European ‘year of the Normans’ reopens debate over Irish identification

Nine centuries after the Normans clanked ashore with swords and armour, Ireland remains to be wrestling with the query: what did they ever do for us?

A call via the federal government this week to sign up for a European cultural initiative referred to as 2027 European yr of the Normans has reopened a debate that is going to the core of Irish identification.

On the only hand, say historians, they constructed castles and cathedrals and enriched tradition and literature; at the different, they dispossessed the local Gaels and lead the way to invasion and career.

Sinn Féin, the principle opposition birthday party, mentioned the commemoration was once offensive as a result of it might honour William the Conqueror, England’s first Norman king, and the subjugation inflicted via his successors.

“What will they think of next: a festival of Cromwell? A Famine Queen jubilee?” mentioned the birthday party’s tradition spokesperson, Aengus Ó Snodaigh, referencing Oliver Cromwell’s bloody 17th-century conquests and Queen Victoria’s reign right through the 1840s famine.

“We Irish know well enough the legacy of William’s successors invading and subjugating Ireland in the name of his English crown, with Strongbow ushering in the 900 years of occupation, with the north still under the descendants of William the Conqueror’s crown.”

Strongbow was once the nickname of Richard de Clare, the second one Earl of Pembroke, who landed with an Anglo-Norman army drive in 1170 and unleashed historic forces that within the 20th century partitioned the island and left Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom.

However, the Normans additionally intermarried with Gaels, bequeathed circle of relatives names comparable to Burke, Griffith, FitzGerald, Lynch and Walsh, and changed into, in a celebrated word, “more Irish than the Irish themselves”.

The heritage minister, James Browne, who on Tuesday bought cupboard popularity of participation within the trans-European initiative, mentioned Sinn Féin was once lacking the purpose. Ireland’s lands, rules, monuments and constructed setting bore Norman heritage, and participation within the initiative would recognise that historical past whilst boosting tourism, he mentioned.

“The year of the Normans is being led by our neighbours in Normandy, France, and it is an important and essential collaboration and commemoration – any distortion of this work is really disappointing and careless,” mentioned Browne – a Norman title. “So let’s ask: is Sinn Féin’s position that they will boycott all events related to the year of the Normans?”

In addition to Ireland, the Normandy regional council has invited Britain, southern Italy, Norway and different nations and areas with Norman heritage to participate within the commemoration, which coincides with the millennium anniversary of William the Conqueror’s beginning.

Ó Snodaigh mentioned: “Marking the birth of a future English king is not for us, even if it was 1,000 years ago. Rather, we should always be remembering those great figures of Ireland’s past who actually lived here and contributed positively to our island story.”

The row has caused comparisons to the scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian when Judeans debate some great benefits of Roman career.

Jane Ohlmeyer, a Trinity College Dublin historian who specialises in early trendy Irish and British historical past, mentioned the Norman invasion profoundly formed the historical past of Ireland, particularly within the south-east.

“Like it or not, the past is no longer in the past, it is in the present. It is critical that we use opportunities like this one to better understand the nature of the conquest and to reflect on its legacies,” she mentioned.