"Permanent Reminders": Digital Archives and the Irish Commemorative Impulse

Abstract

In 2013 Catriona Pennell predicted that “on-line is a key space where discussion, reflection, and ‘remembering’ are going to take place” in this decade of commemorations.1 Who could have imagined that this would become a necessity with the onset of a global pandemic and cycles of national lockdown? More than ever before, “online” and “off-line” are interwoven in present and future cultures of commemoration, strongly reflected in the latest installment of the Decade of Centenaries program.2 Commemoration has been the major impulse for particular bespoke digitization projects in this period of national remembrance in the Republic of Ireland, just as digitization has coded the archive as heritage for commemoration.3 The Decade of Centenaries (DoC) project, particularly its commemoration of the 1916 centenary, is one such national-identity project rooted in cultural heritage: “We will proudly present to ourselves and to the world our achievements as a Republic, . . . expressing our individuality through our own distinctive culture and heritage in all its diversity.”4 Conceived as commemoration for “digital natives” alongside more traditional remembrance practices, the official centenary programming has been characterized by the profusion of digitization