The Commemoration of the Golden Jubilee of the 1916 Rising
Programme Leader:
Professor Mary E. Daly
- Dr. Anthony Roche, English and Drama
- Professor Michael Laffan, History and Archives
- Professor Diarmaid Ferriter, History and Archives
- Dr. Catherine Cox, History and Archives
- Dr Roisín Higgins, History and Archives
- Dr. Catherine O'Donnell, Co-Operation Ireland
- Carole Holohan, HII Doctoral Scholar
- Dr. Margaret O'Callaghan, School of Politics, Queen's University Belfast
- Rebecca Graaf, Ph. D. Scholar, School of Politics, Queen's University Belfast
The commemoration of the Golden Jubilee of the 1916 Rising has frequently been identified as a factor in the outbreak of The Troubles in Northern Ireland in 1969. This project, funded by the Higher Education Authority's North-South Research Fund, established as part of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, is examining the basis of these claims. The research shows that the commemorations of 1966 varied in their message: the official celebrations in Dublin emphasised the success of an independent state and the future challenges to be surmounted. The Irish government went to considerable efforts to ensure that the Jubilee did not damage improving relations with London or the Northern Irish government. In Northern Ireland the commemoration revealed the divisions within the nationalist community; it was also used as an occasion to revive northern republicanism. 1966 also saw sectarian murders in Belfast and the growing strength of Ian Paisley's populist Protestantism. Our research suggests however that these forces were triggered by ecumenism, and the O'Neill government conciliatory gestures towards the catholic community and the Dublin government, not by 1966 jubilee.
In addition to the political record the project has examined cultural responses, such as the pageants staged in Croke Park; the Garden of Remembrance, opened in 1966; local commemorations, Irish-American involvement and the historical writings produced to coincide with the Jubilee. The project has already produced several conferences and seminar papers. An edited collection drawing on this research will be published in 2007. The monograph by Roisín Higgins, Transforming 1916: meaning, memory and the fiftieth anniversary of the Easter Rising will be published by Cork University Press in 2008.
