglegacies1914–18.ac.uk/.
31. Blair, cited by Culture Northern Ireland.
32. Graham and Shirlow, “The Battle of the Somme in Ulster Memory and Identity”; and Rigney, “Divided Pasts.”
33. See note 20 above.
34. National Museums Northern Ireland, Exhibition.
35. National Museums Northern Ireland, Evaluation.
36. Fawcett, “The Chinese labour corps in France,” 34.
37. Wang, “Caring beyond National Borders.”
38. Ibid., 330.
39. Beckett, “Ayette Indian and Chinese Cemetery.”
40. Leonard, “Eastern Culture on the Western Front.”
41. Calvo and Qiaoni, “Forgotten Voices from the Great War.”
42. See note 40 above.
43. Ibid.
44. Wang, “Caring beyond National Borders,” 333.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid.
47. Peers, “Strands which Refuse to be Braided,” 76.
48. McGettrick et.al, Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries.
49. Bright, “Migration, Masculinity, and Mastering the Queue.”
50. Ibid., Bailey, “From Shandong to the Somme,” 19.
51. Bailey, “Chinese Labour in World War I France,” 372; see also Hacker, “White Man’s War, Coloured Man’s Labour.”
52. Bailey, “Chinese Labour in World War I France,” 373.
53. Ibid., 364.
54. Lau, “Speech delivered at ‘Ensuring We Remember Strategic Partnership Board’.”
55. Ibid.
56. McDermott, “Migrants and the Heritage Sector.”
57. Peers, “Strands which Refuse to be Braided.”
58. Peers, “Strands which Refuse to be Braided,” 91.
59. Ibid.
60. Assman, “From Collective Violence to a Common Future,” 28.
61. Ibid., 43.
62. White and Marnane, “The Politics of Remembrance.”
63. See note 56 above
64. Knell, The Museum’s Borders, 130.
65. Ibid., 131.
66. Dudley, Displaced Things in Museums and Beyond.
67. National Museums Northern Ireland 2022, “Inclusive Global Histories at National Museums.”
68. Read more about the Museums Association “Decolonising Museums” campaign here https://www.museumsassociation.org/campaigns/decolonising-museums/ [Last accessed 20 September 2022].
69. Other crises facing the museum sector are the cost of living crisis and the impacts of climate change, these are also addressed by the Museums Association, see https://www.museumsassociation.org/campaigns/ [Last accessed 20 September 2022].