Don’t just sit there, you’re a part of it

As the photograph on this page, taken 43 years ago, shows, heritage, especially political heritage, takes many forms and at least as many positions.

This is especially true when viewed through the filter, the increasingly fuzzy filter, of passing decades. Time changes perceptions and though it cannot change the motives or commitment of the men remembered at Derrygallon in 1970 it probably has reduced the support for the idea so strongly advanced there by Commandant General Tom Barry that “the primary objective of this country is a 32-county Ireland”.

The force of that argument, or at least the force and persistence with which it was made, often made it difficult to see beyond it and appreciate achievements outside of what was known as the national question. That cultural dominance, and a triumphalist, powerful Catholic Church, narrowed — blinkered really — public discourse in an unhelpful way.