Stakeholder

Next year in a small region of Switzerland called St Gallen, they will mark the 1400th anniversary of the founding of their city by a Bangor man. Yes, that’s right a bloke from Bangor. Gallus got fed up with Ireland’s Gold Coast and headed off to Switzerland in 612AD and did not stop until he fell and stumbled over a bush beside a waterfall in the Steinach Valley and hey presto he founded a town. They are planning big things in St Gallen in 2012 which Gallus, a hermit monk would now be disappointed to discover is home to some eighty thousand souls and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Despite the Catholic population only representing some forty percent of the local religious make-up everyone from the Lutherans to Orthodox Christians are getting stuck into the celebrations. But then again this is Switzerland where everything is very civilised.

Back at Stormont and indeed Westminster some of our politicians are getting agitated about the prospect of a decade of anniversaries starting next year with the creation of the Ulster Volunteers and the Signing of the Ulster Covenant.  Naomi Long MP for East Belfast has expressed concerns at Parliament about the possible hi-jacking of some anniversaries for political purposes and up on the Hill, the SDLP’s Karen Mc Kevitt has expressed a worry about the possibility of revisionism concerning the events of 1916.  In a way its pointless getting too exercised about political anniversaries in Irish history as like the dreaded Christmas they will come to pass and we will wonder what all the fuss was about.

Ironically perhaps the most significant anniversary has already passed, as it has been eight hundred and forty years since an Irish tribal leader first invited over the English King Henry II to interfere in Irish affairs.  The English oblivious to the fact that, guests like fish, go off after three days have been involved ever since- thereby creating one of the most dysfunctional neighbourly relationships in Europe.

Of course part of the Sinn Fein agenda was to take advantage of the anger in the Republic of Ireland during the recent Presidential election and have a former member of Oglaigh Na Eireann installed in the Aras in time to oversee the commemoration of the establishment of the Irish Volunteers and the 1916 Rising. The citizens of the Republic having watched how we Northerners get ‘cricks’ in our necks from looking backwards opted for a man of letters rather than a man of action to see them through the theatrics of the 1916 commemoration.

On the other side latter-day Carson Unionists replete with Covenant replicas will dust down Great Granddads old UVF armband while tango-tanned grannies wearing union jack bloomers and orange lilies will give bawdy renditions about the gallant Clyde Valley and SS Fanny gunrunner exploits as part of Ulster’s commemoration pantomime.

These so called seminal moments in our history are of a different era and place. In the rest of Ireland, Britain and indeed the rest of Europe the causes of our divisions are barely recorded let alone remembered. Only here in this small North Eastern part of Ireland and perhaps only in Belfast do the fault lines of the early nineteenth century still run deep.  It’s like living in an un-buried time capsule.

Yet slowly but surely things are changing – even in Northern Ireland were normality still plays catch-up.  Maybe the harsh realities of living in depressed economic times will mean that the usual sectarian appetites for flag waving and emblem fixation will soon dissipate. The British and Irish Governments have shown considerable leadership in managing historical anniversaries and in doing so have made many people revise their myopic interpretations of historical events.

The First Minister often talks about a new more integrated society. It’s a laudable aspiration but it’s peppered with contradictions by the comments and actions by some in his party. Sinn Fein too plays loose with actions. The DUP/Sinn Fein axis has the potential to do some good but they need to demonstrate that their political reason d’être is not ‘equal but divided’ as opposed to ‘shared and inclusive’.  They have spent a long time taking baby steps in the political process and at times they have strutted like peacocks over very little.  The so-called decade of anniversaries will provide both with many opportunities to outreach beyond their usual audiences. Neither party has a monopoly on our history but perhaps like Bangor’s St. Gall they have the potential to go far!