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Preface One dreary day, in the autumn of 1997, I stepped out of the Modern Irish History Department at University College Dublin, to which I had recently arrived, walked down the corridors of the Arts Faculty and opened a door into Aladdin’s cave. Inside I found not only a thousand and one tales, but also many more—each waiting to take me on a magic carpet ride and show me wonders beyond belief. I had discovered the archive of the Department of Irish Folklore. Once the door closed behind me, nothing would ever be the same. Unwittingly, I had embarked on a quest, and many obstacles lay ahead. My instincts told me that Irish folklore was laden with riches for those interested in history of popular culture, but the treasures proved to be inaccessible. They were mostly expressed in a tongue not known to me, and so I first had to familiarize myself with the Irish language. Even then, once I delved into the labyrinths of folklore, my training in history was undermined. I was soon haunted by heretical thoughts, which challenged deep-rooted orthodoxies that had been instilled in me. I was bewildered in a strange land, in need of tools to map the way. Perhaps what is most amazing about the long hours I spent over the years meandering in the folklore archive is this: apart from a couple of stray passersby, I cannot recall meeting other historians. They were all too busy studying History. To find my bearings, I grappled and eventually came to terms with oral history and oral tradition . It was then that I fathomed the importance of memory and had to apply myself to the study of psychology, sociology, anthropology, . . . the list grew longer and longer. The more I read, the more I realized how much more I needed to learn. The demands were excessive and yet there was no turning back. I must confess that, before commencing my studies, I knew little about Ireland ’s history, culture, politics, and society. Fortunately, within reach, there were magnificent libraries and archives waiting to be mined. Enlightenment, however, is not to be found in the written word alone. The true pleasure of research in Ireland is that there are many wise people who are generously ( xi ) willing to share their knowledge. Conversations often took place over tall glasses of stout in the congenial environment of smoke-filled lounges and pub booths. Then there were the back roads. Whenever I could spare the time, I traveled through the west of Ireland taking any available mode of transportation —car, bus, train, bicycle, boat, or simply on foot. Only in the great outdoors did history become real. This book—the outcome of these explorations and adventures—was never intended to be a standard historical monograph. It audaciously proposes to turn modern Irish history (and, by extension, history at large) on its head. Its gestation was arduous and frustrating. I could not have completed it without the support of my partner Anikó Takács, who tolerated incessant mumblings of obscure terms such as “folk historiography” and “vernacular landscape,” alongside incoherent recitations of fragments of Irish folk poetry. The original manuscript was finished in 2002, following the birth of our daughter, Daniella, at a time when my homeland was despairingly troubled with violent conflict. This combination of circumstances poignantly brought home the significance of subjective perceptions of historical events, as pithily expressed in the traditional Irish saying “cogadh beag i bhfad ó bhaile agus páiste a bheith ag Bríd” (a small war is far from home and Bríd will have a child). By coincidence, the text was revised in the most peaceful of Dublin neighborhoods, Sandymount, sixty-six years after Richard Hayes completed there The Last Invasion of Ireland , a historiographical landmark from which this study has benefited immensely. Final touches were made during the bicentennial of the Rising of 1803 when, once again, historians commemorated a national hero and completely ignored the memory of the “common people” who flocked to the standard and paid the price. Prolonged delays were incurred, the manuscript languished unpublished for several years, and in the interim our sons Adam and David were born. Having left Ireland, I observed from afar with some satisfaction the emergence of remembrance as a key topic in Irish Studies. I have since redirected my attention from memory to the study of forgetting. “The road goes ever on and on.” Preface ( xii ) ...

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