The Malleability of Memory and Irish Republican Memory Entrepreneurship: A Case Study of the ‘Loughgall Martyrs’

This article is a case study of Irish republican memory entrepreneurship that critically examines the collective memory of the ‘Loughgall Martyrs’. Critiquing the ‘malleability of memory’, it interrogates attempts at remoulding the memory of the ‘Loughgall Martyrs’ in tandem with ‘memory politics’ in modern Irish republicanism and transitioning Northern Ireland. It examines the reinterpretation of the Loughgall memory by Sinn Fein to support their current strategy in the transition of Northern Ireland and conversely how traditionalists use the resilience of memory to contest reinterpretation. Particular examination is given to the emergence of the 1916 societies as a platform for localised resistance to political use of the memory of then men by Sinn Fein. It also examines how the memory of the ‘Loughgall Martyrs’ has been imbibed with assertions of victimhood that feed into wider contestation over the past in the North of Ireland.