Kicking with the Other Foot: Commemorating Dante in Ireland, between Nationalism and Sectarianism
Dr Daragh O’Connell
Thursday, 3 November
CACSSS Seminar Room
This seminar will interrogate the function of commemoration in relation to Dante and Ireland in four anniversary years: 1921, 1965, 2015 and 2021. These commemorative acts reflect many of the tensions inherent in Ireland at the moment of their articulation, to the extent that Dante becomes a vector for all manner of biases and prejudices in the emerging state. Particular attention will be given to the fraught preparations for the 1921 “Dante Festival” in the Mansion House in Dublin against the backdrop of the recent War of Independence and the fact that it took place on the morning after the signing of the Treaty, with Éamon De Valera as its Chairman.