• Disremembering 1798?: An Archaeology of Social Forgetting and Remembrance in Ulster

    Author(s):
    Guy Beiner (see profile)
    Date:
    2013
    Group(s):
    Cultural Studies, Irish Literature and Culture
    Subject(s):
    Collective memory, Historiography, Ireland, History, Memory--Study and teaching, Great Britain, History, Modern
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    1798 Rebellion, Commemorations, folk history, social forgetting, Ulster, Cultural memory, Irish history, Memory studies, Modern British history
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M68G4Z
    Abstract:
    On the face of it, the legacy of the 1798 rebellion in the northeastern Irish counties of Antrim and Down seems to be a paradigmatic case of “collective amnesia.” Over the course of the long nineteenth century, growing identification of the Protestants of the area with unionism, loyalism and Orangeism, fortified through opposition to the rise of nationalism amongst Catholics, encouraged public effacement of discomforting memories of the mass participation of Protestants, in particular Presbyterians, in republican insurrection. However, the uncovering of a “hidden” (or perhaps relatively low-profile) popular historiography grounded in oral traditions reveals continuous obsessive, though characteristically ambivalent, local preoccupation with remembrance of the rebellion. Acknowledging that forgetting is not the antithesis, but an integral component, of memory, this case study of what appears to be an Ulster lieu d’oubli conceptualizes “social forgetting” as the outcome of multi-layered relationships between oblivion and remembering.
    Metadata:
    Published as:
    Journal article    
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    6 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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