I am highly amused by the outrage I have solicited by merely suggesting a king of England’s birthday should not be the focus of Irish state celebrations.
The Irish Times denounced me for espousing “pinched and narrow ethno-nationalism”, a public servant in Wexford County Council had to “calm down” after reading my statement, and Patrick Murphy in The Irish News asked: “Is Sinn Féin saying it is offensive to celebrate the ancestors of people who made a significant contribution to modern Ireland?”
Had Mr Murphy read my initial statement, rather than the sensationalist summaries reported in some quarters, he would know the answer because I was very clear – and I will quote it again for those at the back:
“Of course we should acknowledge, protect, take pride in the rich architectural, cultural and literary heritage that stands testament to Anglo-Norman Ireland, which lives on today in surnames and songs… We should make the most of Ireland’s Norman heritage to boost tourism, to create jobs, to support communities, and reinforce links with families tracing their Norman Irish roots and with other places who share a Norman heritage.”
The lazy attempts to smear me as an ‘anti-Norman’ or ‘ethno-nationalist’ were particularly insulting considering I, like the Normans who sought to conquer Ireland, am – like a huge portion of us living in Ireland today – of mixed ancestry and mixed ethnicity.
The Ó Snodaigh (Snoddy) name which I proudly bear is, believe it or not, of Scottish planter origin, and my mother, Cliodhna Cussen, bore a Norman surname and made sculptures celebrating our mixed Viking, Gaelic and Norman past which are dotted across the country. I spend my days amending legislation of Anglo-Norman origin in the former palace of the great Norman-Irish republican Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and I have fought to secure funding to restore that great Norman edifice, the Church of Ireland St Patrick’s Cathedral, in my home city which is defined by its Viking and Norman past.
What exactly is this ‘European’ Year of the Normans? One thing it is not, despite the name, is an EU initiative ‘sensitively’ agreed by partners across Europe on the basis of respect and equal input. This is a PR exercise by a right-wing regional government which calls itself ‘The Conquering Normandy’ for the explicit purpose of celebrating William the Conqueror’s 1,000th birthday and to take pride in the conquests he and his regal successors inflicted, from the invasion of Ireland to the crusades which caused devastation across the Mediterranean, and were used by the French to legitimise carving up the Middle East with the British.
I say PR exercise because we have not yet seen any indication that extra money will be available to fund heritage projects. We’re tagging along for the ride, but there’s a real danger that heritage agencies, third-level institutions or community organisations, whose budgets are already overstretched, will be asked to foot the bill.
Existing projects to educate people on Ireland’s Norman heritage, such as the Norman Way or plans announced for a Norman Interpretive Centre in New Ross, Co Wexford (now being co-opted into the Normandy project), demonstrate how we can make the most of our past without a king of England’s birthday being the centrepiece. We should invest in commemorating our history, not our neighbour’s monarchy.
English king after English king persecuted Gael and Norman in Ireland alike, especially those Normans who were to become ‘more Irish than the Irish themselves’. They embarked on killing and displacing all around them, confiscating lands, fortifying their ill-gotten gains and instituting the apartheid-like Statutes of Kilkenny to ban interaction between the Irish and Normans by outlawing Irish culture and traditions, a far cry from Mr Murphy’s flawed assertion that “the invaders had no difficulty in inter-marrying with the Irish and adopting many Gaelic traditions”.
The Penal Laws introduced by later English kings sought to achieve the further subjugation of the disloyal Irish. Some remained on the statute books in the south of Ireland until very recently and are still only now being repealed in the north where regal successors still derive legitimacy from William.
I am an Irish republican and I reject their legitimacy. I reject the effort to paint Irish republicans as “ethno-nationalists” for saying so.
There are those of a different view who would rather champion the Year of the Normans than build social and affordable homes. Their ‘Republican Party’ failed to appoint a housing tsar so now they celebrate a foreign king.
At least I have succeeded in ensuring there is a debate about our history, where the government planned to quietly rubber stamp our participation in the Normandy regional government’s nostalgia for conquest and kings without dissent. I dissent, and I suspect I am not alone.
Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD
Sinn Féin spokesperson for Gaeilge, Gaeltacht, Arts and Culture
