Archbishop Eamon Martin, the Necrology Wall and Framing

“It hardly matters whether you’re agreeing or disagreeing – what matters is that certain frames are used, while others are excluded.”

That’s a quotation from Framing: A Short Primer ( https://newsframes.wordpress.com/framing/) . The framing of news is an idea that owes much to the legendary Noam Chomsky, perhaps the most outstanding figure in twentieth-century linguistics.  Framing is  about the parameters within which news and ideas are presented – the playing field, so to say, on which news and ideas can be played. Who selects the pitch and what its surroundings contain are, of course, highly important.

I thought about this over breakfast today, as I listened to Archbishop Eamon Martin. As a former St Columb’s College Derry boy like the Archbishop  (although he was also the College President),  I tend to lean towards  the words of former pupils like myself. And when Eamon Martin spoke yesterday about what we call the Disappeared, and the heart-ache that causes those who have lost loved ones in the Troubles and  who have never had their bodies recovered, I appreciated his efforts to encourage/pressure those who might know something of the whereabouts of the Disappeared to come forward.

Not having a body to mourn must be a uniquely painful experience. The bodies of many of the Disappeared have been recovered; a few still remain. It was concerning those that Eamon Martin’s heartfelt words were uttered.

And where does framing fit into this?  Well, the Disappeared have usually been victims of the IRA and other republican paramilitary groups. The Irish Catholic hierarchy have been eloquent down the years on the wickedness of violent republicans, with Cardinal Cathal Daly perhaps the loudest voice. But Cardinal Daly and others included republicans  in the frame of guilt, while carefully keeping state forces outside the frame of guilt.

And so it continues today.  The deeds of militant republicans are included in the frame of considering the violent past; the deeds of the British armed forces are habitually excluded from the frame of considering the violent past. It’s not that the latter’s deeds are presented as somehow less culpable: they just don’t feature at all. There are literally hundreds of nationalists/republicans who have lost loved ones at the hands of the ‘security’ forces and who have never had so much as an inquest, let alone justice or even the truth about their loved ones’ deaths. But these are not within the frame of Troubles pain as defined by the Catholic hierarchy – and, for the most part, the Irish and British media.

Of course, you can also present a misguiding picture of the past by including in your news framing matters which don’t belong there. Over the weekend there has been considerable news coverage given to the throwing of paint over the Necrology Wall in Glasnevin. It’s the wall memorial that contains the names of all those who died in the Easter 1916 Rising.  It’s obvious that the leaders of the Rising and their followers would be included; but British soldiers who fought against the Rising, and in some cases killed innocent Irish civilians, are also included. At the original unveiling of the Necrology Wall by Enda Kenny, there were protests and disturbances. Those who objected did so on the grounds that there were names placed within the commemoration of the Rising frame which didn’t belong there. If you are concerned to include in the frame the names of all who died  in conflict, it’s logical you include British soldiers. But you might search for a long time before you’d find a single name from the two million dead Vietnamese on the Washington Wall, just as you’ll search a long time before finding a single German name on any British war memorial.

It’s a worthwhile question not asked with nearly enough frequency: who or what is within the frame on this matter, who or what is not. And above all, Why and Why Not?