Making 1916

Material and Visual Culture of the Easter Rising

Edited by Lisa Godson and Joanna Brück

Liverpool University Press

First book to consider the objects, images and places associated with the 1916 Rising.
Addresses the dearth of critical and current published scholarship on Irish material culture.
Speaks to the increasing interest in material and visual culture across the social sciences (the 'material turn').
Employs an interdisciplinary perspective to explore the materiality of the 1916 Rising.
Provides a critical re-appraisal of the Rising in the run-up to the centenary by examining previously unexplored sources of information.

Making 1916

Material and Visual Culture of the Easter Rising

Edited by Lisa Godson and Joanna Brück

Liverpool University Press

Description

The 1916 Rising is the pivotal yet highly contested moment in Irish history when militant republicans sought to seize political power from Britain, and declared - though unsuccessfully in the short term - an independent state. Credited with inspiring independence movements in other former colonies, the Rising has been the subject of histories from the political to the literary. Yet, the rich variety of objects and images associated with the Rising - from buttons and medals to souvenir postcards - have not formed a focus of academic research. This volume of essays will examine the material and visual culture of the Rising to consider how these illuminate changing ways of engaging with and understanding this iconic event. Family keepsakes such as autograph books from Frongoch internment camp, informal souvenirs such as pieces of rubble from Dublin's General Post Office, and 'official' souvenirs such as photo booklets each played a significant role in the construction of individual and collective memory. In placing material and visual culture centre stage, this book will examine how the spaces, objects and images associated with the Rising are caught up in processes of identity production in both public and private space as changing socio-political conditions generated new understandings of 1916 and its aftermath. It addresses the 'things' of 1916 not as mere illustrations of history, but as having agency and effect on material practices central to contested concepts of identity and the creation of social memory.

Making 1916

Material and Visual Culture of the Easter Rising

Edited by Lisa Godson and Joanna Brück

Liverpool University Press

Introduction Joanna Brück and Lisa Godson Approaching the material and visual culture of the 1916 Rising

Section 1: The Fabric of the Rising

Brian Hand The fabric of a deathless dream: a short introduction to the origins and meanings of the 1916 tricolour flag

Jane Tynan The unmilitary appearance of the 1916 Rebels

Franc Myles Beating the retreat: the final hours of the Easter Rising

Daniel Jewesbury The constitution of a state yet to come: the unbroken promise of the Half-Proclamation

Bill Mc Cormack What is a forgery or a catalyst? The so-called 'Castle Document' of Holy Week 1916

Ciara Chambers The 'aftermath' of the Rising in cinema newsreels

Section 2: The Affective Bonds of the Rising

Orla Fitzpatrick Portraits and propaganda: photographs of the widows and children of the 1916 leaders in The Catholic Bulletin

Jack Elliott 'After I am hanged my portrait will be interesting but not before'. Ephemera and the construction of personal responses to the Easter Rising

Joanna Brück Nationalism, gender and memory: internment camp craftwork, 1916-1923

Laura McAtackney Female prison autograph books: (re)remembering the Easter Rising through the experiences of Irish Civil War imprisonment

Brian Crowley Pearse's profile: the making of an icon

Section 3: Revivalism and the Rising

Elaine Sisson – Dublin Civic Week and the materialisation of history

Mary Ann Bolger Redesigning the Rising: typographic commemorations of 1916

Róisín Kennedy The Capuchin Annual: visual art and the legacy of 1916, one generation on

Hilary O'Kelly National Revival dress and 1916

Section 4: Remembering the Rising

Lar Joye and Brenda Malone Displaying the nation: the 1916 exhibition at the National Museum of Ireland (1932-1991)

Elizabeth Crooke A story of absence and recovery: the Easter Rising in museums in Northern Ireland

Pat Cooke History, materiality and the myth of 1916

Damian Shiels Place versus memory: forgetting Ireland's sites of independence?

Catherine Marshall 'Of all the trials not to paintEL'. Sir John Lavery's painting High Treason, Court of Criminal Appeal: the Trial of Roger Casement 1916

Justin Carville 'Dusty fingers of time': photography, materials memory and 1916

Lisa Godson Religion, ritual and the performance of memory in the Irish Free State

Afterword Nicholas Allen Lost city of the archipelago: Dublin at the end of Empire

Making 1916

Material and Visual Culture of the Easter Rising

Edited by Lisa Godson and Joanna Brück

Liverpool University Press

Author Information

Lisa Godson is Lecturer at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin.

Joanna Brück is Reader in the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Bristol.

Contributors:

Nicholas Allen, Director of the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts and Franklin Professor of English, University of Georgia

Mary Ann Bolger, Lecturer in Design History and Critical Theory, School of Art, Design and Printing, Dublin Institute of Technology

Joanna Brück, Reader in Archaeology, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol

Justin Carville, Lecturer in Historical and Theoretical Studies in Photography, Dept. of Art and Design, Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dun Laoghaire

Ciara Chambers, Lecturer in Film Studies, School of Media, Film and Journalism, University of Ulster

Pat Cooke, Director of the MA in Cultural Policy and Arts Management, University College Dublin

Elizabeth Crooke, Professor of Heritage and Museum Studies, School of Creative Arts and Technologies, University of Ulster

Brian Crowley, Curator of the Pearse Museum, Dublin

Jack Elliott, Associate Member, Centre for the History of Medicine, University of Warwick

Orla Fitzpatrick, PhD researcher, University of Ulster

Lisa Godson, Lecturer in History of Design and Material Culture (National College of Art and Design)

Brian Hand, artist and Lecturer in Art and Design, Wexford Campus School of Art and Design, Institute of Technology Carlow

Daniel Jewesbury, Lecturer in Film, School of Media, Film and Journalism, University of Ulster.

Lar Joye, Curator of Military History, National Museum of Ireland

Róisín Kennedy, Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Irish Art, School of Art History and Cultural Policy, University College Dublin

Brenda Malone, Historian, Registration, National Museum of Ireland

Catherine Marshall, Head of Collections, Irish Museum of Modern Art, 1995-2006; co-editor, vol. V, Art and Architecture of Ireland (to be launched November 2014).

Laura McAtackney is an historical/contemporary archaeologist based at the School of Social Justice, University College Dublin

Bill Mc Cormack was Professor of Literary History at Goldsmiths College, University of London until 2002 and subsequently served as Keeper of the Edward Worth Library, Dublin

Franc Myles, Senior Archaeologist, Archaeology and Built Heritage, Smithfield, Dublin

Hilary O'Kelly, Lecturer in Design History, National College of Art and Deisgn

Damian Shiels, Conflict Archaeologist, Rubicon Heritage Services Ltd., Co. Cork

Elaine Sisson, Senior Lecturer in Visual Culture, Faculty of Film, Art and Creative Technologies, Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dun Laoghaire

Jane Tynan, Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London