ABSTRACT
Thomas Davis, the young Corkman who was the object of their joint admiration, falls within the ambit of the Decade of Commemoration, the commemoration of a decade of significant centenary events in Irish history beginning with the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. One response might simply be that commemoration always involves deliberate acts of forgetting as revealed by the touching candour of the hapless media advisor. Another is that commemorare, to bring to remembrance, may involve bringing or calling to memory incidents, events or episodes that are too disturbing to recall. It is arguably the hold of the ontological that determines the nature of commemoration in Ireland. The Rising is the 'Event' that changes everything. A cyclical investment in commemoration would fundamentally be concerned with enabling cultures of life as opposed to endlessly celebrating linear cultures of death.
