The term “managing the past” has been known to send me up the walls gibbering and swearing. On the face of it, the past is the past – it’s fixed, it’s gone, it can’t be manipulated or changed. What can be done is manage how we view the past, and important work that is too. Because he who controls the past controls the present and the future.
“Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments.”
That was the reaction of Donald Trump to talk of removing statues of Confederate General Robert E Lee and other southern leaders from the American civil war.
Leading Democrat Nancy Pelosi takes a different view:
“The Confederate statues in the halls of Congress have always been reprehensible. If Republicans are serious about rejecting white supremacy, I call upon Speaker Ryan to join Democrats to remove the Confederate statues from the Capitol immediately.”
So who’s got the stronger argument? I ask because it’s an issue that has real meaning in Ireland.
As soon as independence was won by the twenty-six counties, there was a renaming of streets in Dublin – Sackville Street became O’Connell Street, Great Brunswick Street became Pearse Street. In the 1960s, Amiens Street Railway Station became Connolly Station, Kingsbridge Railway Station became Heuston Station. And of course the Spike was preceded by Nelson’s Pillar, which was removed in 1966 by a group of private (very private) citizens.
Here in the north, as always, we do things differently. Not only do we keep in place Carson’s statue at Stormont, but the King’s Hall, Royal Avenue, the Queen’s Bridge and Prince Charles Way all remain unaltered, as does that lumpy statue of Queen Victoria outside Belfast City Hall and the slightly sad statue of the UDR in action which, um, graces the middle of Lisburn.
Not only do these tokens of British colonialism remain in place: any attempt by nationalists or republicans to name bridges or clubs after great republican or nationalist figures ( no John Hume bridge in Derry, no Roddy McCorley bridge in Toomebridge, and what did they dare name that Newry playground?)
That said, dealing with monuments from our past history is a difficult one. On the one hand, we shouldn’t attempt to erase the past just because there are parts of it we don’t like. But on the other, the statues and names of streets do indicate something about the values and loyalties of the society. Can you remember many in the West crying “History manipulation!” when that statue of Sadaam Hussein was pulled down to great cheers after the invasion of Iraq? And do you think Germany has many monuments to Hitler or other Nazi leaders? Even though the Nazi period was a hugely significant period in the history of Germany.
My belief? We shouldn’t flinch away and pretend the past didn’t happen or that certain leaders or monarchs once reigned. But I do believe that the statues and names of public buildings and streets should reflect the loyalties and respect of the population. And yes, Virginia, that’s ALL of the population, not just half of it.
Once again, your 100% right Jude.
Denise – thank you. You are a woman of superb judgement….
Carson’s stature is sited strategically and designed to remind all those on the approach to the ostentatious British stormont building that Croppies ‘will not be tolerated about the place’.
It represents all that is wrong in the north and the unwillingness of unionists to embrace the political realities anf social change of the present time.
A timely reminder perhaps, that we all have feet of clay and you cannot hold back the tides of change.
Plus cą change
have always thought Carson’s statue should have been removed at the time of the GFA/Belfast Agreement
It could be put in the Ulster Museum, together with a nice exhibition of what he achieved – which was ” no outstanding contribution to British politics”.
Maybe work could be started during this “No Stormont” interim.
Maybe those two blights on views of Belfast Lough , those rusting shipyard cranes, could even join him as monuments to the “wee pravince” Carson never wanted!
https://eurofree3.wordpress.com/2014/02/09/edward-carson-1854-1935/
It is true there are a lot of monuments and streets commemorating figures from unionist or British history and not enough from the nationalist tradition.
I would expect to see this change as more councils are coming under nationalist control and in the absence of Stormont the opportunities to annoy the other lot will be explored at council level for now.
I am sure something will appear for John Hume in due time but traditionally these things happen after the person has been dead for a bit so that is not really an issue.
If the best that can be done is naming playgrounds after the likes of McCreesh then that would be a great shame. Surely we can do better than honouring someone connected to those who perpetrated the atrocity of Kingsmill?
Street names, statues etc are simply a reflection of our history. Belfast and other towns were growing rapidly at the height of empire and hence there was massive development of towns streets and buildings many of which were naturally named after places in the empire or the monarch etc. It is no different here than anywhere else in the UK.
To suggest this is the equivalent of monuments to Confederate generals erected many years after the civil war as a means of asserting white supremacy is irresponsible and dishonest.
Irresponsible, eh, Tam? And dishonest. Mmm. You’re not familiar, then, with the imperial tradition of taking subjected nations and stamping them firmly with the imperial identity? And encouraging/forcing the subject people to see native things, like language and place-names, as inferior/undesirable/backward-looking? I think you’ll have to get out the old history book and do a bit of thumbing through it, Tam…
Yes, irresponsible and dishonest. And you continue this irresponsibility and dishonesty with your reply.
Belfast Corporation and other councils naming streets in exactly the same way as other authorities throughout the UK was perfectly normal and uncontroversial. Save your conspiracy theories for someone else.
Temper your tone, Tam – just some friendly advice. I don’t respond well to empty abuse. You still seem to be unaware of the pattern adopted by most empires, of teaching those they conquer to see their native culture and way of life as inferior. Witness America, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland. No, Tam – time to blow the dust of that ‘History of the World’ tome you keep in the attic…
Jude, street names chosen by Belfast Corporation was nothing to do with teaching ‘conquered’ ‘natives’. It was just what cities did all over Europe.
‘the likes of McCreesh’!!!
Joe
Delighted to see you venture into the comment section.
If you care to expand your point a bit I will be happy to discuss it.
Maybe Joe, the man who condemns the burning of effigies but not the burning of people, thinks it’s appropriate to name children’s playparks after convicted terrorists.
I haven’t noticed where Jude condemned the fashion of replacing the spare wheel with the emergency wheel. Maybe he’s in favour of it. Well, obviously.
Yes “the likes of McCreesh”. He was arrested attempting to ambush an army patrol and the gun he was carrying had been used in one of the IRA’s most vile sectarian murders.
Joe – if you weren’t such an IRA fanboy, you’d see him for the scum he was.
You omitted that it was a BrItish Army patrol and whose word do we have about the provenance of the gun. If you weren’t such a political Johnny come lately, you would know these things.
How would you know anything about me? Admittedly, I don’t hide behind a made up name, but you still don’t know anything about me. I suppose hiding behind masks is a republican trait – cowards.
“I don’t hide behind a made up name, but you still don’t know anything about me. I suppose hiding behind masks is a republican trait – cowards.”
Aye, those well known Republican cowards on this site “Tam” and “Giordanobruno”.
Ceannaire
Seems harsh.
“…… The likes of giordanobruno ……”
fiosrach
Sure do you not know there is nobody like me!
What about the big footed statue to the murderous UDR in Lisburn? No problem with that?
I see no reason why the sacrifice of the UDR in shouldn’t be commemorated. Most of us were able to carry on our business relatively safely during the Troubles thanks to the mundane security duties carried out by them and others.
I agree it was a sacrafice but who and what was sacrificed. Drink half price in the barracks. Paid for lying up all night in haysheds. Benefit of a groundsheet. Useful information to pass on to your brother/ uncle/ mate about chancy taigs. Opportunity to harass nationalist neighbours or even kill them. I know you are trolling, tam, but who cares , as you would say.
The lives and health of the soldiers and their families were sacrificed.
Most history – especially Irish history – is bunkum.
Carson (God Bless him) wanted nothing to do with Stormont. He did not want to see Ireland partitioned. What his statue is doing there God alone knows.
It should be replaced with ……George Best? Barry McGuigan? Van Morrison? Eamonn Holmes?
It should be someone from the world of entertainment or sport rather than politics given the entertainment & sport that the building behind has provided over the years. A male figure too; reflecting the testosterone theme of Stormont down through the years.
A subject that nationalist politicians have treated with little importance but it must be addressed as part of the new demands for respect and equality. Let’s have a James Connolly statue put up alongside Carson – no bigger, no smaller, no less prominent. Then we can move on to Belfast City Council and get Constance Markievicz placed alongside the famine queen.
Ludicrous ahistorical suggestions.
Dublin, the home of The Quare Fella, is home to many quare names, Esteemed Blogmeister.
Take the legendary laundry of Ball’s Bridge, Dublin 4:
-The Swastika Laundry (1912-1987).
Free Southern Stateen Folks, indeed, still get hot under their dirty collars at the mere thought of it. Not least those yet to be doddery folk who never experienced the giant Chimney Stack with the gigantic Swastika emblazoned upon it, on the banks of the Dodder or indeed, the (gulp) orange coloured vans of the laundry at Ball’s Bridge which used to silently ply the streets of the city.
The Swastika, of course, at one stage symbolised good luck, like four leaved clovers and horse shoes, that sorta thingy.
Indeed, Nobel Laureate for literature, Heinrich Boll once had an unsettling encounter with one of these vans (ahead of their time, as they were electric driven) in Ball’s Bridge.
As he wrote in his Travel Memoir of 1957 – Irsche Tagebuch (Irish Diary)
– I was almost run over by a bright-red panel truck whose sole decoration was a big swastika. Had someone sold Völkischer Beobachter delivery trucks here, or did the Völkischer Beobachter still have a branch office here? This one looked exactly like those I remembered; but the driver crossed himself as he smilingly signalled to me to proceed, and on closer inspection I saw what had happened. It was simply the “Swastika Laundry”, which had painted the year of its founding, 1912, clearly beneath the swastika; but the mere possibility that it might have been one of those others was enough to take my breath away.
Joe Duffy’s brother once worked for the Swastika Laundry and he, Joe, is happy to talk about it with anybody who’ll listen. Sadly, history does not reveal if the driver of the delivery truck above was the bro of Joe.
Ball’s Bridge is now, naturally enough, bereft of the symbolism of The Swastika, though, curiously, the memory of genocide is not entirely off side. Though in a muted way:
-R.D.S.
Which stands for the cunningly camouflaged Royal Dublin Society: the R refers to a White Supremacist German-English family which has ‘distinguished’ itself at the dark art of exintuishing inferior races without the law, begob.
Nowadays, the RDS is most identified with sporting pursuits, involving the animal world: Horse, Leinster Lions and Dogs.
Moving from the Mutts to Jeffs. In this instance, Thomas Jefferson, late of a place with an Italo-English ring tone to it, Monticello, Charlottlesville, VA, who once made his mark as a Slave Owner amongst other high profile pursuits.
Which, by a commodius vicus of recirculation brings one to one’s all time favourite housing estate name in all of Dublin’s fairly seedy city:
-Tuscany Downs.
This TD is located in Raheny, Dublin 5. Its name seems to either predate or even postdate the dissolution or indeed, the consolidation of two Empires, the Unholy Roman or the Holy British, or both, or neither one nor the other, not.
SUPPORT your local TD
Tuscany is where the Italians talk
Downs: gentle English hills o’chalk
Don’t be a meany
Go ‘n visit Raheny
Linger at T. D. for a good long gawk.
Or Prince Charles Rise in Port an Dúnáin??
I’m hoping at some point in the future most unionists will be ashamed at what happened here after the partition of Ireland and will be the ones to who demand these embarrassments are removed.
Much the same way most US southerners feel about their ancestors being on the losing side of history long ago.
There will always be the few who feel this represents them.
What embarrassments?
The UDR honoured. Don’t make us all laugh. Sure is it not now beyond doubt that they were up to their necks in assisting in the murder of hundreds of innocent Catholics. Give us all a break.
There’s no evidence for that at all, never mind an absence of doubt
Be careful not to damn everybody for the actions of a few.
“There’s no evidence for that at all, never mind an absence of doubt”
Lmao! No words.
Tam,
Weren’t there 2 serving UDR men were killed by their own bomb in Miami showband massacre?
Weren’t there over a dozen serving UDR were convicted of terrorist crimes relating to the Glennane gangs bombings and scores of murders?
Heven’t there been dozens more UDR men convicted of murders bombings, attempted murder, passing info to terrorists, stealing weapons etc.
No Evidence? Look to your court records !!
Paul, yes, there were some UDR men convicted of terrorist crimes.
I don’t see why their shameful actions should mean that we shouldn’t recognise the sacrifice of the thousands of men and women who risked their lives to protect us.
Can you relate how they sacrificed their lives, health or family to protect me? And those ‘rotten apples’ are just the ones that the public know about.
Yes of course I can. I just said so.
While the Irish and Western media applauded the actions of “liberated peoples” in Eastern Europe and the Middle East when they pulled down statues and symbols of tyrannical leaders and tyrannical historical figures. However in Ireland any attempt to eradicate or even mitigate symbols of colonial subjection is met with outrage; talk is of our “shared history” which is a bit like a rapist and his victim having had a “shared experience”. So we have the leader of the main opposiition party speaking at a commemoration for the mass murderer Francis Drake. A councillor in Cork who wishes to replace colonial terminology with names more in tune with a 21st century republic is pilloried as some kind of Isis-like extremist. A renowned Cork academic instigates a campaign to exhume a long buried statue of the “Famine Queen”. His parents who fought in the War of Independence would no doubt be proud of him. Meanwhile we have Talbot Street, “Landsdowne Road”, “Great George’s Street”. Meon an sclabhaigh. Or proof of our maturity?
Bingo, BP !
And as the distinguished hackedemic in q., The Prof Emeritus of Detritus Studies in Queen’s College, Cork presides over the exhumation of the statue in q., said ex having been done with a JCB, that refined implement of precise historical research, on loan from the Library of Loyal TCD, a great roar will rise up.
(Yes, the same Ex Prof who contnues to conduct a celebrated extra-mural course – unkind critics suggest he has not yet lost hope of becoming the first centenarian contrarian from Cork, like, to be benighted by his exact shape-shifting contemporary – which examines the ongoing obsession of the dead-head Reds of Cork with the pre-Reds of Russia, entitled ‘The Pay-off involved in learning how to Doff proper in the presence of a Toff, not least if the latter is related to a Romanov’ ).
This roar will issue forth from the thrapples of those apple-cheeked Lynch-mob Langers on Leeside , descendants one and all of those who were left, erm, emaciated and grey back in the day of Black Forty Seven when they never got to 8. They will be conducted by the contemporary Chah and Miah, like: a CAMeo from that comical pair of The Eoghan and Martin Barf In ( former students both of the Prof , at whose feet they learned that Back Story means Backside Story).
This ripe pair will be on hand to lend a certain Sniffy Quality of de adenoidal, paranoidal variety to the proceedings, reminiscent of another hill-arious couplet from De Boys of Fair Hill: ‘De smell from de Lee is only wicked / How does Father Mathew stick it?’).
And the roar which no one will be able to ignore, as the newly dug statue – Boladh an tSoláthair – is lugged down Pana, towards its natural standing place in de eshteemed English Market like?
-One Fat Lady !
I’m afraid trying to equate Ireland to former colonies in the Middle East or former Soviet satellite states in eastern Europe simply doesn’t wash
No, Tam, our subjection was longer and generally more complete.
The Most Oppressed People Ever, eh?