Visualising Identities: Memory and Memorial Production in Modern Ireland

Kathleen Terres
Trinity College Dublin
Department of History of Art and Architecture
2014
BA

Subject: Architecture and Sculpture
Country: Ireland
Period: 20th and 21st Century

10,000 words

The Irish Easter Rising (1916) was a transformative political and cultural moment in modern Irish history. Memory of this event and its architects has been actively employed by Irish governments with the aims of asserting a Nationalist identity. Public statuary and memorial gardens commemorating the rebellion are the central focus of this dissertation. Ideological ‘conflicting’ memorials and iconoclastic acts offer broader contextualisation. Examination of the contained ideologies and public receptions of memorials are useful tools for analysing and developing cultural consciousness and identities. This critical enquiry seeks to map constructs of identity through memorial production in Ireland, while the conclusion offers questions for further scholarship in light of the forthcoming centenary of the Rising.

Irish Georgian Society

Education Theses Register

Visualising Identities: Memory and Memorial Production in Modern Ireland