Technological University Dublin ARROW@TU Dublin
Articles Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media
2018-5
James Connolly's Bloodstained Vest: Mediating Death and Violence in Commemorative Exhibitions
Siobhan Doyle Technological University Dublin, [email protected]
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Part of the Military History Commons, Museum Studies Commons, Other History Commons, Political History Commons, and the Public History Commons
Recommended Citation Doyle, S. (2018) James Connolly's Bloodstained Vest: Mediating Death and Violence in Commemorative Exhibitions' in Abraham, Florin and Kiss, Réka Földváryné (eds) (2018) Remembrance and Solidarity Studies in 20th Century European History. 46-59.
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media at ARROW@TU Dublin. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles by an authorized administrator of ARROW@TU Dublin. For more information, please contact [email protected], aisling[email protected].
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License JAMES CONNOLLY’S BLOODSTAINED VEST ...
JAMES CONNOLLY’S BLOODSTAINED VEST: MEDIATING DEATH AND VIOLENCE IN COMMEMORATIVE EXHIBITIONS
Siobhán Doyle Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media (GradCAM), Dublin School of Creative Arts in the Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin
ABSTRACT The actions surrounding the display of images and artefacts in museums – collection, conservation, research and exhibition – are bound up with how the past is presented and remembered. These conditions and decisions relating to exhibitions are largely invisible to viewers who are confronted with the apparent completeness of an exhibition display. By conducting a historical and visual analy- sis of the bloodstained vest of political leader James Connolly, this article uncovers how this artefact has become a relic of historical violence due to the way in which particular aspects of its configuration, form and trajectory have been manipu- lated in order to elicit powerful emotional responses from the exhibition’s viewers.
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James Connolly’s vest marked with a bloodstain from one of the wounds he received during the 1916 Rising.
This image is reproduced with the kind permission of the National Museum of Ireland (HE:EWL.292.2).
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SIOBHÁN DOYLE Siobhán Doyle is a PhD scholar at the Dublin School of Creative Arts in the Dub- lin Institute of Technology and received the Dean of the College of Arts & Tourism scholarship award in March 2016. Siobhán’s research project investigates repre- sentations of death in commemorative exhibitions in national cultural institutions and the challenges facing museums when commemorating historical conflict. Other research interests include the historiography of visual and material culture and dark tourism. Siobhán has a written a chapter ‘Funerary Traditions and Com- memorative Practices in Glasnevin Cemetery and Museum’ in Grave Matters: Death and Dying in Dublin 1650–2000 (Four Courts Press, Dublin, June 2016).
ENDNOTES 1 The shirt has been on display in the ‘Soldiers and Chiefs’ exhibition at the NMI since 2006 and was featured in the History of Ireland in 100 Objects initiative which began as a column in The Irish Times by Fintan O’ Toole and culminated in an illustrated book, website and series of stamps. This collection of one hundred objects was selected to illustrate Ireland’s history and in doing so, directed readers to where each object was on public display. 2 The Rising was originally scheduled to take place on Easter Sunday, 23 April 1916 but Eoin MacNeill issued a cancellation of ‘manoeuvres’ which led to the non-participation of many potential rebels. The countermand was only partly successful and caused confusion, es- pecially outside Dublin. Consequently there was no Rising in Cork or Limerick. The dissidents delayed their plans by 24 hours and launched the Rising on Easter Monday, 24 April 1916. 3 The flag was returned by the British state to the Taoiseach Sean Lemass as gesture of reconciliation in 1966. Lemass formally presented the flag to the NMI in the hope that
56 REMEMBRANCE AND SOLIDARITY JAMES CONNOLLY’S BLOODSTAINED VEST ...
it would be ‘preserved as one of the important relics of that important event of Irish history and as a source of inspiration to all who come to this museum’. (‘Exhibition Tells Story of the Rising: Post Office Flag on View’,Irish Times, 13 April 1966, 11.) 4 Connolly gave a copy of his Court Martial statement to his daughter Nora during the final family visit the night before his execution, which is on display in the pull-out drawer underneath the glass display case. 5 Bureau of Military History (1949): Witness Statement of Nora Connolly-O’Brien (WS286). http://www.bureauofmilitaryhistory.ie/reels/bmh/BMH.WS0286.pdf#page=1. Accessed 6 November 2017. 6 The items were originally on loan to the NMI from 30 April 1941 and include a por- trait of James Connolly and a shirt and vest worn by James Connolly when he was wounded during Easter Week 1916. Both are stained with his blood. The loan register lists the lender as Nora Connolly O’Brien (daughter of James Connolly), 39 The Rise, Glasnevin, Dublin. NMI Archives: NMIAS.AI.EWL.0097.003.00034. Accessed 3 November 2017. 7 Bureau of Military History: Witness Statement of Peter Paul Gilligan (WS170). http://www.bureauofmilitaryhistory.ie/reels/bmh/BMH.WS0170.pdf#page=1. Accessed 6 November 2017. 8 Bureau of Military History: Witness Statement of 2nd Lieutenant R. C. Barton (WS0979). https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B9JG21-1AMNPUTNhNGoxRFFqNnc. Accessed 16 January 2017. 9 Despite returning to duty immediately after receiving the wound on his arm dressed, Connolly received a much more severe injury to his ankle shortly afterwards that immobilized him for the remainder of the conflict, and up until his execution two weeks later. 10 Bureau of Military History (1949): Witness Statement of Nora Connolly O’ Brien (WS286). http://www.bureauofmilitaryhistory.ie/reels/bmh/BMH.WS0286.pdf#page=1. Accessed 6 November 2017. 11 NMI Archives: NMIAS.AI.EWL.0097.003.00034 (9). Accessed 3 November 2017. 12 Bureau of Military History (1954): Witness Statement of Ina Connolly Heron (WS0919) http://www.bureauofmilitaryhistory.ie/reels/bmh/BMH.WS0919.pdf. Accessed 6 November 2017. 13 Bureau of Military History: Witness Statement of 2nd Lieutenant R. C. Barton (WS0979). https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B9JG21-1AMNPUTNhNGoxRFFqNnc. Accessed 16 November 2017. 14 Tynan, Jane (2015) ‘The Unmilitary Appearance of the 1916 Rebels’, in Making 1916: Material and Visual Culture of the 1916 Rising, ed. Lisa Godson and Joanna Bruck. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
LIST OF REFERENCES Published Sources: Albano, Caterina (2007) ‘Displaying Lives: The Narratives of Objects in Biographical Exhibi- tions’. Museum and Society, 5, no. 1. 15–28. Beiner, Guy (2016) ‘Making Sense of Memory: Coming to Terms with Conceptualisations of Historical Remembrance’, in Remembering 1916: The Easter Rising, the Somme and the Politics
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of Memory in Ireland, ed. Richard S. Grayson and Fearghal McGarry, 25–36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brooks, Mary M. (2017) ‘Reflecting Absence and Presence: Displaying Dress of Known Individuals’, in Refashioning and Redress: Conserving and Displaying Dress, ed. Mary M. Brooks and Dinah D. Eastop, 19–32. Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute. Brück, Joanna and Lisa Godson (2015) ‘Approaching the Material and Visual Culture of the 1916 Rising: An Introduction’, in Making 1916: Material and Visual Culture of the 1916 Rising, ed. Lisa Godson & Joanna Brück, 1–11. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Coombes, Annie E. (1988) ‘Museums and the Formation of National and Cultural Identities’. Oxford Art Journal, 11, no. 2. 260–72. Eastop, Dinah D. and Brooks, Mary M. (1996) ‘To Clean or Not to Clean: The Value of Soils and Creases’, in Preprints of the 11th Triennial Meeting of the ICOM–CC, Edinburgh, ed. Janet Birdgland, 687–91. London: James & James. Elliott, Jack (2015) ‘“After I am Hanged my Portrait will be Interesting but not Before”: Ephemera and the Construction of Personal Responses to the Easter Rising’, in Making 1916: Material and Visual Culture of the 1916 Rising, ed. Lisa Godson and Joanna Brück, 91–8. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. ‘Exhibition Tells Story of the Rising: Post Office Flag on View’(1966) Irish Times, 13 April, 11. Accessed 29 January 2018: http://0-search.proquest.com.ditlib.dit.ie/docview/524705 417?accountid=10594 Fitzpatrick, David (2016) ‘Instant History: 1912, 1916, 1918’, in Remembering 1916: The Easter Rising, the Somme and the Politics of Memory in Ireland, ed. Richard S. Grayson and Fearghal McGarry, 77–98. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gannon, Darragh (2016) Proclaiming a Republic: Ireland, 1916 and the National Collection. Kildare: Irish Academic Press. Godson, Lisa and Joanna Brück, eds (2015) Making 1916: Material and Visual Culture of the 1916 Rising. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. MacLean, Sorley (2011) ‘National Museum of Ireland’, in Sorley MacLean: Collected Poems, ed. Christopher Whyte and Emma Dymock, 270–71. Edinburgh: Polygon. McGarry, Fearghal (2010) The Rising: Ireland, Easter 1916. New York, Oxford University Press. Nevin, Donal (2005) James Connolly: ‘A Full Life’. Dublin: Gill and MacMillan. Scott, James (2015) ‘Objects and the Representations of War in Military Museums’, Museum and Society, 13, no. 4. 489–502. Tynan, Jane (2015) ‘The Unmilitary Appearance of the 1916 Rebels’, in Making 1916: Material and Visual Culture of the 1916 Rising, ed.Lisa Godson and Joanna Brück, 25–33. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Primary Sources: Bureau of Military History (1949) Witness Statement of Nora Connolly O’ Brien (WS286). Accessed 6 November 2017: http://www.bureauofmilitaryhistory.ie/reels/bmh/BMH. WS0286.pdf#page=1 Bureau of Military History (1954) Witness Statement of Ina Connolly Heron (WS0919). Accessed 6 November 2017: http://www.bureauofmilitaryhistory.ie/reels/bmh/BMH. WS0919.pdf
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Bureau of Military History: Witness Statement of 2nd Lieutenant R. C. Barton (WS0979). Accessed 16 November 2017: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B9JG21-1AMN- PUTNhNGoxRFFqNnc Bureau of Military History: Witness Statement of Peter Paul Gilligan (WS170). Accessed 6 November 2017: http://www.bureauofmilitaryhistory.ie/reels/bmh/BMH.WS0170. pdf#page=1 Heise, Sandra and Tandem Design (2015) ‘National Museum of Ireland: Easter Week Re- membered Concept Design (Issue 1)’, 26 June 2015. National Museum of Ireland Archives: AI/16/111. Accessed 18 September 2017. National Library of Ireland (1917) Irish National Aid and Volunteer Dependents’ Fund: Catalogue of Gift Sale to be Held in Aid of above at the Mansion House, Dublin on Friday and Saturday, 20 and 21 April 1917: MS. 35,262/27(1). Accessed 22 November 2017. National Museum of Ireland Archives: NMIAS.AI.EWL.0097.003.00034 (9). Accessed 3 November 2017.
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