Two historic years, a century apart

Which year will ultimately prove the more important: 1916 or 2016? It may seem far-fetched to argue that 2016 was more significant than the year 100 years ago, when the flame of revolution was lit in Ireland and the first World War had some of its bloodiest moments, including the Battle of the Somme.

Nevertheless, 2016 has been a historic year in Ireland, and the long-term effects of some recent events is not yet known. We have had a knife-edge general election, have witnessed the rebirth of Fianna Fáil and have seen a “new politics” emerge based around minority government. Our nearest neighbour has voted to leave the EU and our tax policy for multinational companies has come under scrutiny; two external events that we certainly haven’t heard the last of.

This year we also commemorated the Easter Rising: not the actual creation of independent Ireland but the incident that set the revolution in motion, eventually leading to independence (or a version of it) in 1922.

The scale and nature of the commemorations this year were unprecedented, encompassing thousands of events – official and unofficial, fun and solemn, artistic and dramatic.

Over the past 12 months, Irish people have watched TV documentaries, dramas and live performances, visited exhibitions in large numbers, seen dozens of books published and listened to numerous media discussions of the events of Easter Week 1916.

At The Irish Times alone, we published nine supplements related to 1916 and its legacy, and on Easter Saturday replaced the front page of our newspaper with one published in 1916. The subject has featured in hundreds of articles, podcasts and videos on irishtimes.com.

The cumulative effect of all this information, discussion and historical reflection has been to educate ourselves about our past, to assess our present and – sometimes – to face some unpalatable truths about ourselves. For a little while at least, almost everybody was an authority on the subject and most of us developed a point of view on the rightness and wrongness of what took place a century ago.

Now, as the year nears its end, comes an opportunity to bring this discussion to a new level. A series of events in Galway on November 10th-12th offers a variety of ways to consider these questions, from robust intellectual debate to light-hearted discussion and inventive artistic interpretations.

The conference, “1916-2016: The Promise and Challenge of National Sovereignty” is sponsored by the State through its Ireland 2016 agency. Its academic director is the prominent Irish international historian Prof Nicholas Canny, who has gathered some of the world’s experts on Irish history, culture, politics and identity. A programme of fringe events complements the conference debates.

In the spirit of the 2016 commemoration, admission is free for members of the public to all the conference sessions – and most of the fringe events.

Whether you are going to Galway or not, the articles in today’s supplement serve as an introduction to the ideas that will be discussed there.

Several of the conference speakers – among them Roy Foster, Philip Pettit and Clair Wills – share their ideas on national identity in 2016. Joe Joyce and Darragh Murphy explore the images of Ireland we project to the world. Historian Diarmaid Ferriter examines Ireland’s national “mission statements” and whether we have lived up to them. And we take to the streets to ask people what citizenship means to them.

Journalists Una Mullally and Fintan O’Toole look back on the year of commemoration, and observe that some of the best moments emerged from events that were either unplanned (Waking the Feminists) or not overly stage-managed by official Ireland (much of the arts programme).

As we reach the halfway point in this “decade of centenaries” we have learned much about the value of honest interrogation of our past, writes Maurice Manning, but to avoid “commemoration fatigue”, we must find new ways of looking back. Meanwhile, former taoiseach John Bruton suggests that mature commemoration means celebrating peaceful progress rather than violent events.

There’s a full listing of the Galway events, and – just in case you’re going along and want to sound knowledgeable – a bluffer’s guide to republics, sovereignty and recent Irish history.

So go on: before the year ends, steep yourself in Irishness one more time.