UCD will next year play host to a major conference aimed at measuring the Easter Rising on a global context.
The conference is one of at least 25 events expected to take place in UCD to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Rising.
UCD historian Dr Conor Mulvagh, who is coordinating the university’s Decade of Commemoration centenary coverage, said 1916 was “a relatively uncontroversial commemorative space” and that other commemorations will be more problematic.
Dr Mulvagh said: “At its worst, commemoration can be reductive, simplistic, and downright hagiographical. At its best, commemoration is a fusion of imagination, education, and new information.”
Two of the four Dublin battalions occupying the city during Easter week were led by graduates of the Bellfield campus, the 2nd and 3rd, led by Thomas MacDonagh and Éamon de Valera respectively.
Pádraig Pearse was also a graduate of UCD.
The UCD programme was launched by the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Heather Humphreys.
She was given a tour of the UCD archives, which includes 450 interviews conducted by Ernie O’Malley with people active in the period from the Rising to the end of the civil war.
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