Sinn Féin’s objections to Ireland’s participation in a year of commemorations for the Normans in 2027 shows up that party’s continuing inability to respect the complexity of our history. Such a narrow-minded approach to the past raises serious questions about how the party would operate in the present if it ever got its hands on the levers of power.
The rise of backward-looking nationalism in so many countries across the globe is usually presented as a right-wing phenomenon, but in Ireland the bigoted nationalist space is filled by Sinn Féin. This is evident from the flaunting of Tricolours as if the flag belongs to the party and not the country, and to the continued harping on the perceived wrongs of the past.
It is all so reminiscent of the way ultranationalists in other countries, such as the followers of Nigel Farage in the UK or Marine Le Pen in France, behave. And then there’s the bellicose flag-waving supporters of Donald Trump and his Make America Great Again movement.
The Sinn Féin objections to the planned commemoration of the Normans might be regarded as inconsequential, but they do reveal a more sinister objective: to keep control of how the past is regarded within a narrow frame of reference to justify the party’s own past.
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George Orwell famously wrote that those who control the past control the present. That is fundamentally what underpins Sinn Féin’s desire to frame the way Irish people regard the entire sweep of our history as 800 years of British oppression, summed up by historian Liam Kennedy as “Mope” (most oppressed people ever).
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It is worth noting that while the Irish history taught in our schools for the past 50 years or so is actually wide-ranging and nuanced, the generally accepted popular version is still the old simplistic one of bad Brits versus pure Gaels.
That is why it is so encouraging that the Minister for Heritage, James Browne, brought the proposal to Cabinet this week to engage with the Year of the Normans initiative, promoted by the Normandy region in France, and involving other places such as Britain and Sicily, which were part of the Norman world.
Browne pointed out that Ireland’s lands, laws, monuments and built environment are testaments to the country’s Norman heritage, and participation in the initiative would recognise that history, while boosting tourism. “The year of the Normans is being led by our neighbours in Normandy, France, and it is an important and essential collaboration and commemoration – any distortion of this work is really disappointing and careless,” said Browne
Coming from Wexford, where the Normans first landed in 1169, and where the landscape is dotted with Norman castles and abbeys, Browne is obviously aware of the complex heritage they gave to this country. The fact of the matter is that a sizeable proportion of the population is descended from the Normans, and the followers who came with them to Ireland, all those years ago.
The prevalence of Norman names such as Burke, Butler, Griffith, FitzGerald, Lynch, Walsh and many more all across the country speaks volumes about the impact they have had over the past 800 years and more.
Such was the scale of the influx that in south Wexford the population spoke an old version of English, similar to that written by Chaucer, right up to the end of the 19th century.
In his groundbreaking book The Year of Liberty, about the 1798 Rebellion, Thomas Pakenham recounts an incident that illustrates the complexity of our history. At one stage in the conflict, a group of rebels were surrounded and cut down by the forces of the crown. Pakenham discovered that the rebels involved spoke only their ancient English dialect, while the crown forces who massacred them were part of the North Cork Militia – Irish speakers who couldn’t understand that the Wexfordmen were trying to surrender.
By 1798 most of the Normans, or Old English as they were known for centuries, had been reclassified as Irish papists following the Reformation and they had become largely indistinguishable from the rest of the Catholic population. They are no more or less Irish than anybody else living in this country.
The importance of the initiative being promoted by Browne is that it should make people think before lapsing into the 800 years of oppression narrative promoted by Sinn Féin. In fact, most Irish people know that narrative is a bit of a joke, and it doesn’t really inform their attitude to Britain or the British.
One small but telling indication of the real feeling that Irish people have for our neighbours was provided by last weekend’s Financial Times, which carried a little table about which countries have voted most, and least, for the UK entry in the Eurovision Song Contest. It revealed that the UK’s biggest fan since Eurovision began in 1957 has been Ireland, which gave it significantly more votes than any other country.
It may be a trivial detail but it does reveal a deeper truth about the relations between the people of these islands than the “Mope” narrative promoted by Sinn Féin.
