1 Galway councillor suggests removal of memorial to Irish Confederate Major

whisky_galore

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

The media is very funny, one minute they are showing outrage against ISIS for destroying historic statues, now they are supporting the destruction of similarly controversial statues.

How were the ISIS-destroyed monuments controversial?

Not really comparing like with like?

conorhal

whisky_galore wrote: »

How were the ISIS-destroyed monuments controversial?

Not really comparing like with like?

They were controvertial to the ideological extremists in Isis that took offence to them as heritical, I bit like the ideological extremists demanding the removal of Nelson's Column in London. All that's required it seems is for entitled mouthy individuals to feel offended. All these eejits should be told to piss off, history doesn't need to be consored.

topper75

I would love to have heard Major Dick's accent.

Was it like Confederacaaaaay, Nawleens?

Or was it Wesht?

Was it a deadly, heretofore unheard of, blend of the two?

Ride on aboard your valiant steed into the sunset Major Dick with the stars and bars and maroon and white aflutter in the wind. We will always cherish you, even though we only heard of you 3 minutes ago.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

TheDoc

The_Valeyard wrote: »

Stupid councillor jumping on the US bandwagon. Completely pointless and just trying to grab headlines.

I think this guy is actually being sensible about it and how it should be dealt with.

History is history, you can't remove someone from it. He will be well documented about and his travels and actions accounted in numerous documents,books etc.

But there is no issue with a community wanting to reshape their landscape, to remove what is inappropriate now, or what shouldn't be tolerated now. That he commends the important of the person in terms of the local heritage and his actions, he was still a confederate officer, and its possibly better served somewhere else, not on a town hall, a symbol of state and service to all citizens.

Actually think this guy has gone about it sensibly to generate a discussion, and if the majority of the local community agree then it should be relocated.

Surprised to see that people are immediately assuming he is a bandwagon jumper or "how long did it take him to get offended". Part of civilisation and progression is us revaluating as a society, what we deem as appropriate monuments or trophies of celebration, and what we no longer deem appropriate or fitting. Whatever about the actions in America, it has very much brought to light a discussion about celebrating men in statue who fought in a civil war, to maintain slavery and ensure their pockets were kept lined, and fought not solely for, but as one principle that black people were not equal.

It's cool that people assume its all snowflakey or whatever, but then we don't have statues of Cromwell knocking about, or celebratory plaques commemorating Black and Tan officers. We have had our own cleansing and resculpting over the years, but maybe if we had some statues or those that imposed famine, or brutality knocking about, we might be a bit more empathetic? We are somewhat in the luxury of not having this divide, whereby we generally will all weight in behind significant reshaping of our history and celebrations.

Where we might get touchy, is if we have groups wanting to remove celebratory monuments,statues or remembrance of Michael Collins and the likes because he was deemed X, or Éamon de Valera because he was Y

Cervantes2

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

That number is wrong it was around 20,000.

Permabear

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Not forgetting Irish v Irish like at Fredericksburg in Dec 1862 when the 24th Georgia Reg came up against Thomas Meaghers Irish Brigade. The 24th Georgia's flag is shown in the opening credits of the film 'Gods and Generals'.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Which says nothing about whether or not people who fought to treat human beings like cattle should be honoured as war heroes.

Jurgen Klopp

Nermal wrote: »

I vote we destroy all Greek and Roman statuary too, they were a bit too keen on slavery for my liking...

Here kid we must tackle the pyramids of Egypt first they were mad for the old slave labour when building them along with most of their ancient artifacts

In fact we must tackle the Great Wall of China too, the workers weren't doing that via a Government scheme either

Then again the Chinese aren't a bunch of soft ****s so would probably shove our placards up our holes during our protests

ToddyDoody

This is why Galway keeps winning council of the year.

Nettle Soup

I bet most people in Tuam didn't know about this memorial.

SEPT 23 1989

Why is history being deleted?

Are those who do this really that unsure of themselves and their ideology?

Victor

Jurgen Klopp wrote: »

Here kid we must tackle the pyramids of Egypt first they were mad for the old slave labour when building them along with most of their ancient artifacts

Here's one I prepared earlier.

In fact we must tackle the Great Wall of China too, the workers weren't doing that via a Government scheme either

Not a monument.

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

Why is history being deleted?

Other that Jurgen Klopp above and his ilk, it isn't. Have you heard of books?

Academic

Victor wrote: »

[...] Have you heard of books?

Exactly. Books are a woefully underappreciated resource on boards.ie, a fact which explains a lot about the level of discourse often encountered here.

A Battered Mars Bar

Never smoke fly never dope dry

Maybe I'm naive but I was genuinely surprised to discover that there were so many statues dedicated to Confederate figures left standing in the USA. I thought they would have all been torn down years ago.

On the one hand, to remove this memorial solely on the basis of the Charlottesville debacle seem a bit bandwagony, particularly as it conforms to an Americanised idea of acceptability in an age where American (and/or British) identity politics dominate the world and impose a standard for all others to blindly follow. But at the end of the day. are we really losing anything of historical significance by removing it? Or do we benefit anyway by leaving it up?
Removing statues/monuments does not "erase history", as much as the right wing outrage-porn aficionados may want to believe; there will still be books and other resources to recount history and its horrors. You don't need a big ugly statue of Cromwell to know that he existed, so why leave relics to Confederate figures?

Tbh I suspect that most people who would be annoyed at this memorial being removed are merely contrarians who otherwise wouldn't have even known the memorial existed in the first place.

Galwayguy35

He's an idiot, the people who voted him in are also idiots but hopefully they have seen the error of their ways now.

TBH the travellers pose more of a risk to the place than this random bronze plaque.

I vote we remove the travellers.

Hector Savage

Tear down the Egyptian Pyramids...

JPCN1

I think FG should tear down any statues of anti treaty FF types whilst in power. Then FF retaliate and tear down any to Pro Treaty types before the Shinners get into power. They can be left with changing all the street names and while they're it maybe Trinity College and Georgian Dublin for the chop. Anything with a Saint in the title gone obviously and when the greens get in we'll be tearing down the whole lot.
Fun times ahead in the brave new world.

conorhal

JPCN1 wrote: »

I think FG should tear down any statues of anti treaty FF types whilst in power. Then FF retaliate and tear down any to Pro Treaty types before the Shinners get into power. They can be left with changing all the street names and while they're it maybe Trinity College and Georgian Dublin for the chop. Anything with a Saint in the title gone obviously and when the greens get in we'll be tearing down the whole lot.
Fun times ahead in the brave new world.

Well the shinners have form, it's always the leftys for some reason...




Then you have this loon today....another member of the Dawkensian Taliban:

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/caretaker-left-with-neckwounds-after-science-teacher-tried-to-remove-statue-of-the-virgin-mary-from-school-36063805.html

JPCN1

Militant Humanists!!!

A Little Pony

Deleted User wrote: »

Maybe I'm naive but I was genuinely surprised to discover that there were so many statues dedicated to Confederate figures left standing in the USA. I thought they would have all been torn down years ago.

On the one hand, to remove this memorial solely on the basis of the Charlottesville debacle seem a bit bandwagony, particularly as it conforms to an Americanised idea of acceptability in an age where American (and/or British) identity politics dominate the world and impose a standard for all others to blindly follow. But at the end of the day. are we really losing anything of historical significance by removing it? Or do we benefit anyway by leaving it up?
Removing statues/monuments does not "erase history", as much as the right wing outrage-porn aficionados may want to believe; there will still be books and other resources to recount history and its horrors. You don't need a big ugly statue of Cromwell to know that he existed, so why leave relics to Confederate figures?

Tbh I suspect that most people who would be annoyed at this memorial being removed are merely contrarians who otherwise wouldn't have even known the memorial existed in the first place.

Absolutely you lose a lot. Who wants to live in a cultural and historical desert.

Victor

A Little Pony wrote: »

Absolutely you lose a lot. Who wants to live in a cultural and historical desert.

So, anywhere that commemorated Hitler / Stalin / Saddam / random dictator is now a "cultural and historical desert".

A Little Pony

Victor wrote: »

A Little Pony wrote: »

Absolutely you lose a lot. Who wants to live in a cultural and historical desert.

So, anywhere that commemorated Hitler / Stalin / Saddam / random dictator is now a "cultural and historical desert".

Who has commemorated Hitler?

Grayson

A Little Pony wrote: »

Absolutely you lose a lot. Who wants to live in a cultural and historical desert.

I saw someone saying that in Germany they have memorials to jewish victims of the war. This is because the germans don't want to be the people they were so they have reminders of the violence that occurred. Where jewish people lived there's little plaques that commemorate them. Where they were killed there's plaques to remember their deaths.

In the south of the US they don't have reminders to what happened black people. There were so many people killed during slavery, and even after there were tens of thousands of lynchings. There were occasions where towns came out to view the lynchings of innocent black people.

If that were any other country there would be plaques all over the place. Instead there's monuments to the people who fought to keep black people enslaved and memorials dedicated to segregationists.

That's wrong and we shouldn't have memorials/statues that glamorise those people. Sure, remember them with plaques that state what they did but don't glorify people who committed treason just so a race could be enslaved.

A Little Pony

Grayson wrote: »

A Little Pony wrote: »

Absolutely you lose a lot. Who wants to live in a cultural and historical desert.

I saw someone saying that in Germany they have memorials to jewish victims of the war. This is because the germans don't want to be the people they were so they have reminders of the violence that occurred. Where jewish people lived there's little plaques that commemorate them. Where they were killed there's plaques to remember their deaths.

In the south of the US they don't have reminders to what happened black people. There were so many people killed during slavery, and even after there were tens of thousands of lynchings. There were occasions where towns came out to view the lynchings of innocent black people.

If that were any other country there would be plaques all over the place. Instead there's monuments to the people who fought to keep black people enslaved and memorials dedicated to segregationists.

That's wrong and we shouldn't have memorials/statues that glamorise those people. Sure, remember them with plaques that state what they did but don't glorify people who committed treason just so a race could be enslaved.

They committed treason no more so than Washington or Jefferson or Madison. African Americans should and I am sure have erected memorials to slavery and I hope more will go up in the future to remind people of the history.

Victor

A Little Pony wrote: »

Who has commemorated Hitler?

Oh, millions of Germans in the 1933-1945 period and a whole bunch of neo-nazis since then.

http://www.gettyimages.ie/event/former-ss-trooper-erects-hitler-memorial-71194547#theo-junker-who-served-in-germanys-waffen-ss-during-world-war-ii-in-picture-id71206643

A Little Pony wrote: »

They committed treason no more so than Washington or Jefferson or Madison.

I'm not here to defend them, but I think this comment is quite glib. American independence set in train a pattern of democracy, human rights, anti-monarchism, anti-classism, opportunity, etc. Confederates wanted to turn back the clock.

African Americans should and I am sure have erected memorials to slavery and I hope more will go up in the future to remind people of the history.

But the pattern is that the rich and powerful get memorials, not Joe Bloggs. In the American South, that has meant slave owners, Confederates and segregationists.

A Little Pony

Or constant wars, getting involved in other countries business, butchering the Native Americans, keeping slavery in the Constitution. Go ask the Natives if it brought them human rights. 

Galwayguy35

It was good to get rid of Nelsons Pillar though, it should have been taken down when the Brits were finally kicked out in the 1920s.

Why it was left there for another 50 years is baffling.