ABSTRACT
On many levels, the perennial renegotiation of the past in an ever-changing present may be equated to T. S. Eliot's poetic notion of 'exploring' and then arriving back at the starting point to 'know the place for the first time'. Although first-hand participant recollection of the 1916 Rising faded away with the deaths of the last veteran rebels during the 1990s, memory of this determining episode of Irish history remained undiminished in the years leading up to the centenary anniversary. By the end of the 90th anniversary commemorations in 2006, however, it had become ever clearer that the shifting sands of memory had deposited more psychological sediment and critical distance between Ireland's hard-won path to independence and the matter of its more contemporary peacetime memorialisation. In an article published in the Autumn 2009 edition of The Property Valuer, Senator David Norris suggested the idea of moving the Abbey Theatre into the GPO in time for the Rising's 100th anniversary.
