The Centenary Cluster

Alan McGuckian SJ in Belfast has joined a group of Unionist Protestants looking ahead to the Centenary Cluster – the set of centenary commemorations starting in 1912 with the Ulster Covenant, through the foundation of the Ulster Volunteers and the gun-running in Larne, and the foundation of the Irish Volunteers with the gun-running in Howth, Jim Larkin and the Lock-out, through to the Battle of the Somme, the 1916 Rising, and all the tensions of that extraordinary decade. In the Republic Brian Cowen has urged Irish people to prepare for these centenaries in a way that transcends divisions. As the only Catholic and Nationalist in a group of Protestants with differing perspectives, Alan finds it a moving and significant experience.