Introduction
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Notes Introduction 1 Pat Cooke, ‘Letter to the Irish Times’, 5 April 2006. 2 Editorial response to Pat Cooke’s letter, 5 April 2006. 3 See http://www.irishtimes.com/focus/easterrising/monday/. Accessed June 2010. 4 Sunniva O’Flynn, ‘Letter to the Irish Times’, 8 April 2006. 5 Tanya Kiang, ‘Letter to the Irish Times’, 12 April 2006. 6 O’Flynn, 8 April 2006. 7 Raphael Samuel, Theatres of Memory: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture (London: Verso, 1994), p.25. 8 Pierre Nora, quoted by John Gillis, ‘Memory and Identity: The History of a Relationship’, Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity, ed. John R. Gillis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), p.8. 9 As Conor McCarthy argues, in the 1960s ‘modernistion became a narrative in terms of which the “imagined community” of the Republic understood itself and envisioned its future.’ Modernisation, Crisis and Culture in Ireland, 1969–1992 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2000), p.30 10 See Jeanne Sheehy, The Rediscovery of Ireland’s Past: The Celtic Revival 1830–1930 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1980). 11 Lady Augusta Gregory, Selected Writings, eds. Lucy McDiarmid and Maureen Waters (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995), p.311. 12 W.B. Yeats, ‘The Man and the Echo’, Yeats’s Poems, ed. A. Norman Jeffares (Basingstoke: Macmillan – now Palgrave Macmillan, 1989), p.469. 13 See Joep Leerssen for a discussion of the Ordnance Survey and its representa- tion in Translations, in Remembrance and Imagination (Cork: Cork University Press, 1996), pp.102–3. 14 For a critical discussion of Riverdance see Aoife Monks, Comely Maidens and Celtic Tigers: Riverdance and Global Performance, Goldsmiths Performance Research Pamphlet (London: Goldsmiths, 2007). 15 Ruth Barton has named this genre ‘Irish heritage cinema’. See Barton, ‘From History to Heritage: Some Recent Developments in Irish Cinema’, Irish Review, v.20–1 (1997), 41–56. 16 Mary Daly, ‘History à la carte? Historical commemoration and modern Ireland’, Commemorating Ireland: History, Politics, Culture, ed. Eberhard Bort (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2004), p.36. 17 Daly, p.39. 18 Margaret Kelleher, ‘Hunger and History: Monuments to the Great Irish Famine’, Textual Practice, 16.2 (2002), 249–76. 19 Kelleher, 261. 20 Cormac Ó Gráda, ‘After the Famine Fever’, Irish Times, 19 May 2001. 21 Brian Friel, Dancing at Lughnasa (London: Faber, 1990), p.1. Further refer- ences to the play will be in parentheses in the text. 171 172 Notes 22 Paul Ricoeur, ‘Memory and Forgetting’, in Questioning Ethics: Contemporary Debates in Philosophy, eds. Richard Kearney and Mark Dooley (London and New York: Routledge, 1999) 5–11; 10. 23 Ricoeur, p.9. 24 Speech given by Bertie Ahern at the opening of an exhibition on 1916 at the National Museum, 9 April 2006. Printed in the Irish Times, 10 April 2006, p.6. Ahern singled out the 1916 Proclamation of the Republic, the 1937 Constitution, Treaty of Rome in 1972, and the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, as the ‘four cornerstones of independent Ireland in the 20th century’. 25 See Anne Dolan for a discussion of the ways in which the civil war have been commemorated historically and locally, in particular the focus on the figure of Michael Collins. Dolan, Commemorating the Irish Civil War: History and Memory, 1923–2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). Also worth noting is the forthcoming book from the research project ‘The Dead of the Irish Revolution 1916–1921’, by Eunan O’Halpin and Daithi O Corrain. 26 The full title of the Mahon Tribunal is ‘The Tribunal of Inquiry into Certain Planning Matters and Payments’, set up in 2003 to address corruption in planning processes. 27 Kevin Whelan, ‘Between Filiation and Affiliation: The Politics of Postcolonial Memory’, in Ireland and Postcolonial Theory, eds. Clare Carroll and Patricia King (Cork: Cork University Press, 2003), pp.92–108; p.93. 1 Past Traumas: Representing Institutional Abuse 1 Judge Sean Ryan, in a statement predating the hearing at which Ahern gave testimony, 7 May 2004. Cited in Bruce Arnold, ‘What was the real reason for Bertie’s apology to State’s abuse victims?’, Sunday Independent, 18 February 2007. 2 Constitution of Ireland, Article 41.1.1–41.1.2. 3 Following the Taoiseach’s apology in 1999, the government proposed a ref- erendum on strengthening the rights of the child in the Constitution. This referendum has not been carried out, though in 2009 there were proposals published for the 28th Amendment to the Constitution on the rights of children. 4 See Timothy O’Grady ‘Presentation to the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse’, 12 May 2005, Vol. No. 57, Joint Committee on Education and Science. O’Grady calls attention to the fact that the government had been aware of allegations of abuse since at least 1982. 5 States of Fear, prod. Mary Raftery, RTÉ (1999). 6 Mannix Flynn, Nothing to Say (Dublin: Ward River Press, 1983), Paddy Doyle, The God Squad: A Remarkable True Story (Dublin: Raven Arts Press, 1988); Mavis Arnold and Heather Laskey, Children of the Poor Clares (Belfast: Appletree Press, 1985). Doyle continues to comment on the emerging story and treatment of abuse on his website ‘The God Squad’ at www.paddydoyle. com, while Mannix Flynn has written for the stage (including James X a stage play which addresses industrial and reform schools, first produced Notes 173 at the Project Arts Centre, Dublin in 2002), and produced art installations which reflect on the issue of abuse in Irish society. 7 Heather Laskey ‘Programme Note’ Stolen Child, Archive of Play Programmes, Dublin City Library, Pearse Street. 8 Mary Drennan, You May Talk Now (Cork: OnStream Publications, 1994). Dear Daughter – about the survivor Christine Buckley, narr. Bosco Hogan, dir. Louis Lentin, Crescendo Concepts for RTÉ, 22 February 1996. 9 Gerardine Meaney, ‘The Sons of Cuchulainn: Violence, the Family, and the Irish Canon’, Éire-Ireland, 41:1&2 (2006), 242–61; 253. 10 Mary Raftery and Eoin O’Sullivan, Suffer the Little Children: The Inside Story of Ireland’s Industrial Schools (New York: Continuum, 1996), pp.189–95. 11 Mary Raftery, Letter to the Irish Examiner, 30 August 2000. 12 Raftery and O’Sullivan, p.79. Diarmaid Ferriter, ‘Air Brushing of Abused Suffering from Records’, Irish Times 23 September 2005. 13 The Report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (Ryan Report), 2009, Volume 4, Chapter 1. This is the rationale behind the play being chosen as one part of the ‘Darkest Corner’ series of plays staged at the Peacock Theatre as the National Theatre’s response to the Ryan Report. 14 Raftery and O’Sullivan, p.385. 15 Ryan Report, Volume 1, Chapter 6. 16 Brother Michael Reynolds, evidence to the Investigation Committee of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, cited in Diarmaid Feriter (2005). 17 These comments are made in the Report specifically in relation to St Conleth’s Reformatory School in Daingean, Co. Offaly: the Department of Education ‘knew that its rules were being breached in a fundamental way’ but ‘would not interfere’. Ryan Report, Volume 1, Chapter 15. 18 See The Report of the Commission of Investigation, Dublin Catholic Archdiocese, 2009, Part One, Chapter One, p.4. 19 Justice Mary Laffoy, Letter to Mr Dermot McCarthy, Secretary General, printed in Irish Times, 8 September 2003. 20 Timothy O’Grady, ‘Presentation to the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse’, 12 May 2005, Vol. No. 57, Joint Committee on Education and Science. 21 The Ryan Report states that ‘in excess of 800 individuals were identified as physically and/or sexually abusing the witnesses as children’, Executive Summary, Volume 1, Chapters 7, 9 and 13–18. Mannix Flynn, ‘We can’t get on with our lives. It’s just not that easy’, Irish Times, 21 May 2009, p.14. 22 Paul Ricoeur, ‘Memory and Forgetting’, in Questioning Ethics: Contemporary Debates in Philosophy, eds. Richard Kearney and Mark Dooley (London and New York: Routledge, 1999), pp. 5–11; 10. 23 Mary Raftery, ‘Report a monument to a society’s shame’, Irish Times 21 May 2009, p.18. 24 As Joan Burton, in a speech to the Dáil in January 2010 reported: ‘Just before Christmas last year, the Justice for Magdalene group met senior officials in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. At that meeting, Mr. James Martin, an assistant secretary at the Department, stated that after the passage of the Criminal Justice Act 1960, the State routinely placed women on remand in the Magdalene institutions and paid a capitation grant for each woman so referred. I welcome the admission by the Department that women were routinely referred to various Magdalene asylums via the Irish 174 Notes court system in an arrangement entered into by members of the Judiciary and the four religious congregations operating Magdalene laundries in the State. Women were also placed in Magdalene laundries “on probation” by the Irish court system, in some cases for periods of up to three years.’ Dáil Debates, 21 January 2010, http://www.kildarestreet.com/debates/?id= 2010-01-21.467.0 (accessed February 2010). 25 John Waters, ‘A stick to beat the past with’, Irish Times 20 October 2003. 26 States of Fear, Episode 1. For a discussion of the Kennedy report, see Raftery and O’Sullivan, pp.378–82. 27 Ryan Report, Volume III, Chapter 2. 28 Dear Daughter, dir. Louis Lentin, Crescendo Concepts (1996). 29 States of Fear, Episode 1. 30 States of Fear, Episode 1. 31 In the follow-up book, Suffer the Little Children, Raftery and O’Sullivan include ‘testimony’, or narratives, from twenty-one institutions, many of whom were interviewed as part of States of Fear. The book and programme also refer to a further number of industrial schools and more modern care homes, such as Madonna House.