Lying unwept and unburied on the role of gravesides in nation-building

Resumen

In his seminal work Inventing Ireland (1995) Declan Kiberd states that the movement for national independence imagined the Irish people as an historic community. That self-image, which was shaped well ahead of the dawn of modern nationalism and the nation-state, relies on a notion of identity that is rarely straightfoward and given. Rather, its construction and  evolvement over time involves negotiation and exchange. Taking our cue from Kiberd’s notion of the need to acknowledge the historicity of the Irish community, we want to engage with an issue which haunts the self-image and self-definition of the collective and the individual: the memory of those lying unwept and unburied. In this connection we will first refer to  the use of the graveside by a political and rhetorical tradition which eulogises the revolutionary martyr and then address and elaborate on the graves which have not yet settled: those of the women and children who were victims of systemic neglect and abuse.