The Drishanebeg Ambush Centenary Commemoration Address
by Jack Lane
Aubane Historical Society
CENTENARY OF THE DRISHANEBEG AMBUSH
11th February 2021
I want to thank the Committee for organising this event and inviting me to speak. A good indication of their efficient and professional approach was to ask me to speak here some months ago. That is much appreciated. I also want to thank the Committee for doing this and making such an event as we have today.
I think many of you will agree that this type of event was unimaginable a few years ago. Irish history writing by our academics and commentators went through a very bad period for a number of years.
There was an attempt to give us a bad conscience about the war of independent and these types of commemorations were seen as in bad taste. The only disagreement I have with the commemorations is that they should be called celebrations but never mind.
There was an attempt to create a narrative of the War of the Independence that was designed to give us bad conscience about the whole thing because it was alleged to be a sectarian episode; that it was war against Protestants. This was incredible to anyone who had any knowledge at all of the people who fought that war or the events of the war. It was an attempt to try to prove that our state was deformed at birth, so to speak.


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