Day 19 Wednesday June 10th 2009 1.5 Metre Hurdle

by Conor Kelly, 11 Jun 2009

Re-imagining a memorial at Murlough Bay contains a number of unfortunate and sticky points that have to be addressed. In describing the classical role of the mnemonic device in the public sphere. In his essay The German Counter-Monument, James E. Young writes that, ‘the matrix of a nation’s monuments traditionally employs the story of ennobling events, of triumphs over barbarism, and recalls the martyrdom of those who gave their lives in the struggle for national existence – who, in the martyr logical refrain, died so that a country might live.’ It is, of course, impossible to envisage such a matrix existing in a country that has endured almost 90 years of an often extremely difficult partition. To imagine a memorial at Murlough Bay, one has to begin by imagining a public without the historical burden of the country/nation/state.

In the practical terms of framing the relationship between the public and any potential memorial, it is imperative that a fragile memory like Casement’s be handled carefully. The greatest hurdle is the notion of martyrdom. South of the border, in the Republic of Ireland, Casement can cheerfully fit the classification of martyr and in turn be ‘rewarded’ with all the worthy imagery and rhetoric that accompanies martyrdom. In Northern Ireland, to classify Casement as martyr would immediately undermine the legitimacy of the state and alienate a good proportion of its population. How can any process of memorialisation begin without becoming an extension of a turf-problem? We have clearly entered the arena where, as Theodor Adorno views it, “cultural criticism shares the blindness of its object.’

James E Young writes, ‘in suggesting themselves as the indigenous, even geological outcrops in a national landscape, monuments tend to naturalize the values, ideals and laws of the land itself. To do otherwise would be to undermine the very foundations of national legitimacy, of the state’s seemingly natural right to exist.’ This question of the state is integral to the question surrounding the future of any Casement memorial at Murlough Bay. Is it an absurdity for a state, in this case Northern Ireland, to wish to memorialise an individual (albeit one pre-existing partition and civil war) completely opposed to a British authority on Irish soil? If a public calls for the remembrance of this individual and the state complies then the state is, in essence, opposing the legitimacy of its own existence. The only exception would be if all parties agreed that the individual was being remembered or memorialised on the grounds that he was a popular madman of some historical significance.