Forgetful Remembrance : Social Forgetting and Vernacular Historiography of a Rebellion in Ulster

__Forgetful Remembrance__examines the paradoxes of what actually happens when communities persistently endeavour to forget inconvenient events. The question of how a society attempts to obscure problematic historical episodes is addressed through a detailed case study grounded in the north-eastern counties of the Irish province of Ulster, where loyalist and unionist Protestants -- and in particular Presbyterians -- repeatedly tried to repress over two centuries discomfiting recollections of participation, alongside Catholics, in a republican rebellion in 1798.By exploring a rich variety of sources, Beiner makes it possible to closely follow the dynamics of social forgetting. His particular focus on vernacular historiography, rarely noted in official histories, reveals the tensions between professed oblivion in public and more subtle rituals of remembrance that facilitated muted traditions of forgetful remembrance, which were masked by a local culture of reticence and silencing.Throughout__Forgetful Remembrance__, comparative references demonstrate the wider relevance of the study of social forgetting in Northern Ireland to numerous other cases where troublesome memories have been concealed behind a veil of supposed oblivion. "What happens when a society attempts to obscure inconvenient episodes in its past? In 1798, Ulster Protestants—in particular Presbyterians—participated alongside Catholics in the failed republican rebellion of the United Irishmen. In subsequent years, communities in counties Antrim and Down that had been heavily involved in the insurrection reconciled with the newly formed United Kingdom and identified with unionism. As Protestant loyalists closed ranks in face of resurgent Catholic nationalism, with many joining the Orange Order, Presbyterians had a vested interest to consign their rebel past to oblivion. Uncovering a vernacular historiography, to be found in oral traditions and often-unnoticed local writings, Guy Beiner shows that recollections of the rebellion persisted under a public facade of forgetting. Beneath a culture of silencing and reticence, he finds muted traditions of forgetful remembrance. Beiner follows the dynamics of social forgetting for over two centuries, starting with anxieties of being forgotten that preceded the insurrection. He reveals how bitter memories of repression prevented a policy of amnesty from facilitating amnesia. Clandestine traditions of defiant remembrance were regenerated and transmitted over several generations, yet when commemoration emerged into the open, it was met with violent responses. Prohibitions on public remembrance of 1798 seemed to come to an end by the bicentennial year of 1998, with the signing of the peace agreement in Northern Ireland, however the ambiguity of memory continues into the current post-conflict era. Comparative references demonstrate the wider relevance of the historical study of social forgetting." -- Oxford Scholarship Online Forgetful Remembrance examines the paradoxes of what actually happens when communities persistently endeavour to forget inconvenient events. The question of how a society attempts to obscure problematic historical episodes is addressed through a detailed case study grounded in the north-eastern counties of the Irish province of Ulster, where loyalist and unionist Protestants--and in particular Presbyterians--repeatedly tried to repress over two centuries discomfiting recollections of participation, alongside Catholics, in a republican rebellion in 1798.By exploring a rich variety of sources, Beiner makes it possible to closely follow the dynamics of social forgetting. His particular focus on vernacular historiography, rarely noted in official histories, reveals the tensions between professed oblivion in public and more subtle rituals of remembrance that facilitated muted traditions of forgetful remembrance, which were masked by a local culture of reticence and silencing.Throughout Forgetful Remembrance, comparative references demonstrate the wider relevance of the study of social forgetting in Northern Ireland to numerous other cases where troublesome memories have been concealed behind a veil of supposed oblivion. --Publisher description Forgetful Remembrance examines the paradoxes of what actually happens when communities persistently endeavour to forget inconvenient events. The question of how a society attempts to obscure problematic historical episodes is addressed through a detailed case study grounded in the north-eastern counties of the Irish province of Ulster, where loyalist and unionist Protestants -- and in particular Presbyterians -- repeatedly tried to repress over two centuries discomfiting recollections of participation, alongside Catholics, in a republican rebellion in 1798. By exploring a rich variety of sources, Beiner makes it possible to closely follow the dynamics of social forgetting. His particular focus on vernacular historiography, rarely noted in official histories, reveals the tensions between professed oblivion in public and more subtle rituals of remembrance that facilitated muted traditions of forgetful remembrance, which were masked by a local culture of reticence and silencing. Throughout Forgetful Remembrance , comparative references demonstrate the wider relevance of the study of social forgetting in Northern Ireland to numerous other cases where troublesome memories have been concealed behind a veil of supposed oblivion. 'Forgetful Remembrance' examines what happens when communities endeavour to forget embarrassing events in their past. The question of how a society attempts to obscure problematic historical episodes is addressed through a detailed case study grounded in the north-eastern counties of the Irish province of Ulster, where loyalist and unionist Protestants - in particular Presbyterians - tried to repress for more than two centuries discomforting recollections of participation, alongside Catholics, in a republican rebellion in 1798. By exploring a rich variety of sources, Beiner makes it possible to closely follow the dynamics of social forgetting Forgetful Remembrance offers a new approach to the study of memory by focusing on vernacular historiographies and the notion of forgetting. Using the 1798 Irish Rebellion, Beiner explores how communities try to obscure inconvenient and uncomfortable events from the past. Guy Beiner. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 629-667) And Index.