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Presentation by Mary Moynihan for the European 1 Presentation by Mary Moynihan For the European Observatory on Memories (EUROM) third annual network meeting Taking Stock of European Memory Policies Best practices, remembrance projects and dissemination strategies 10 December 2020 A People’s Parliament ‘I think there is no straight road, no straight road in this world, only a giant labyrinth, of intersecting crossroads’ Federico García Lorca Good morning, it gives me great pleasure to be here with you all this morning to talk about the work of Smashing Times and a special thanks to the European Observatory on Menmories (EUROM) for inviting us to attend. My name is Mary Moynihan. I am a writer, theatre and filmmaker and Artistic Director of Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality. As an artist my job is to tell stories. I believe storytelling is worthwhile when it shares our values and beliefs and what we stand for. Smashing Times was set up in 1991 as a professional organisation using the arts to promote equality, human rights and diversity and from the beginning storytelling has been a key part of what we do. We use theatre workshops, theatre performances, films, panel discussions, books and art exhibitions to tell stories that promote human rights and equality. Theatre and film are often the places we go to on a voluntary basis to hear someone else’s story, we give ourselves permission to step into someone else’s shoes and through the arts we can tell stories that can inspire new visions for the future. I first became involved creatively in using historical memory as a form of storytelling through our peacebuilding work in Northern Ireland. We worked in Northern Ireland in the 1990’s, before the ceasefires and we continued our work in a post-conflict environment after peace was established, using the arts to promote peace building and reconciliation. A key part of the work was bringing different communities together with a focus on telling the hidden or denied stories of the conflict, and finding ways to create a more diverse narrative. Owing to the the success of our work in peacebuilding and bringing different communities together, we were invited by different organisations to work across Europe. We had colleagues in European countries who were at the coalface of the refugee displacement of people and we came together using the arts to promote anti-racism, gender equality and 2 inclusion. The work proved highly successful with many organisations continuing to use the workshop models we had developed long after the projects were over. Decade of Commemorations At the same time in Ireland, around 2015 to 2016, the Decade of Commemorations was taking place. Ireland was remembering its past history of its struggle for independence and Smashing Times were asked would we consider exploring women’s stories from 1916. In 1916 a group of men and women including activists, artists and poets took part in an insurrection against British rule that lasted for six days. This insurrection failed but was a catalyst for the war of independence that followed in Ireland. I like to mention this because for many years in Ireland, we were under the impression that there were very few women involved in the Irish uprising of 1916. As we now know over 300 women took part with many of these stories now being brought to light by historians today. Smashing Times were delighted to link with historians including Dr Sinead McCoole and with Dublin Castle, where we created a number of performances and a film highlighting these stories of Irish women who stood up for freedom. Masculinised memories of history are the norm and the role of powerful women are side-lined and forgotten so telling women’s stories is important. What struck me about the women’s stories from 1916 in Ireland was that many of the women fought not just for freedom, they also had a desire for a complete transformation of society that was radical in terms of its focus on social justice and gender equality. There are many incredible women’s stories out there that deserve to be acknowledged by a wider audience. Arising out of our work telling hidden narratives from Irish history we decided to submit an application to the Europe for CitiZens programme of the European Union which was successful. The project was Women, War and Peace and the aim was to use creative processes of theatre and film to explore the experiences of women in Europe from WWII and to link those stories to the promotion of equality and peace in Europe today. This project resulted in a theatre performance, a film and a book with a foreword by Marian Harkin, MEP. The book contains 23 women’s stories from WWII and the Holocaust - highlighting stories of women from Ireland, Spain, Germany and Poland who promoted liberty, spoke out against totalitarianism and advocated for peace. We went on to create projects including Women in an Equal Europe and Comet Lines – Freedom Trails of Europe and discovered numerous stories of courageous Irish men and women who were active in the Resistance and in escape lines during WWII and who stood side-by-side with their fellow citiZens from across Europe in the fight against tyranny. I think this is important because Ireland is on the edge of Europe and was neutral during WWII, yet we have numerous narratives of Irish women and men who went to Spain, Germany, Belgium, and other countries and who were involved on a humanitarian level and in many other ways right up to active combat as they stood up against NaZism, Fascism and totalitarianism. The Comet Lines project uses creative processes of theatre workshops, performances, film and new digital technologies to promote a remembrance of European history with a focus on 'Escape Lines' during WWII. 'Escape lines' were secret World War II networks set up to 3 assist Allied soldiers and citiZens leave Nazi occupied territory during WWII. We remember Belgium woman Andrée Eugénie Adrienne de Jongh (1916-2007), nickname Dédée de Jongh, who set up the Comet line which is estimated to have taken in or repatriated some 800 Allied, mainly British servicemen who themselves were aided by over 3,000 civilians, approximately 700 of whom were arrested and some 290 shot dead or died during deportation.1 We remember Mary Elmes (1908-2002), a Cork woman who was the first Irish person honoured as ‘Righteous Among Nations’ for her work saving Jewish children from the NaZi gas chambers during World War II.The story of Mary Elmes has many parallels today. Mary was actively involved in helping refugees who were fleeing from war and persecution. Today we are witnessing the flight of ordinary men, women and children from war and there is an onus on all of us to support in whatever way we can. The story of Mary Elmes appears in an original play created by Smashing Times titled The Woman is Present: Women’s Stories of WWII. When Smashing Times first produced this play in 2016 a journalist called Clodagh Finn came to see the production. She was so moved by the evocative portrayal of Mary Elmes that she set about piecing together the real-life story of how this courageous Cork woman saved hundreds of lives in Franco’s Spain and NaZi-occupied France. She trawled archives in Paris, London and the US and managed to track down several of the refugees that Mary saved as children. As a result Clodagh was able to publish a book in 2018 called A Time to Risk All, the incredible untold story of Mary Elmes, the Irish woman who saved children from NaZi Concentration Camps, now published by Gill Books and on the bestseller list in Ireland. We were delighted with the news that Cork’s newest bridge has been named after Mary Elmes and was officially launched in September 2019. Other women whose stories we tell include Maureen Patricia O’Sullivan who parachuted into France for the SOE to work as a radio operator; Mary Cummins (1905-1999), a woman from Dublin who joined the Belgium Resistance during WWII and Katherine (Kate) Anne Mc Carthy (1895-1971), also known as Sr Marie-Laurence, a nun who ‘helped 120 allied servicemen escape from German occupied France and was condemned to death by the NaZis and sent to Ravensbruck Concentration Camp where she nearly starved, contracted typhus and was four times designated for the crematorium by the ‘huntsman’ who selected women unfit for hard labour.2 She survived the war but many others did not. Women such as Irish woman Catherine Crean who was involved in the escape lines during the war and who tragically died in Ravensbruck Concentration Camp for Women and whose life we know very little about. We remember these brave women and men. What strikes me is the way in which ordinary people from different countries across Europe came together during WWII in solidarity with each other, ordinary people risking their lives for ‘strangers’, showing courage in times of adversity. These men and women, each in their 1 HTTPS://WWW.AZKUNAZENTROA.EUS/AZ/INGL/ACTIVITIES/THE-COMET-LINE-%E2%80%93-THE-ESCAPE- NETWORK/AL_EVENTO_FA 2 https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/paris-honours-irish-who-fought-spied- and-died-for-france-1.1954055%3fmode=amp 4 own unique way, stood up for the right of all human beings to be treated equally and with respect. I believe their stories need to be told at a wider level to inspire the importance of working together to promote democracy, peace and equality for all.
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