This thesis is an examination of how the Second World War has been commemorated in Northern Ireland. It seeks to explore how popular and official understandings of the war were constructed around two key moments. Primarily, it looks at the Victory celebrations to mark the end of the war in the West in May 1945. Secondly, it examines the importance of the publication of the official war history Northern Ireland in the Second World War in November 1956. By looking closely at how the Northern Irish government planned for the victory celebrations and how this ritual unfolded, we can reveal much about Northern Irish society at the end of the war. This thesis shows that the state-led, official commemoration served only to alienate the Catholic community. Exploring how the Northern Irish press recorded this event highlights the underlying tensions existing between both communities at the time. This thesis argues that the Northern Irish government used the victory celebrations to project a positive image of itself to the British government. Equally, in 1940 the Northern Irish government rather pre-emptively commissioned the writing of its own official war history, separate from the United Kingdom Official War History Series. This decision, taken by the Northern Irish government, was intended to ensure that Northern Ireland’s role in the war would never be forgotten. After 1945, the unionist government, preoccupied with securing its constitutional positioning within the United Kingdom, intended to make this official history a permanent memorial to Northern Ireland’s contribution to the war. Written, therefore, to exaggerate Northern Ireland’s part in the war, this official war history can be seen as a reflection of unionist insecurity. It is through these commemorative processes that ideas of national identity and belonging are explored.

In my dissertation, I analyze the implications of public memories used to encourage the forgetting of women veterans’ war efforts and offer up a critical praxis of remembering differently in order to challenge normative memorial practices. Remembering differently is informed by rhetorical and feminist theories because it is a critical performance that reclaims forgotten memories; interrogates systems of power, such as gender; and seeks to add to, edit, reread, and remember public memories of individuals who have been silenced, erased, and appropriated. I argue that prevailing war memorialization of women bolsters nationalistic and patriarchal ideologies by framing female veterans as only being trailblazing patriots who have broken the glass ceiling, while downplaying servicewomen’s lived experiences with PTSD, sexual assault, sexism, and job discrimination in the military. As a result, these depoliticized memories reinforce hegemonic beliefs that situate social, political, and economical injustices in the past rather than as present day concerns. In each chapter, I analyze how U.S. female veterans are remembering differently their military experiences with personal memories of war in public performances. The veterans’ acts of commemoration move beyond the heroic narrative of warriors breaking down barriers and interrogate issues relevant to female soldiers like sexism, assault, job discrimination, PTSD, and homelessness. My thesis is not simply advocating for “more remembering” in order to achieve some semblance of equality, because I do not believe more representation necessarily results in more pronounced individual rights. Rather, my purpose is to examine the rhetorical functions, opportunities, and constraints of remembering differently, in particular, for female veterans who are actively articulating patriotic and dissenting commemorative discourses.