Building on the past, not on its ruins

Martin Mansergh

Few statues are not offensive to somebody. Fellow adviser, writer Anthony Cronin, once suggested that the statue of Fr Mathew should be removed from O’Connell Street, as it was offensive to drinkers. Fr Mathew warned the Irish poor against consumption of strong spirits, or they might soon find themselves before the bar of the Lord. His statue, once removed because of Luas works, will be gone from the capital’s main thoroughfare with little public notification or debate.

Many years ago, there was a tall white statue of Christ the King overlooking a valley below with mountains opposite, a favourite spot for photos. There was probably an agenda behind its erection, a theology associated with Christus Rex and the encyclicals of Pope Pius XI giving a religious direction to social policy, but the statue was valued for itself. It was smashed by an unknown passer-by, but replaced. If there were religious motivation involved, beyond pure vandalism, there is a word for it, iconoclasm.

Historically, there was much destruction of artistic heritage, in which religion was involved. Some early Christians cut limbs or heads off classical statues, one reason that many are torsos. In his celebrated BBC series Civilisation 40 years ago, Sir Kenneth Clark observed that the Reformation was very destructive of art. Puritan zeal destroyed Banbury Cross around 1600, and many mediaeval church treasures either perished or were hidden.

Monuments

Apart from human life, monuments and old buildings are inevitably lost in war and revolution. During the 1916 Rising, the statue of Daniel O’Connell miraculously escaped British shellfire. An upper floor of the GPO was level with the stone effigy of Admiral Nelson on top of the Pillar. A Volunteer asked Pearse if he could shoot him down. Pearse said no, to save ammunition and to avoid injuring civilians below. Imprisoned in Arbour Hill, he expressed dismay to the Capuchin Fr Columbus over the loss of life and destruction, but added, “please God, it won’t be in vain”. The Free State Government under W.T. Cosgrave, advised by OPW chief architect T.J. Byrne, restored the city centre and landmark buildings.

In such times, there is always some discretion over what to keep and what to demolish. One human instinct, reflected in places in the Bible, is to make a clean sweep. What follows invariably falls far short of a bright new dawn.  The more constructive approach is to find a blend of continuity and change.

A perfect example was the practice of painting the red pillar boxes green, leaving perfectly legible royal monograms, VR, EVIIR and GR, added to by SÉ (Saorstát Éireann).There is to be a conservation order put on them. In Tobermory on the Scottish island of Mull, there is a rare red pillar box with EVIIIR on it, marking the short reign of Edward VIII.

Exhibition

There was little sympathy in ruling circles in the 1950s for Georgian Dublin, given its associations with ‘an alien Ascendancy’. As a new OPW exhibition in Dublin Castle, called ‘Making Majesty: The Throne Room at Dublin Castle’ explains, de Valera had a somewhat different view, and instructed that the State rooms were to be kept in good condition. He said in 1952:

“While some people held the view that the emblems of British rule should be removed, there was a case for preserving them for their historical significance and for the emphasis which they placed on the change to national independence. This applied particularly to places like St Patrick’s Hall and the State Apartments generally where there is so much of value and artistic merit …”

Dublin Castle today serves multiple purposes.

Charles Haughey took the same view, when the College of Science, later the UCD School of Engineering, was converted into the centre block of Government Buildings. When OPW enquired whether large inscribed stones, recording that Edward VII laid the foundations in 1904 and George V opened it in 1911, should be reversed, he waved his hand and said: “We add to the past; we don’t take it away.”

Mao Zedong, who instigated the Cultural Revolution, contemplated destroying the Forbidden City, the vast palace and administrative complex in central Beijing, but was dissuaded by his more reflective and tradition conscious Prime Minister Zhou Enlai. The French and Soviet Revolutions, both bloody affairs, preserved most royal palaces, even if they had to sell off furniture and jewels to raise money. Today, Presidents Macron and Putin regret the execution of Louis XVI and Tsar Nicholas II and family.

Bomber Command not Soviet tanks devastated Dresden in February 1945. Its core has been rebuilt with British and American donations, including the domed Frauenkirche, restoring the skyline to its appearance in Canaletto paintings. The Soviets overruled East German comrades, and saved two notable Wilhelmine monuments, the depiction of Kaiser Wilhelm I as the reawakened early mediaeval Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, and the tall tower commemorating the 1813 battle of the nations at Leipzig against Napoleon.

Nelson Mandela in an act of magnanimity and reconciliation allowed his name to be associated with the great imperialist Cecil Rhodes in his Oxford library and jointly-named scholarships.

There is great controversy about statues commemorating heroes of the South in the American Civil War, occasioned by its refusal to give up slavery, a stance backed perversely by Irish patriot John Mitchel. This mars, but does not cancel out, his service of protest against British mismanagement of the Famine. The issue is what statues say today, and if they sanction continued supremacist attitudes.

Statues are reminders of history. The temptation to block out unwelcome parts Orwellian fashion should in general be resisted. In Fairview Park, Clontarf stands a dignified statue of IRA Chief of Staff Seán Russell, who died on a U-boat in 1940 returning to Ireland. It replaces one that was smashed to applause from a Sunday Independent columnist. While few Irish people today feel the slightest sympathy for Russell’s ill-judged militancy, it is better to provide no occasion for tit-for-tat retaliations, whether inflicted on humans, community facilities or statues.