Commemoration:’ shows and stunts are all that is the thing now’ — the Revolution Remembered, 1923–52

Abstract

Fighting stopped on 24 May 1923; this chapter begins on the 25th. Allowance is made for the years prior to 1916; they have purpose, give context, maybe even cause for the changes that followed. The years after 1923 are different. Cut adrift as the ‘Free State’, as ‘Independent Ireland’, they seem irrelevant to the revolution that created them; the work of another conference, another book, 1916–23, 1923–32 and so on: like Mussolini’s trains our history always seems to run on time.