Living Legacies 1914-18 Project Officer,
Dr Heather Montgomery recently attended the TCD/QUB Reading Party event held at the Clandeboye estate, 12-14th September 2017.
Heather spoke about Ireland’s involvement in the First World War, from the archaeological perspective, presenting findings relating to her recent doctoral studies and the First World War training camp formerly located on the Clandeboye estate.
The reading party brought together staff and students from Queen’s University Belfast, Trinity College Dublin, and members of the local community in collaboration with Aspects (Bangor Literary Festival, www.aspectsfestival.com), aiming to promote deeper cultural awareness and understanding of sensitive issues around war, commemoration, identity, memory, place and history.
The event was a great success, widely supported by the general public and visiting academics from both QUB and TCD.
A particular highlight of the event was listening to Michael Longley reading from his collection of war poems in the chapel, attracting a full house!
On Wednesday 13
Dr MacConmara began by giving the audience a background to the political landscape of Ireland in 1917 and how the successful election of several Sinn Fein representatives in that year gave the Volunteer movement further confidence. Building upon that, orders were issued by some leaders for any Volunteers arrested to initiate a hunger strike. Ashe was one of those arrested and began his hunger strike in Mountjoy Prison in Dublin on September 20th. He endured force-feeding and died as a result 3 days later. His death became a pivotal moment, Dr MacConmara argued, in the empowerment of Irish citizens and the declining authority of the British judicial system in Ireland. A lively Q and A session followed where Dr MacConmara showed his knowledge of the subject by elaborating further on the life of Thomas Ashe and the comparisons that are drawn between his death and that of Bobby Sands in 1981.
