ABSTRACT
While the bombing demonstrates the consequences of political and sectarian division in Ireland, it also highlights the emotive significance of First World War commemoration in Irish culture. Initiatives such as the Island of Ireland Peace Park, unveiled in Messines, Belgium, in 1998, have united republicans and unionists seeking to honour the dead, acknowledge Irish participation in the war, and work towards harmony after decades of conflict. This unified commemoration has required compromise: as they re-write a shared history of the First World War, unionists and republicans have had to face not only the discord of Ireland’s recent past but also the violence of the distant past and their divergent relationships with Britain and the empire. Labour Party senator Joe Costello spoke more explicitly about the political motivations of nationalist soldiers, asserting that ‘they did not fight for the extension of the empire, they fought so that Home Rule would be established in Ireland’ and ‘for the freedom of small nations’.
