The 1798 commemorations have come to an end. One of the last major events for the bicentenary year was the staging in Wexford of Nicky Furlong's Insurrection '98, a fitting finale to a year of commemorations.

Already some historians and summer schools are turning their attention towards the millennium or plans to mark the bicentenary of the Act of Union, and some may ask whether we have heard the last about 1798 until the commemorations in 2048.

Throughout the year, some historians have questioned the use of anniversaries as a method of doing history, and have questioned what they see as a "theme park" approach to history. Even non-historians are entitled to ask whether anything of worth and value will remain once the 1798 commemorations are over.

Throughout the year, new interpretations of events in Co Wexford in 1798 led to a series of inevitable clashes between historians. Prof Tom Dunne of University College Cork was deeply upset by Prof Daniel Gahan's account of a sequence of events linking the rebel defeat at New Ross with the massacre at the barn in Scullabogue, and by Comoradh's popular reconvening of the non-existent "Wexford Senate".

Brian Cleary and Comoradh disagreed over an appropriate memorial for the Battle of Oulart Hill. There were very public disagreements over whether a tribute to the rebel leader John Moore should be placed on the Vallotin Monument in Wexford.

And Nicky Furlong and Richard Roche had a lengthy debate in the local newspapers - although many saw this as a debate that predated the year's commemorations.

But Dr Gahan has produced many interesting insights into the massacre at Scullabogue. In popular folklore, it was seen as a massacre of Protestants perpetrated by local Catholics. However, Dr Gahan has pointed out that many of the victims in the barn were Catholics, while at least three of the men who took part in killings appear to have been Protestants.

For some historians, the year provided an opportunity to dispel many old myths and interpretations - including those given credence by Tom Pakenham and A.T.Q. Stewart - that the rising in Co Wexford was mainly an unplanned agrarian revolt led by priests and that in the northeast mainly a Presbyterian revolt.

Other myths were shattered too. There were reminders that members of the Church of Ireland were active in the rising, including Bagenal Harvey, Henry Monroe, Betsy Gray, Anthony Perry and the Governor of Wexford, Matthew Keugh.

And exciting research by Gloria Binions Hurley, Brian Cleary and Anna Kinsella shed new light on two Church of Ireland members that will gave a new resonance to some of the ballads associated with the rising.

Gloria Binions has shown that Kelly the Boy from Killann, John Kelly, had been the churchwarden of St Ann's, Killann, for many years prior to the Rising. Brian Cleary's study of the Battle of Oulart Hill has shed new light on the circumstances surrounding the murder of the Rector of Kilmuckridge, the Rev Robert Burrowes, at Kyle Glebe.

And Anna Kinsella has shown that not only is the popular ballad The Boys of Wexford, about a woman, but that the heroine, as the daughter of a "captain of the yeos", was a member of the Church of Ireland.

This time round, the commemorations were informed by the research of academic historians, who for their part were keenly aware of the needs and historical hunger of local people.

It is wrong to suggest that these historians became interested in 1798 only as the bicentenary approached, and it is no coincidence that much of the early spadework in the the late 1980s and early 1990s was carried out by historians with strong Co Wexford connections, including Prof Louis Cullen, Dr Kevin Whelan, Prof Gahan, Brian Cleary, Nicky Furlong, Anna Kinsella and Dr Daire Keogh.

Other historians have also produced exciting new findings: Prof Tom Bartrlett produced a new edition of Wolfe Tone's journals, Dr Keogh and Nicky Furlong have edited an important study of women in the rising, and Glenn Thompson and has produced a colourful study of the uniforms worn on all sides. Regrettably, no major biographical study of Bagenal Harvey was produced.

The work of these historians was eagerly assimilated by those who became involved in planning local commemorative events. At an early stage, there were fears about the role the Pikemen would play in the commemorations and there were fears events would be stage-managed for the benefit of one, narrow, exclusive interpretation of history.

The vast majority of commemorative events, however, emphasised the United Irish desire to unite Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter. Virtually every parish in the south-east has had some kind of ecumenical commemorative event. But there was an understanding this time that commemorations were not for one section of the community alone, and that remembrance was not about celebration but reconciliation.

The ecumenical nature of many of these events is best told in the book From Heritage to Hope, in which the chairman of the Byrne-Perry Summer School, the Rev Walter Forde, has collected many of the key sermons and church events of the year.

Perhaps the most significant contributions to this small book arise from Bishop Brendan Comiskey's homily at the National Commemoration Service in Wexford on May 31st, when he apologised publicly for "one very painful episode in our history . . . the Fethard-on-Sea boycott", and asked for "forgiveness and healing from God". There was an equally generous response from Bishop John Neill, and from Sean Cloney, the man whose marriage was the central focus of the boycott.

Two other moving events were the inter-church service for those who died on Wexford Bridge in 1798, and the service in Old Ross churchyard, at which I was asked to unveil a memorial stone to those who were burned to death in Scullabogue Barn.

For 200 years, the victims of Scullabogue were left in a mass grave without a memorial. They had been forgotten or left to one side in a way that continued to do violence to them and to those who bore their memory. Forgetting the victims of Scullabogue meant that those who carried the memory of that atrocity for generations were left powerless to give forgiveness, their neighbours were left powerless to seek or expect forgiveness, and the healing process could never begin. This year's commemorations have started the process of changing all that.