Mary KennyHistory re-interprets itself, ‘spinning’ what once occurred
The suggestion that a member of the British Royal family might attend the 2016 commemoration for the Easter Rising of 1916 has attracted some controversy.
And some objections, too. Some nationalists object simply on principle. Some historians – such as Diarmaid Ferriter and the veteran John A. Murphy – have suggested that it would not be authentically historical, since the Crown forces put down the Rising at the time.
To be sure, such an invitation would not reflect historical truth. But then most commemorations do not reflect the historical truth about any event: they re-interpret it. Sometimes they mythologise it.
French citizens who watch a gorgeous regimental march-past on July 14, the national holiday which commemorates Bastille Day, do not re-enact the events of the French Revolution – producing toy guillotines to decapitate every aristocrat and cleric they can find, as a genuine re-enactment would entail. The Fourteenth of July has been re-invented and is nothing like what it was, in actual history.
Similarly, with Easter 1916: if we were going to be truthful and ‘authentic’ about 1916, we would instruct the staff and students at Trinity College Dublin to close the portals of the college and start firing bullets at the populace – as they did in 1916.
Historic truth
We would expect the national media – most especially the bitterly hostile Irish Times of the time, and the highly critical Irish Independent – to denounce every aspect of Easter 1916.
The Church – a handful of nationalist priests aside – would thunder denunciations, being opposed to insurrection against ‘the legal authority’ (following St Paul’s teachings on this), only supporting the constitutional route of change, as Daniel O’Connell did.
Many of our own families were opposed to the ‘rebellion’ of 1916, as it was then called. My mother remembered the shop-keepers in her own Galway town, Kilconnell, cursing to damnation “those Dublin rebels” whose actions had prevented supplies of goods and merchandise being transported.
If we were to be historically truthful and ‘authentic’ about what happened at Easter 1916, we would not be planning a celebration which amounts to a collective act of self-congratulation. We would revive the profoundly unhappy divisions that the event caused at the time.
Marx said that history repeats itself. No, not quite: history re-interprets itself, and ‘historical’ commemorations are often theatrical performances which put a contemporary spin on what once occurred.
The powers that be have chosen to plan the 1916 commemoration in an ‘inclusive’ and ‘healing’ way. The question then follows is whether, say, having William and Kate join in the jamboree would be ‘inclusive’ and ‘healing’ – not whether William’s 1916 predecessor, George V, or Kate’s forebears, Mr and Mrs Goldsmith in their Southall council house – would have supported it at the time.
A beautifully captured moment of our history
If you want a true image of how people really were at a given moment in history, look to the painters. And how vivid, how faithful to the life of the people is Aloysius O’Kelly’s 1883 picture Mass in a Connemara Cabin now on display at the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin.
The postcard reproductions of this remarkable painting are good, but they don’t capture the colour and detail of the original, and the impact it makes on the viewer. The priest is so young and takes his duty of celebrating Mass ‘station’ so solemnly. The people are so sincere, and so utterly wrapped up in their devotions. The domestic detail – from the picture of the Sacred Heart on the wall, to the china on the dresser – is so meticulous.
Incidentally, although the 1880s were the aftermath of hard times in the 1870s, when new waves of famine threatened rural Ireland, the people do not look wretched or ill-nourished, but mostly healthy and robust, and the children well cared-for.
The painting is on loan from the Archdiocese of St Andrew’s in Edinburgh so it won’t be at the National Gallery forever. It is presently in Room 3 on the first floor (at the Clare Street entrance). It beautifully captures a moment in our history. Aloysius O’Kelly would have been 30 when he painted it – he was born in 1853, and died in 1941.