The genesis and gestation, the buoyant hopes and the savage despair of the 1798 Rebellion are vividly depicted for this and future generations in a £3 million high-tech 1798 Visitor Centre which opens in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, on Friday.
It sets out the unvarnished story of the origins of the United Irishmen and the vast national repercussions of their Rising. The narrative explains where they got their high democratic ideals, how their radicalism was spearheaded by Ulster Presbyterians, and how they were brutally crushed by the forces of the Protestant Ascendancy in an interactive audio-visual journey that seeks to be both educational and entertaining.
The centre is intended to be the lasting showpiece project of this 1798 bicentennial year, and it expects to attract more than 100,000 visitors annually.
The project was conceived by Wexford County Council and Enniscorthy UDC after they set up Comoradh '98 in the late 1980s to organise a commemoration of the 1798 Rising. In 1993 they jointly bought the old CBS monastery and grounds at Enniscorthy, providing an overall site of around 11,000 square feet for the planned visitor centre.
About £1.6 million of EU money has gone into the project, and most of the remainder has been provided by voluntary contributions from parishes all over Co Wexford, as well as a number of special projects, such as the reconvened Wexford Senate. The centre, under the shadow of Vinegar Hill, was designed by the National Building Agency and incorporates the facade of the old monastery. A committee of Comoradh historians and librarians drew up a framework document as the basis of the interpretative design of the centre, which has already won acclaim internationally.
The visitor progresses through a series of storyboards and interactive screens, beginning with a depiction of a society, in Europe and Ireland, ruled despotically from around 1650 onwards by the aristocratic ancien regime.
It was "a world of monarchs wielding absolute power, believing they were chosen by God; a world of privileged aristocrats, supporting the monarchs and living in similar luxury, with all social economic and political power in their hands, and a feudal world of vast numbers of commoners existing in utter poverty."
The exhibits go on to document the great tide of revolution that swept over much of 18thcentury Europe. It shows the way radical ideas spread to Ireland, helped by the printed word. The first part of Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man, published in pamphlet form in 1791, sold 40,000 copies in Ireland within eight months.
The reactionary role of the bishops is also outlined here. Dr John Thomas Troy, Catholic archbishop of Dublin, denounced the radical ideas: "Do not then approach the rotten tree of French liberty, if you desire to live. It bears forbidden fruit, fair to the eye, but deadly to those that taste it."
As the "path to liberty or death" unfolds to the music inspired by 1798, the centre offers the visitor detailed descriptions of the various key events of the Rising. The final experience, in an auditorium which re-creates the landscape of Vinegar Hill, is a spectacular four-screen audio-visual presentation of the decisive battle there.
The historical detail has been carefully sifted and weighed to give a scrupulously objective account of 1798. "It's an epic story. I don't think there is anything deliberately covered up or distorted," says Enniscorthy councillor, Sean Doyle, treasurer of Comoradh.
"We read the scripts for historical accuracy, readability and educational content," says Bernard Browne, administrator of Comoradh. "It's fair, but it's still an interpretation." The centre has a craft shop and tea rooms, and aims to become self-financing in the long term.
Wexford is inundated with 1798 bicentennial ceremonies this year. The Comoradh database lists more than 800 events, some 450 in the county. When they are all over, the Visitor Centre will stand as a permanent memorial, an attempt to set the history straight for Irish people and visitors. It will also, through the thousands flocking there each year, provide lasting benefits for Enniscorthy and Co Wexford.