On a busy weekday afternoon Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton visited the Marshes Shopping Centre, Dundalk, County Louth to launch a jobs fair. As she began her speech a group of gathered protesters began to heckle and jeer growing so loud and disruptive the seasoned politician abandoned her speech and left, protesters in tow.
Afterward Minister Burton said that the protesters had given Dundalk a “bad image,” fellow Labour Party member, Colm Keaveney TD described them as “Neanderthals.” In turn, the protesters were forced to defend their choice to use the event to stage a demonstration arguing that Ministerial visits are so few that they are often the only times dissatisfaction with the government can be openly displayed.
There has been much questioning of why the Irish did not get caught up in the waves of public demonstrations that seemed to sweep the globe in 2011. Commentators were perplexed as to why the Irish did not take to the streets and cause civil unrest in the face of an apparent loss of sovereignty and the introduction of controversial austerity policies. The main explanations that emerged focused on the residue of Victorian values in society, or the apathy that a decade of luxury has installed in the national psyche.
There are without a doubt a whole host of inter-related and inter-disciplinary causes that contributed to the Irish being largely passive viewers as the Occupy movement, the Arab Spring, Los Ingndatos, and Greek’s took to the streets in waves of public demonstrations. However, the true root of Ireland's 'failure to launch' is down to its fractured relationship with a violent history and a weariness from decades of trouble in the North which can be seen most acutely in Ireland's media
Ireland stands today having unsuccessfully swept its past under the carpet; it is a nation uneasy with its turbulent history of civil unrest and troublesome neighbors in Northern Ireland; and it is in this broad context that the people of Ireland choose the mechanisms by which they confront their government. The Irish are predisposed to avoiding methods of protest that have been tainted by historical revision and a fear of association with violent republicanism.
When choosing how to protest the ghosts of troubles past and present guide the way.
When choosing how to protest the ghosts of troubles past and present guide the way.
Think Tank
Collective memory is a complex, social process in which instrumental and symbolic struggles by different groups in the collective wrestle over definitions of the past (Prager) the purpose being to bind the individual members together- strengthening the collective. Because of this preoccupation, the past comes to impose itself on the present. It exists as a sort of haunting presence and it finds expression in the cultural practices of the day. But Ireland has lost the facet of protesting and causing disquiet from its cultural expression and leaves the population without a powerful tool in driving cultural and social change.
On the surface of it Irish history is punctuated with great examples of how outspoken heroes stood up to foreign and domestic oppressors for the good of the many–The Flight of the Earls, The Easter Rising, and the Suffragettes etc. But the vestiges of pride and appreciation for these aspects of our history of disruption have been sullied by Civil War, Partition and decades of unrest in our estranged sibling up North.
On the surface of it Irish history is punctuated with great examples of how outspoken heroes stood up to foreign and domestic oppressors for the good of the many–The Flight of the Earls, The Easter Rising, and the Suffragettes etc. But the vestiges of pride and appreciation for these aspects of our history of disruption have been sullied by Civil War, Partition and decades of unrest in our estranged sibling up North.
The Revisionists of Irish History, in their efforts to reveal the truths of our past, perpetrated a negative view of nationalism and all that is seen to embody it. When the resurgence of protests began in Northern Ireland in the 60’s, the response of the Republic’s government was to reconcile the nation’s violent history and outspoken origins with its struggle with the growing militant-nationalism in the North. A state-formation narrative emerged, which facilitated a ‘statist-histography' (Regan)
Herbert Adams describes the process: “In their eagerness to prevent the gruesome past from haunting their future, well meaning social engineers seek to create ‘a common history’ between hostile groups.” The assimilation of southern nationalist identity with the state was a political achievement, in that it culturally ostracized the more unruly factions in society and delegitimized their policies and principles.
This leaves the modern-day Irish population with very little by way of current celebrated revolutionaries, positive protesting role models or events commemorative of the achievements of Ireland’s politically assertive past. There is an element of the post-colonial syndrome of apology and shame for this type of behavior. French philosopher Ernest Renan noted “for national communities as for individuals there can be no identity without remembering.” Memories however, are malleable and affected by the trappings of the post-colonial personality and revisionists. These are the historical legacies that help shape current attitude to large-scale political demonstrations.
The Good Friday effect
The signing of the Good Friday Agreement marked a real opportunity for Ireland to emerge from its murky past, a chance to put it behind them and move on. But the form that this New Ireland would take was not unaffected by its recent turbulent history. While forgetting, or historical error as it was for Ernest Renan, can be vital in the maintenance of communal solidarity, the effect of a recent traumatic past can overshadow the present and install a need to respond to it.
In responding to a difficult past a culture can either define itself in relation/response to the past or by insisting on its irrelevance. Some have embarked on the politics of forgetting, of ignoring parts of its history that it is uncomfortable with, the consequence of which is a limitation in the historical cultural practices that have been a feature of a society for a long time, which are carried on into the future.
In his dealing with the macro post-war Europe, Tony Judt was concerned with the price that was paid for the deliberate and sudden disconcert for the immediate past. He offered this a one of the major consequences: “One was the ways in which the memory of that experience was distorted, sublimated and appropriated bequeathed to the post war era an identity that was fundamentally false; dependent on the erection of an unnatural and unsustainable frontier between the past and present.”
The Good Friday’s Agreement and the peace it brought was celebrated, as was the opportunity to sweep the troubles under the carpet. But this ‘false identity’ is untenable as Ireland is still a nation that has failed to truly be comfortable with its own history of civil disorder and was compounded by the desire to be seen as different to those who instigated it. So what happens when the facade crumbles in the face of these junctures?
With all this in mind one would imagine that when protests do occur, this fear of the social unrest seeping in from the North would materalise, and it does. One example of this came in 2010 when Gardaí expressed fears that republicans would infiltrate economic protest groups and subvert them and turn them to the perpetrators of civil unrest. A headline in the Irish Independent read ‘Gardaí fear terror groups will recruit economic protesters.’ What this, and other examples like it demonstrates is the presence of an endemic fear that protest of any kind is vulnerable to being hijacked by the violent republican cause.
Shadow of a gunman
Another manifestation of Ireland’s discomfort with its recent past coming into the spotlight was during the Presidential Elections in 2011. Sinn Fein member and former IRA leader, Martin McGuinness’s bid for the Presidency meant the Irish electorate could no longer ignore its recent past. During the campaign it is arguable that the hostility shown to him by many was reflective of a nation trying to put civil disorder behind it but suddenly confronted with one of its living icons.
Despite ambiguity about the length of his IRA membership and the degree of his militant participation, he was considered to be a credible candidate and placed third on the final count, but his campaign was dogged by his association with the turbulent North. McGuinness was endowed with a great degree of influence and credibility in the wake of the peace process. It was acknowledged that he undertook the position of peace-broker at much personal risk. He has formidable reputation as a peace-maker, he has received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998, and he was celebrated for taking the first steps toward power sharing. However it was his murky past that overshadowed his achievements in the end. Everyone remembers the bad things.
One snapshot of this cultural tension was manifest during Miriam O’Callaghan’s interview with McGuinness during the presidential debates. O’Callaghan challenged him on his religious faith asking how he could reconcile this with having been involved in the murder of so many people. Whether you agreed with it or not, the aggressive and confrontational line of questioning and the controversy it caused, was not reflective of a country at peace with its past or one that had moved on once peace descended. There is still very much a chip on the national shoulder and is reflective of a nation at still at pains with its history of unrest.
The relationship Irish people have with their recent history has an effect on the choice of methods selected when attempting to protest against domestic political issues. They display an aversion to association with civil disorder when selecting these methods. Ireland has a fractured relationship with its history and it is within this collective psychological turmoil the reaction to the decades of protest, leading to violence, perpetrated by those who call themselves Irish and acting in Ireland's interests, cultivated this aversion to engaging in similar activities.
Because of this aversion the Irish were predisposed to shy away from the mass protests that occurred in the summer of 2011. Whether the continued success of smaller protests, such as the student protests and those against the septic charges, coupled with the coming Centenary of the 1916 will stimulate a rise in nationalistic pride, and thereafter action remains to be seen.
But for now, when protesters will take the opportunities they can get to voice their anger and even a small group in a local shopping centre, will meet with criticism and scorn. Unless Ireland clears the debris from protests past, public demonstrations will continue to be an uncomfortable reminder and for many will continue to create a 'bad image.'
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