I was surprised and saddened to read the headline in the Sunday
Times of 23rd August ‘Councillor
sees importance of booing Shackleton’ and the report which followed in
which a local Councillor criticised the decision to erect a statue in Athy to
Ernest Shackleton.
Arguments surrounding the erection of a statue to the Kilkea-born
Antarctic explorer, whose life and career have been celebrated each October
bank holiday weekend for the past 14 years during the Shackleton Autumn School in
Athy, reminds me of the controversial debate which took place 80 years ago when
a memorial was agreed to be erected in the GPO Dublin in memory of those who
fought in the 1916 Rising.
The De Valera government commissioned a statue of Cú Chulainn, claiming
that the representation of his death would provide a suitable symbol for the
sacrifices of 1916. The Fine Gael
opposition thought otherwise and the radical newspaper ‘United Ireland’ in its edition of 20th April 1935 put
forward Fionn Mac Cumhail as a more appropriate figure on the basis that ‘Cú Chulainn as champion of Ulster was not a
true a Gael as Fionn Mac Cumhail’.
Public monuments are a means of expressing a distinctive national
identity. In the past such monuments
have represented cultural and political concepts which emerge from an identity
which was firmly linked with Catholic heritage and an emerging, if not always
consistent, nationalist attitude.
Conflicting attitudes to public monuments provide an indication of
the strength of nationalist feeling or sometimes the fluid strength of such
nationalism if one is to consider the case of the Parnell monument erected in
Dublin’s O’Connell Street after Parnell’s death. The laying of the foundation stone for the
Parnell monument was in 1899 the scene of extraordinary rowdy scenes involving
anti-Parnellites and supporters of Parnell.
This was a man who had united a country behind the Irish Parliamentary
party and had given the Irish people a voice which it had not enjoyed since the
days of Daniel O’Connell. The objectors
to the Parnell monument eventually withdrew, perhaps realising that the
monument represented a national aspiration which all shared.
We in Athy have in the recent past, in keeping with the public’s
growing interest in Ireland’s fight for freedom, erected a monument to persons
whose methods found favour with the more advanced nationalist traditions of
their day. The monument in question,
located in Emily Square, commemorates the United Irishmen and those local men
and women who suffered during the 1798 Rebellion.
Similarly some few years previously we commemorated the men from
Athy and district who fought in World War I.
In doing so we were reconciling service in the Great War with the
political reality of an independent Ireland - thereby helping to dispel the
notion that the Athy men who fought in the war were not ‘true’ Irishmen.
For too long we Irish have firmly linked our national identity with
Catholic heritage and militaristic traditions.
I am critical of narrow minded concepts of Irishness, believing that
being Irish requires us to accept outside influences and to discard the narrow
minded concepts which have prevailed in the past. It is wrong to believe that the only ‘true’ Irishmen are those who fought for
Irish independence or who profess the Catholic faith.
Public monuments articulate an emerging national identity and part
of that identity is not just Catholic, Gaelic and the struggle for Irish
freedom, but also includes the many different voices which may seldom if ever
be raised in support of those traditional values which many of us hold dear.
A monument to Ernest Shackleton, world famous explorer, a man born
within a few miles of Athy, whose exploits are the subject each year of the
Shackleton Autumn School here in Athy, can be a worthy addition to the public
sculpture of our ancient town. It will
help to highlight the town’s museum which we plan to extend in the near future
to become an accredited museum highlighting the story of the world’s most
famous Antarctic explorer.
The planned regeneration of Athy which will be the subject of a
redevelopment plan now in the final stages of preparation by Shannon
International Development Consultants will impinge not just on the economic
revival of the town but will also impact on the cultural and social life of the
town. We should not adopt a negative
attitude to the proposed statue or to any project, no matter how small, which
will be part of the attempt to revive the fortunes of our town.
1 comment:
Excellent article, particularly the where it's correctly stated that being Irish doesn't mean you must be Catholic and have fought in the war of independence. We must equally embrace those who fought in the Great War and others like Shackleton, who are have achieved just as much for the country.
Post a Comment