Was professional history, based on dispassionate sifting and analysis of evidence, replaced after the 1960s in response to the developing Troubles by a public history more interested in reception than in method, which saw historians take on the role of legitimising the Irish twenty-six-county state, and the border?

The decision to abandon Parnell in the belief that sacrificing him would secure home rule lost Ireland a great leader and left in his place a myth of the tragic and romantic hero. Those who had made the decision overestimated the value of pragmatism for those with a weak hand.

In the business of commemoration tensions are to be expected between the practices of the academy, the demands of the state and the expectations of individuals and groups on how each and every significant date is marked, or not marked.