Divided pasts: A premature memorial and the

dynamics of collective remembrance The commemoration of the participation of Irishmen in the British army in the first World War has reflected the political divisions on the island. This article focuses on the Irish National War Memorial, which was built in the 1930s in Dublin but only officially opened in the 1990s, and analyses the cultural life of this monument in relation to the difficult integration of a marginalized group into the dominant national narrative. The case is used to support a call for an integrated study of collective remembrance that takes into account both its multi-medial character and the dynamic interplay between cultural and social processes. Key words consensus and contestation; First World War; Ireland; mnemonic communities; pro-spective memory-making; synthetic memory sites The last picture ever taken of my father shows him standing between two wisteria-trailed arches in the Irish National War Memorial at Islandbridge, Dublin. This extensive garden of remembrance is dedicated to the almost 50,000 Irishmen who lost their lives in the First World War while serving in the British army. We had gone there in 1997 at the instigation of my father who, born in 1910 and with personal recollections of shell-shocked veterans in his home town, knew of my interest in collective memory and mnemonic practices. The garden forms a sunken amphitheatre, with lawns and pergolas, along with bookrooms housing Ireland’s Memorial Records, listing the names of the dead. It was empty and, as my father recollected, he had always known it like that and, until recently, as very much neglected. Indeed, he had once found himself there alone at 11:00 am on 11 November. The carefully designed space was set up as a memorial, but there was no-one around to do the remembering; a purpose-built site of memory, but no group visibly identifying with it. His personal memories of this abandonment are borne ou