Resource: Remembering 1916 – Challenges for Today

Remembering 1916 – Challenges for Today
Edited by Deidre Mac Bride

“In the current decade of centenary anniversaries of events of the period 1912-23 one year that rests firmly in the folk memory of communities across Ireland, north and south, is 1916. For republicans this is the year of the Easter Rising which led ultimately to the establishment of an independent republic. For unionists 1916 is remembered as the year of the Battle of the Somme in the First World War when many Ulstermen and Irishmen died in the trenches in France in one of the bloodiest periods of the war.

How we commemorate these events in a contested and post conflict society will have an important bearing on how we go forward into the future. In order to assist in this process a conference was organised by the Community Relations Council and the Heritage Lottery Fund. Entitled ‘Remembering 1916: Challenges for Today’ the conference included among its guest speakers eminent academics, historians and commentators on the period who examined the challenges, risks and complexities of commemoration.

The conference was held on Monday 25 November 2013 at the MAC in Belfast and was chaired by BBC journalist and presenter William Crawley.”