Susan O'Keeffe (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I extend the same welcome to those who have made that long journey. I thank the Minister and welcome him to the House. As others have said, it is a good start. It is great to hear about the Century Ireland project, which is a thoughtful and good place to start what will be a very intense period of commemoration and thought-provoking memories for many people. It is also good to see the harmony in this House, as we talk about this. Some people may have feared that these commemorations might become somehow divisive, but I do not believe that will be the case. We in this House have a role to play in ensuring that does not happen.

I wish to start with the story of a Dubliner, George Gibson, who was sent out to buy tea, sugar and butter for his mother. Instead he put the money on a horse and lost. Instead of going home, he ended up enlisting in the British Army - in the Lancashire Fusiliers. He ended up at the second Battle of Ypres, where for the first time the Germans used poison chlorine gas on a large scale. George was gassed and his eyesight damaged. He was invalided out like many others. However, George was well enough to be shipped back to the front just in time for the Battle of the Somme, where he served as a stretcher-bearer because, of course, his eyesight was not good enough to fight. He was injured again with shrapnel and was shipped back to the UK. He ended up going back to thing he perhaps loved most - working for a bookie's shop in Liverpool.

As that was happening to George, his brother, Richard, while he did not go shopping, also enlisted with the Irish Citizen Army. He thought he was going on a parade and going on to Fairyhouse - it is clear that horses were a big thing in their house. Instead he found himself in the GPO on Easter Monday 1916, aged 18 with his shotgun. He was also wounded just like his brother, trying to escape to Moore Street with the O'Rahilly, his commanding officer, who was, of course, killed in that event. Richard's was a serious wound - a bullet from a Lewis machine gun lodged in his shoulder, which was no joke in 1916. He was shot right outside Nos. 14 to 17 Moore Street. He could not fight further and was subsequently incarcerated in Kilmainham and in other prisons, and ended up in Frongoch where he met Michael Collins.

The two wounded brothers, George and Richard, came together again during the War of Independence, working for Michael Collins. Richard was setting up a bookie business in Dublin, and he and George, still in the UK, used their work on the racecourses and bookies' offices as cover for carrying messages around the UK and delivering them at racecourses where, of course, crowds of people would be gathered and they would be less noticed. They were able to pick up intelligence there and send it back to Dublin.

People such as Richard and George should be our touchstones as we try to work out how to commemorate the events of what historian Eric Hobsbawm famously has called the age of catastrophe - that terrible time between 1914 and 1945. They remind us that real people - men and women, brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers - are at the heart of all these big events, including the Lock-out, the First World War, the Easter Rising, the War of Independence and the Civil War. Real people need to be remembered for who they were, not for who we think they were or for what we imagine they were.

I do not believe that Richard and George ever thought then that they should be commemorated or that people would discuss them nearly 100 years later. That is the very point - they were of the now back then and they did what they thought they should do. They were not showmen and were not trying to create legacy. They were not positioning themselves somewhere in the hope of being important. They did what they thought was right - although perhaps George might be described as taking the scenic route to doing the right thing. These two young men are at the heart of what we want to commemorate. While their story is a classic one of brothers apparently fighting on opposite sides, the truth is, of course, somewhat different. The devil is always in the detail - not just the top line.

Commemorating these events, as we are 100 years later, we must be careful and considered, and observe the complexities of the stories as shown by Richard and George. We need to observe the facts, avoiding the cheap, reductionist, headline style of commemorating which is attractive because it feeds a quick narrative about important events and expands their importance.

Of course, we choose to commemorate these events because it is an important part of defining who we are as a people and who we think we are. It is part of the process of identifying ourselves, believing in ourselves and understanding our place in the world. I believe Senator Noone referred to the 50th anniversary celebrations. I have here a photograph of Richard Gibson at that commemoration. I believe somebody used the word "monochrome" and the photograph is monochrome.

He was presented with this to show he had been in the GPO in 1916. It is a beautiful piece of work. Perhaps the National Library of Ireland road show of the Great War could be repeated or extended. These are the types of valuable things people have in their homes. It is a beautiful piece of handmade work to commemorate that event. We have moved on 50 years and we are now more distanced. As stated by the Minister, we now have a greater capacity to inquire and be fresh in our approach to these events.

I attended the very interesting lecture in the National Library last night by Professor Conor Gearty, during which the Minister also spoke. Professor Gearty spoke about the power of testimony - the affidavit and sworn memories people have - and the interpretation of events many years later. Rosemary Joyce, a professor of anthropology at UC Berkeley has spoken about these public ceremonies fixing in our minds a common account of what happened regardless of whether or not we were there, which account embodies attitudes and perspectives as well as facts.

No tragedy is immune to being taken up in a political narrative. The danger is how they are re-interpreted. Historians, much like lawyers and politicians, have a way of framing history and of creating a narrative argument. They will always be affected by the time and place of their construction. Some may, perish the thought, be affected by a desire to create a wave, make a name for themselves, build a personal reputation or simply make money. At the very good commemoration conference held by Queens University Belfast at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham the historian Jay Winters warned us to beware of historians determining our public memory. He likened commemorations to a cathedral for secular societies, where sacred questions - those about the nature of love, life, death, comradeship and sacrifice - are asked and sometimes answered. It is because of these great emotions, love, life and death, that we run the risk of clouding our commemorative process with the sentimental glorification of events in a manner which would cause people like George and Richard to squirm if they could see or hear it. It is not only people in Ireland who worry about how to commemorate such events. There is a whole business of commemoration, sociological and psychological studies, advisors, consultants and bandwagon jumpers.

In the UK, there is some controversy at the moment about Prime Minister David Cameron's remarks comparing the commemorations for 1914 to those of the recent Diamond Jubilee celebrations for the Queen and calling for them to be about stressing the national spirit. Some well-known actors and personalities, such as Jude Law, Vanessa Redgrave, Ken Loach, want the First World War commemorations to be used to stop current wars and to remind people of the brutal loss of life in terms of the 16 million who died and the 20 million wounded rather than as a commemoration of national spirit. The debate about how we commemorate and what we want goes on.

Let us step carefully. Let us ensure we account for the different views. The Minister has indicated that this is what is being done. We want local authorities, schools and communities to be part of the commemorations. Do we want to learn from the memories and accept all the lessons? Are we ready for this? Do we want to applaud all of it or acknowledge the mistakes? If so, how? Let us not glorify what was not glorious. Let this very important decade of events be about restoring the humanity of those events, the reality of them and the people who fought and died. Richard Gibson never glorified his own contribution. He would tell his grandson Paul about the day he was shot: "How did it feel? What did I do? I did what any good soldier would do son, - I lay down and passed out!" His other great line on the events leading up to Easter 1916 was very simple: "Don't volunteer". His brother, George, lived out his life in Liverpool with his family. He even became an Everton supporter. We will remember Richard - Dick to his family and friends - as the man who smoked a pipe, lived in Stoneybatter, liked the occasional glass of whiskey and was called Daddy by his daughter Catherine.

I welcome his daughter Catherine, Kay, here today with her husband Des Murray who are my mother and father-in-law. I want to pay tribute here to Dick and George and to remember them because above all else, above the national good, the great tradition, the history, the monuments and the solemnity, they were part of a family. Remembering them sustains the living. That ultimately is why this decade matters. There are other events that will be commemorated at this time, including women getting the vote in 1918 and the millennium of the Battle of Clontarf in 1044. The Minister would of course be disappointed if I did not mention 2015, the 150th anniversary of the birth of W.B. Yeats, former Senator.

As outlined by Senator Mac Conghail, this is an opportunity to support living artists and writers who will re-interpret the past and illuminate the present and in so doing commemorate those great people like Richard and George.