Having the courage to honestly look at the past and face the future

We cannot run away from the fact that our shared history is contentious and people see things differently, Archbishop Eamon Martin tells Chai Brady

“History,” the poet Maya Angelou wrote “despite its wrenching pain cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.”

The island of Ireland is no stranger to a painful history and recent centenary commemorations including the Battle of the Somme and the Easter Rising have seen attempts at what might best be described as ‘ethical remembering’. It’s a fact that different people on the same island experienced history in very different ways.

Milestone

This coming year – 2021 – marks a significant milestone on the island with the creation of the northern state. For unionists, it was a triumph. For nationalist, it was akin to a catastrophe. It is a shared history which could prove contentious if not approached with sensitivity.

It’s not off to a promising start. Just before Christmas, the director of the Seamus Heaney Centre at Belfast’s Queen’s University said it did not give permission for an image of the poet in to be used in a campaign to mark the centenary of Northern Ireland.

The inclusion of a colour portrait of the Nobel laureate in the ‘Our Story in the Making: NI Beyond 100’ initiative caused controversy when it was unveiled by Britain’s Secretary of State Brandon Lewis in December.

Mr Heaney, who grew up in rural Co Derry and died in Dublin in 2013, often spoke of his Irish Catholic and nationalist heritage.

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood branded the use of his portrait as “deeply offensive”, describing it as a “cynical attempt to co-opt Seamus Heaney’s image and reduce his work to a branding tool to promote that narrative about partition”.

Primate of All-Ireland and former President of Mr Heaney’s alma mater in Derry St Columb’s College Archbishop Eamon Martin is acutely aware of the sensitivity.

He told The Irish Catholic that he hopes 2021 “will be a year which we can use as an opportunity to deepen our relationship and our understanding of each other”.

Archbishop Eamon sees the centenary as a moment to build relationships rather than highlight division”

Archbishop Eamon said that: “Clearly for people on the island of Ireland the year 1921 represents – for a lot of people – a great amount of sadness: a sense of separation, a sense of loss with the partition of the island”.

At the same time, he said that “for unionists and indeed loyalist communities in Northern Ireland, it represents for them a significant moment in the establishment of the Northern Ireland state”.

Archbishop Eamon sees the centenary as a moment to build relationships rather than highlight division. “I think for all of us in this island, given that we want to build a future together on the island of Ireland and indeed with Brexit looming, we have to work very closely on our relationships between these islands.

Opportunities

“I would like to see the 2021 centenary as an opportunity for greater mutual understanding, for opportunities to build further reconciliation and peace…I am somewhat disappointed that many of our nationalist and republican political leaders have dismissed the centenary of 2021 altogether because for me I think it’s really important to seize it as a moment to reflect on where we’ve come from,” the archbishop said.

The Primate speaks of 1921 as a “hinge year”.

“From that moment onwards, communities on this island became polarised and the legacy of 1921 cast a shadow over the full century to follow.

“I think it’s really important for us to seek to understand the impact that the year 1921 had on Ireland as an island and on these islands and the legacy that ensued, which was one of greater polarisation of the communities, increasing distrust between north and south and between east and west,” he said.

Reflection

For Archbishop Eamon, self-reflection and asking uncomfortable questions is key to building mutual understanding on the island. “I would like to think that in 2021 we are courageous enough to engage in critical self-reflection so that we can work more urgently to build peace and mutual understanding – because if there is ever to be a future of Ireland, it has to be one where we know each other intimately. Where we know our shortcomings and indeed, it’s even important for us in the Church to understand and accept the part that we may have played in the distrust in the polarisation and the lack of understanding which followed 1921,” he said.

“I would see it as an opportunity year, and I would be disappointed if it went and all we did was try to keep our head down for the whole year because we’re afraid to face the reality of the separation and suffering which in many ways hinged in the year 1921,” he said.

The archbishop has in the past put on the record his desire to see a united Ireland”

But what about the fact that competing aspirations remain? Unionists saw the Good Friday Agreement as copper-fastening the North within the union. On the other hand, nationalist saw the agreement as a stepping stone towards unification.

The archbishop has in the past put on the record his desire to see a united Ireland. “Clearly as a nationalist myself, as growing up in a nationalist community, I would have a yearning that that sense of belonging is something that could be shared by all of the people in the island of Ireland,” he told The Irish Catholic.

However, he warned that understanding where those fearful of a united Ireland are coming from is key. “I think that we will never reach there unless we are open to understanding each other, and I think that 2021 provides an opportunity for greater understanding of where we’ve come from and indeed where we might go together into the future.”

Northern Ireland

“In some ways, we have to – I have to – accept that there are people who will want to mark the significance of the establishment of the Northern Ireland state in the year 2021. They too must accept that for me I see 1921 as having been a moment of great separation and loss on this island.

“If we could accept that people on this island approach their belonging from very different perspectives – that was key to the Good Friday Agreement: that we would recognise legitimate aspirations on the island and that to me is something that we’re better not to run away from, but to face. And if there is ever to be greater mutual understanding and living together on the island of Ireland, then we need to be able to face difficult moments and difficult episodes from our history we need to be able to face it openly,” the archbishop insists.