Remembering our Past

Ireland is marking a “Decade of Centenaries”, highlighting the centenary anniversaries of some of the seminal events in Ireland’s history, including the Lockout of 1913, the First World War, The Easter Rising, the Flu Epidemic, the election of 1918, the meeting of the first Dáil, the War of Independence and the Irish Civil War.

President Michael D. Higgins led the commemorations, through State ceremonial events and by shaping national efforts to examine the background, impact and contemporary relevance of the events being commemorated.

In his work, President Higgins has highlighted the need of engaging in the task of ‘ethical remembering’ – the importance of including and recognising those voices that were, in our past, too often marginalised, disenfranchised or excluded – and of adopting a disposition of ‘narrative hospitality’ – a willingness to be open to the perspectives, stories, memories and pains of the stranger.

In 2020, President Higgins launched a next phase of the programme of commemorations, by hosting a series of seminars inviting reflections on the War of Independence, the Treaty Negotiations, the Civil War and Partition.

Entitled “Machnamh 100” – referring to an ancient Irish concept encompassing reflection, contemplation, meditation and thought – the seminars are designed to bring together leading scholars, from different backgrounds and with an array of perspectives, to share their insights and thoughts on the context and events of a century ago. Machnamh 100 is an invitation from the President to all those with an interest in Ireland’s past to reflect on what the events of a century ago mean for us today.

In December 2020, the President hosted the first seminar in the series of reflections, focusing on the nature of commemoration itself: why we do it, what we choose to commemorate, and what we may have chosen to omit from our commemorations.

In his opening address for the seminar, President Higgins urged respect for different perspectives on the events of the 1913-1923 period, in order to facilitate a more authentic treatment of our shared history, which can contribute to the post-sectarian hopes for the future.

In December 2020, President Higgins hosted the first seminar in his ‘Machnamh 100’ series of reflections

The President said that an appropriate form of commemoration of the past offers the opportunity to reflect on how our societies change, and have changed, over time, and what helped drive those changes. The events of the past “will be retold from many different standpoints, and it is through respecting these differing perspectives in all their complexity that we can facilitate a more authentic construction, not only of our intersecting shared history, but of our postsectarian possibilities for the future.”

However, the painful events of the past should not be censored from memory. The President said that during the War of Independence, the acts of aggression unleashed by Crown forces and administered by the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries, were often in the form of exemplary collective punishments and reprisals – tactics that would be contrary to the modern-day Geneva Conventions and would be considered illegal under international law. Earlier in the year, President Higgins had also spoken on the theme of collective reprisals. Writing on the centenary of the Sack of Balbriggan in September 2020, President Higgins stressed that collective punishment by British forces were not unique to Ireland, but part of the tactics used in other colonies, including in India, Kenya and Cyprus.

The first Machnamh 100 seminar was followed in February 2021 by a seminar examining responses by the British empire to events in Ireland during the War of Independence and the Treaty, and a third seminar, in May 2021, will reflect on the labour movement and women’s participation in the independence struggle. In total, the President will host six seminars in the series, and all contributions will be published on the President’s website and in a book on the President’s initiative, to be published at the end of the series.

President Higgins and Sabina ringing the Peace Bell at Áras an Uachtaráin, Easter Sunday, April 2020

President leads Easter Rising Commemoration

President Higgins led the annual commemorations marking the anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising.

In a departure from the usual protocol as a result of Covid-19 related public health guidelines, the men and women of 1916 were commemorated not through ceremonies attended by members of the public, but through a televised event.

The socially-distanced ceremony began with the President ringing the Peace Bell at Áras an Uachtaráin, followed by a prayer and a reading of the Proclamation from at the GPO. The President then laid a wreath at a group of 16 birch trees planted, on the initiative of President Higgins and Sabina, in honour of the revolutionaries executed after the 1916 Rising.

The next day, a short ceremony entitled ‘Ireland Remembers’ honoured all those who died as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In April 2020, President Higgins led a special commemoration marking the 104th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising

President Higgins at the National Day of Commemoration ceremony in Collins Barracks, honouring all Irish men and women who died in war or on service with UN peacekeeping forces. Photo: Defence Forces

President Higgins at the annual National Service of Remembrance at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, November 2020 In May, President Higgins led a State commemoration ceremony in honour of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising

Remembering the Holocaust

In January 2020, President Higgins travelled to Poland, to attend a commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration and extermination camp.

The President joined more than 200 camp survivors, who shared their testimonies and warned of the danger of modern day anti-Semitic attacks, and leaders from around 60 countries, in a ceremony honouring the more than 1.1 million people, the vast majority of them Jewish, who died in the camp.

Before travelling to Poland, the President addressed the annual Holocaust Memorial Day Commemoration in the Mansion House, in which he paid tribute to the survivors and warned of a rise in extremist language and politics across Europe, saying “an ugly anti-migrant sentiment is attempting to rear its head in Ireland”.

In this speech, the President said that this “corrupted form of populism has not abated across Europe, and antiSemitism has not been eliminated from the extreme rhetoric of those seeking to scapegoat the vulnerable.”

In January 2020, President Higgins lit a candle at the memorial in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp

President Higgins and Uachtarán Chumann Lúthchleas Gael John Horan during the GAA Bloody Sunday Commemoration at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo: GAA

President Higgins at the Bloody Sunday Commemoration at Croke Park in Dublin, November 2020