Easter Commemorations this weekend… April 21, 2016
Posted by guestposter in Uncategorized.trackback
Notices of events will go in this post/thread… starting with:
WP Easter Commemorations
Saturday 11.30 pm at Arbour Hill
One of the most enduring images of the Rising is of the surrender, where Nurse Elizabeth O’Farrell was airbrushed out of the photo. For Saturday’s event, The Workers’ Party has invited a number of speakers to reflect on those who were not just airbrushed out of history but have been excluded from the Republic (and how those people have fought back).
Check the Facebook event for details: https://www.facebook.com/events/1062067657198022/
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
Surprised you forgot about today’s Casement centenary commemorations at Banna Strand – the only official 1916 commemoration outside Dublin. Thousands in attendance, full Army, Navy and Air Corps presence, and the President gave a resounding speech about Casement’s humanitarian work in the Congo and Amazon.
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To be honest the post went up after Banna strand and the intention was to focus on non state commemorations.
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Inspired by the stories of Elizabeth O’Farrell and all those others who were disappeared from history
Jesus, do the WP even know who she was? The dangers of hitching yourself to the feminist bandwagon without doing your own research.
O’Farrell’s later exclusion was because she was a diehard loyalist to the Republic of 1916; she refused to even apply for a pension from the former Free State. Her ‘airbrushing’ from that photo was just to bring out Pearse for the readers. Nothing to do with her sex.
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Whatever the motivation I’m always leery about photographs of historical events being altered or that alternation not being widely known or mentioned. And as with staged photos of historical events (the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima) it is far from unimportant to know exactly what is the full story of how an image was created, what was left in and what was left out.
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I think of various figures from Russian history who disappeared from the photos.
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+1 Jim, and other places too.
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And regarding feminism I think most here would regard themselves whether female or male, anarchist, independent socialists, SP, WP, SF or whoever as feminists, We are already on the ‘bandwagon’ and make no apology for it.
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We are already on the ‘bandwagon’ and make no apology for it.
Well, it’s my fault for not specifying who, exactly, I was talking about within the feminist camp, and I apologise for it. But there’s certainly a group who couldn’t give tuppence for the centenary nor know (or care) anything about the women involved or their actual causes. The ‘Waking the Feminists’ nonsense illustrates the point.
There was a certain public lecture given in Dublin a month or so ago, where the feminist academic giving it made it a central claim that O’Farrell was airbrushed out entirely because she was a woman (which is entirely unproven and unprovable, and any airbrushing out was done by the newspaper concerned, not any Irish state). She also repeated the lazy and untrue claim that Margaret Skinnider didn’t get a pension because she was female (untrue. The issue was national Army service – Brigid Lyons got one). To cap it off, she at this point put up someone else’s portrait who very clearly wasn’t Skinnider.
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No worries. It is true that people are marshalled to fit frameworks of understanding and sometimes incorrectly, on the other hand it is good that this is being discussed because error can be corrected.
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O’Farrell herself has stated that she stepped back behind Pearse when the photograph was taken, which is what caused the problem. You can see in the original newspaper picture that it still looks like he’s wearing a billowing cape, because the photographic reproduction technology of the time was so poor.
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That’s true but that she was airbrushed out in one instance is also true and that her role was not particularly highlighted is also true. I think one doesn’t have to view it as an outright conspiracy to see this as reflective of certain unconscious tropes about the Rising, the role or lack of same of women in it, etc. And it does make for a very neat practical illustration if how that role was rather diminished across decades. So I think it is quite positive to be drawing attention to it as long as the full context is given.
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“feminist bandwagon” ! That is a very loaded, sarcastic, prejudiced and unnecessary term to use. I think you should withdraw it.
The independent State that emerged from the 1916-1922 period, in both its Cumann na nGaedhael & Fianna Fail versions was backward & conservative, where the rights of women were regressed and undermined. The women involved in the variety of movements prior to the Rising and, indeed the women who participated in both Easter Week and afterwards in the variety of movements, were by and large, feminist & relatively progressive for the time. Their role was ignored and their voices were left out of the dominant flag-waving ‘mother Ireland’ narrative that we were reared on.
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NATIONAL GRAVES ASSOCIATION
The signs are up in Glasnevin. Join us to commemorate the Rising on the 24th April 2016, one hundred years to the day after the Rising began. The National Graves Association will unveil the extensively refurbished 1916 Monument and plot in Glasnevin cemetery where many of the rank and file Volunteers are interred. Musical entertainment starts at 10 am at the GPO. We are asking all those who wish to honour the forgotten heroes of 1916 to assemble for the march at 12.00 pm. This commemoration is a non party political event open to everyone to attend. Marching bands participating.
NO PARTY POLITICAL BANNERS PLEASE.
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Just for EWI’s information, The WP printed a pamphlet about Elizabeth O’Farrell maybe ten years ago. Perhaps he might consider if he is as well informed as he thinks he is.
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