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Respondent
Professor Michael Laffan
Reminding and Remembering Professor Michael Laffan An tOllamh Michael Laffan
The past is not dead; it lives on, or it can be brought back to life, and it can be re-shaped. Sometimes it haunts us. It should be treated with respect. President Higgins has raised important and stimulating matters in his address. Prominent among them is his insistence that commemorations of past events should be open to different narratives of historical experience, and in particular that they should include the narratives of ‘the other’, the ‘enemy of yesterday’. They should not censor the memory of ‘painful events’ – even though aspects of the past can often be embarrassing or distasteful.
In commemorating people and events of earlier generations we should take heed of Eric Hobsbawm’s shrewd warning: ‘National myths do not arise spontaneously from people’s actual experiences … it is not a question of the people constantly remembering: they remember because someone is constantly reminding them.’1 All too often, those who remind the people use the past as a weapon with which to attack their present enemies, and ceremonies in remembrance of historical events can provide opportunities for stirring up old hatreds. Commemorative rituals have become historical forces in their own right; 2 they can be occasions for fostering myths and inventing traditions. In contrast, some important aspects of the past are seen as inappropriate to current needs or interests, and they remain uncommemorated.3
1
Eric Hobsbawm, The New Century (London, 2000), 24-5.
2
Ian McBride, in McBride (ed.), History and Memory in Modern Ireland (Cambridge, 2001), 2.
3
R. F. Foster, The Irish Story. Telling Tales and making it up in Ireland (London, 2001), 44-5.
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