Further on the divisive “Wall of Remembrance” unveiled in the historic grounds of Glasnevin Cemetery on Sunday, a monument which partly pays tribute to the members of the British Army and Police who lost their lives during the Easter Rising of 1916, the motivation behind its erection was clearly heralded by the Glasnevin Trust in a statement from its chairman, John Green, submitted to an Oireachtas committee in November of 2015. This includes a potentially troubling passage, highlighted below :
“…Glasnevin Trust has been working closely with the State in playing its part in the Decade of Centenaries. Glasnevin, true to its mission of serving people from all creeds, beliefs and walks of life, has been central to a number of State commemorative ceremonies. These have ranged from the commemoration of Irish men who lost their lives in the First World War to Collins and Griffith…
This work will continue right through the 1916 Centenary Commemorations with a number of major projects scheduled. Amongst them being ‘The Necrology Wall 1916-23’, which will remember, in a totally non-judgemental manner, all who lost their lives during the struggle for Irish independence in the period 1916 to 1923.”
Which strongly implies that the monument will eventually include the names of the men who died while serving with the UK’s military and paramilitary forces during Britain’s campaign against the establishment of an independent Ireland from 1916 to 1923, including the war criminals of the “Black and Tans”, the “Auxies” and the “Specials”.
In related news, according to a report by thejournal.ie, Glasnevin is also embroiled in a controversy focusing on claims that the Irish language is being excluded from a historic reeanactment regularly held in the grounds of the cemetery.
“GLASNEVIN CEMETERY IS refusing to answer questions about why the Irish language portion of an iconic speech by Pádraig Pearse isn’t included in a daily reenactment.
Pearse’s graveside oration at O’Donovan Rossa’s funeral from 1 August 1915 is one of the most famous speeches in Irish fenian history.
The accepted version of Pearse’s words report that the first three paragraphs of the seven paragraph text were in the Irish language.
Local teacher Jack Ó Drisceoil says that he first noticed the omission when he visited the cemetery in January with some English friends. He says he had told them that the start of the oration was in Irish but was therefore surprised when the actor began speaking in English.
Ó Drisceoil says that he has made several efforts to the Glasnevin Trust to explain their position but that he’s been ignored.
“They have some weird agenda of their own which I don’t know. But there are a few instances which if you put them together they genuinely seem to be trying re-tell history in a different way, in a way that pleases them. Whatever that is they’ve refused to explain.”
The Glasnevin Trust were contacted to provide a comment or interview but neither were forthcoming.”
AN SIONNACH FIONN 
There’s no mystery, it’s just West Brits being West Brits, nothing excites that crowd quite as much as the possibility of receiving nods of approval from the British and Americans. They weren’t removed from positions of influence in the early years of independence when it could have been done, it’s too late now. Their attitude is the Irish language and culture is the past(one that many of them find cringeworthy) and therefore should be subordinate to English and Anglo American consumer capitalism, which is the future. RTE, Independent newspapers, Fine Gael, Trinity College etc etc, all pillars of the state, whether we like it or not. They always look to Britain and America for every thing they do and say, there is little to no originality or independence of thought to be found amongst their ranks. It’s hugely depressing and if something doesn’t radically change its only going to get worse.
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I agree.
If your throw away your language and your culture then that’s what you end up with. You end up with a country that feels like a province of the Anglosphere instead of a proper independent and separate nation.
The people who would like to put “Black and Tans” members on that memorial board probably view all those events as a horrible misunderstanding, a civil war that split the British nation in two. Kinda like Germany and Austria. That’s why they believe that both sides should be honoured, because they are part of the same nation. I can’t see any other explanation.
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How many Latvian civilians were murdered by your own fellow- countrymen when collaborating with the Nazi’s in WW2 ?.
Now, THAT is shameful along with Latvia’s cowardly capitulation without even putting up any resistance to the Soviets when they simply walked in and took over your country.
No wonder the Finns think Latvia is a cowardly joke of a country.
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Truly sickening. The wall made me physically ill. Truly like the Holocaust victims and their tormentors being on the same memorial. Those who fell murdering our children next to those same children, honoured and remembered – shocking. If you listen closely, you can hear the blood of our forefathers cry from the ground. I am very disappointed that the outcry of the living is outdone by that of the dead. I have to say that even in ‘Meirica they, as of yet, haven’t managed to forget while they are remembering.
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Go raibh maith agat. I agree with the two previous comments and would add this — the status of Ireland is commonly considered to be ‘post-colonial’ but that is inaccurate. The Six Counties are clearly very much still a colony and the dominant ideology AND economy of the 26-County state is ‘neo-colonial’, perhaps the only example of its kind in Europe but of which there are many in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The Protestant bourgeoisie of the 18th Century had many industrialists and some scientists amongst its numbers and a section of it, along with large number of the Presbyterian middle and artisan classes, wanted not only religious liberty but to manage their own affairs in a broad republican democracy. Unfortunately that section and its followers were defeated, imprisoned, executed, exiled and what was left fell under the sway and control of the Orange Order, the antithesis of its hopes, binding them to Britain, monarchy and rabid religious sectarianism.
The Catholic bourgeoisie in Ireland never fought for independence — it struggled for its religious liberty and to improve the position of its class within the British Empire. It was composed mainly of the legal and academic professions, non-specialist doctors, aspiring civil servants and the clergy. It climbed up on the backs of the republican/nationalist section of the middle class and of the working class when it saw that the British would be forced to deal and reaped the rewards of the sacrifice of others. it walked in dead men’s (and women’s) shoes and lay easy on other people’s wounds.
It is not their history, as many people think, that they are despising. On the contrary, they are living up to their history. The history they are despising is OUR history, what they undermined is OUR Rising, the prize they seized and control is what should have been OURS. And if we are of a mind to correct that, we must fight as people are doing for OUR HISTORY, which the ruling class of this country are trying to deny, bury, dilute.
I’ll be trying to reblog this article (doesn’t always work for me). Go raibh maith agat arís.
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Reblogged this on rebelbreeze and commented:
Timely article on the Necrology Wall at Glasnevin Cemetery and what seems like an intention to add to it the names of Black & Tans, Auxiiliaries and B Specials who were killed by Republicans.
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The name of Seán Mac Diarmada has gone up wrong on the necrology wall. It should be written in 3 words. Instead they have squeezed it into 2 words without any respect for our language and culture. No country in the world erects the names of the former colonial masters on memorials post independence. This is a terrible insult to our fallen patriots.
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Reblogged this on seachranaidhe1.
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