Remembering 1916 : The Easter Rising, the Somme and the Politics of Memory in Ireland

The year 1916 witnessed two events that would profoundly shape both politics and commemoration in Ireland over the course of the following century. Although the Easter Rising and the Battle of the Somme were important historical events in their own right, their significance also lay in how they came to be understood as iconic moments in the emergence of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach drawing on history, politics, anthropology and cultural studies, this volume explores how the memory of these two foundational events has been constructed, mythologised and revised over the course of the past century. The aim is not merely to understand how the Rising and the Somme came to exert a central place in how the past is viewed in Ireland, but to explore wider questions about the relationship between history, commemoration and memory.

Richard Grayson is Professor of Twentieth-Century History at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is the author of Belfast Boys: How Unionists and Nationalists Fought and Died Together in the First World War (2009) and edited At War with the 16th Irish Division: The Staniforth Letters, 1914–18 (2012). He has engaged widely with community groups on First World War remembrance especially the 6th Connaught Rangers Research Project. An associate member of the First World War Centenary Committee in Northern Ireland, he contributed to BBC NI's Ireland's Great War, co-edits www.irelandww1.org and chairs the Academic Advisory Group for the Digital Projects run by the Imperial War Museums.

Fearghal McGarry is Reader in Irish History at Queen's University Belfast. His research focuses on modern Ireland. A new edition of his account of the rebellion, The Rising: Ireland, Easter 1916, has just been published. Rebels: Voices from the Easter Rising (2011), his edited collection of firsthand testimony by revolutionaries, has recently been adapted for the stage by Jimmy Murphy for the Abbey Theatre, and will tour the UK in 2016. His latest book is The Abbey Rebels: A Revolution, Lost (2015). He is working on a number of projects related to the 1916 centenary, including the development of a major interpretive centre at Dublin's General Post Office.