One event enough to mark Civil War, says chairman of advisory group

There should be only one State event to mark the Irish Civil War, rather than a series marking every major incident, the chairman of the Expert Advisory Group on Commemorations has suggested. Saying that he believed reconciliation should be the hallmark for the years ahead, Maurice Manning said the State should not get involved in multiple commemorations.

“We will leave that to the historians,” he said.

The Civil War lasted from June 1922 to May 1923, and its legacy scarred the new State and made it difficult to commemorate without rancour.

Dr Manning stressed that no plans have been drawn up yet to commemorate the Civil War, but he will be putting forward to the advisory group the idea that there should be just one major occasion.

The group, made up of historians, was set up in 2011 to advise governments on events during the decade of centenaries.

“I think there is a mood for truth and I think the archives should continue to be opened,” Dr Manning said, adding that he believed recently released files from the Military Service Pensions Collection would shed new light on the events of the Civil War.

He said there were no plans to have any further commemorations on the scale of those witnessed this year to mark the centenary of the Easter Rising. Events celebrating the foundation of the State would be “by a distance” the biggest remaining commemoration, he said, but it was unclear yet when this would be marked. Some favour December 7th, 1921, the date of the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, but others have suggested December 6th, 1922, when the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922 became British law.

Dr Manning said his preference was for October 1922, when the Free State constitution was adopted by Dáil Éireann.

Fallow year

Next year is likely to be a fallow year in the commemorations, and there are no major State events planned. The year after the Rising was dominated by a series of Sinn Féin byelection victories, by the failure of the Irish Convention, and by two major battles in the first World War: the Battle of Messines Ridge, in which men from the 16th (Irish) Division and the 36th (Ulster) Division fought together, and the Battle of Passchendaele.

Dr Manning said he anticipated that the Oireachtas would have a major role in marking the 1918 British general election, the first under universal suffrage, in which the abstentionist Sinn Féin won a landslide electoral victory.

He said the 1916 commemorations could be regarded as a success, as they were not politicised and the public accepted they had been programmed “in good faith – people began to see it as history rather than politics”.

He said the principles that informed the Rising commemoration would be retained for the coming years. These principles were historical authenticity, looking at the past in a dispassionate way using original sources, and catering for the diversity of traditions that were in Ireland 100 years ago.

The 1916 commemoration year will end on New Year’s Eve with a simulcast from Dublin, London and Washington, to be broadcast on RTÉ One. It will come from Iveagh House and will be hosted by Claire Byrne.