The centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising was the centrepiece of the ‘Decade of Centenaries’, a 10-year state programme of commemoration in the Republic of Ireland. Characterised by a focus on public history and making digital archives available, another seismic shift in this period has been the way in which it has driven academic and public discourse around women in the national heritage. The use of social media as ‘a democratized space for critical comment’ and to foreground the position of women in Irish history was observed in 2016 (Casserly and O’Neill, 2017, p. 11). This paper will discuss Twitter as a ‘theatre of memory’ in the Irish context (Samuel, 1994) and how memory and commemoration were mobilised in a feminist ‘politics of visibility’ online. The occasion of ‘authorised commemoration’ (Cauvin and Neill, 2017) provided a medium for engaging in a gender critique of remembrance – and absence - in this affective, networked public space (Papacharissi, 2014) underpinned by a discourse of liberation in the present.

The 45 minute talk will be live on Zoom, followed by a Q&A with the speaker. All are welcome.

Speaker bio:

Hannah Smyth is a PhD candidate in the Department of Information Studies, University College London. She is a member of Critical Heritage Europe (CHEurope), an international doctoral research and training consortium funded through the Marie Curie Actions / EU Horizon 2020 programme. Her doctoral research centres on digitisation initiatives and feminist responses to commemoration through social media during a period of prolonged national commemoration in the Republic of Ireland - known as the ‘Decade of Centenaries’ or ‘decade of commemorations’ – which marks the historic period that led to Irish independence from British colonial rule a century ago. Hannah also holds an M.Phil. in Public History and Cultural Heritage from Trinity College Dublin and worked in research and production for the history website Century Ireland prior to starting her PhD.

*This seminar is hosted by the Institute for the Understanding of the Past at the University of York.