New Publication: Making 1916: material and visual culture of the Easter Rising Edited by Lisa Godson and Joanna Brück; published by Liverpool University Press

14 October 2015

This volume presents a wealth of studies on the visual and material culture of the 1916 Easter Rising. While the Rising has been the subject of political, military and cultural histories, the rich variety of objects and images associated with this seminal event and its after-life have not previously formed a focus of sustained enquiry.

Featuring more than 20 essays from prominent and emerging scholars across diverse fields including archaeology, design history, photography, history of art and museology, Making 1916 interrogates the ways spaces, objects and images were central to the experience and subsequent understanding of the Easter Rising. It presents new research including an archaeological analysis of the site around the GPO, the development of the 1916 collection in the National Museum of Ireland, the commemoration of the Rising in the early decades of the Irish Free State and the changing image of Patrick Pearse. In this ‘decade of commemorations’, it addresses the ‘things’ of 1916 not as mere illustrations of history, but as having agency and effect on material practices central to identity and the creation of social memory.

Contents

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 paint…’. 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.

A special programme on Making 1916 will be broadcast on Arts Tonight, RTE radio 1 on October 19th 2015, 10-11 pm, on 88-90 MHz FM and 252 kHz LW and on the world wide web on http://www.rte.ie/radio1/