The decline and rebirth of "folk memory": remembering "the year of the French" in the late twentieth century

Eire-Ireland:Journal of Irish Studies, Fall-Winter, 2003 by Guy Beiner

The resurgence of interest triggered local commemorative initiatives in North Mayo and around Ballinamuck. The filming had involved the FCA and, as an offshoot in 1983, a group of military-history enthusiasts in the Western Command took it upon themselves to put together a traveling historical program that followed the progress of the Franco-Irish military campaign. This event was attended by approximately one hundred people, including members of the Longford History Society. Presentations in the counties of Mayo (Castlebar), Leitrim (Cloone), and Longford (Ballinamuck) were prepared without the help of academic historians and were mainly based on the work of Richard Hayes, while also acknowledging local folklore traditions. This became the template for an educational reenactment that was to be repeated fifteen years later during the bicentenary, (86)

The local commemorative enterprise with the highest profile was the foundation of an annual summer school in Mayo dedicated to the memory of the French invasion and intentionally spread out between the main Ninety-Eight sites of Ballina, Castlebar, Killala, and Kilcummin. This initiative was instigated by an "outsider," John Cooney, a Scottish-born journalist with a postgraduate degree in history from the University of Glasgow. Cooney was deeply impressed by Flanagan's novel, but upon visiting the 1798 sites in Mayo, he was struck by what he perceived as a lack of local interest. Stationed at the time in Brussels as a correspondent for the Irish Times, he organized a visit to Mayo of Irish and French members of the European Parliament, which coincided with the filming of "The Year of the French" in Killala. Copying the model of the Patrick McGill Summer School in Glenties, Co. Donegal, Cooney went on to found and direct the Humbert Summer School, which opened in 1987 with a festive mock reenactment of Humbert (played by the colorful media personality Donnacha O Dulaing) sailing into the village of Kilcummin.

The summer school was steered in a semi-academic direction, rejecting the local demand for a more carnivalesque happening. Cooney, who specialized in the history of Humbert's campaign, (87) maintained that summer schools should aspire to be an "alternative forum of Irish politics" and should function as "the anvil on which attitudes to the burning issues of the day are hammered out." (88) In addition to advancing the study of 1798, the Humbert Summer School has sought to contribute to a series of lofty goals, including peace and reconciliation; cooperation between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland; the strengthening of Ireland's place in the European Union; the economic development of Mayo; improved tourist relations between France and (to use a term coined by Cooney) "Le Mayo Francais" (French Mayo); and the expansion of local arts and culture. Although historical inquiry was originally at the forefront, contemporary politics increasingly assumed a dominant role, and over the years a prestigious list of high-profile speakers came to include not only historians but also prominent politicians, journalists, economists, senior army officers, businessmen, and diplomats. (89)