While knowledge of history can explain our contemporary situation, an awareness of the myths and misuses of our history can bring a broader and more conciliatory approach to current political and social challenges. History or, more correctly, views of the past or historical myths have shaped politics in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. These views served in part to cause and sustain the Troubles. Eventually, many historical perceptions were challenged, which helped to promote the peace process. New ideas of revised and shared history were important. These changes are explored here.
The public expression of history in Ireland through commemoration of important historical events and persons is investigated in a number of chapters. The impact of historical developments on identity is studied not just in Ireland, north and south, but also among the Irish diaspora, especially in America. In Irish History Matters, Brian M. Walker uses three decades of research to explore the effects historical events have had on Irish politics and society, and why they still have an important influence today.
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One notices how people are gripped by the past remembering the past feeding on the past. -- Michael Cassidy Brian Walker challenges embedded myths and perceptions, peels away the real from the imagined, presents and confronts truths that we in Ireland and the United Kingdom need to know if the future is to be unchained from a past that cannot be changed but needs to be remembered differently. -- Mary McAleese No country in the world discourses more about its history: no country makes more ill use of it. In this book Brian Walker unpicks the complicated tale and, in a triumph of calm lucidity, gives us the truth. -- Professor Paul Bew
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The relevance of Irish history from one of Irelands most authoritative voices
Title
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
Part 1 Past and Present
1 The Past and the Present: History, Identity and the Peace Process
Part 2 Commemoration
2 St Patricks Day: Commemoration, Conflict and Conciliation, 19032013
3 Commemorating the Siege of Derry and Theobald Wolfe Tone at Bodenstown:
Parades, Pilgrimages and Politics
4 Commemorating the Two World Wars, 19192017: Remembering, Forgetting and
Remembering Again
Part 3 Identities
5 Irish Identity, Past and Present
6 The Lost Tribes of Ireland: Diversity, Identity and Loss Among the Irish
Diaspora
7 President Barack Obama, Fulmouth Kearney and the Irish in America Today
Part 4 Politics, 18851923
8 The 1885 and 1886 General Elections: A Milestone in Irish History
9 Southern Protestant Voices During the Irish War of Independence and the
Civil War: Reports from Church of Ireland Synods
Notes
Select Bibliography
BRIAN M. WALKER is Professor Emeritus of Irish Studies at Queens University Belfast. He has served as Director of the Institute of Irish Studies at Queens and Chairman of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Belfast. He has written many books on Irish history, including A Political History of the Two Irelands: From Partition to Peace (2012).
