A Very Funny Place
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A VERY FUNNY PLACE Imagining Identity and Conflict in Northern Ireland’s Museum Scene A Master Thesis by Dennis van der Pligt A Very Funny Place Master Thesis: A Very Funny Place: Imagining Identity and Conflict in Northern Ireland’s Museum Scene Date: December 5, 2020 Program: Human Geography (Conflicts, Territories and Identities) MSc, Radboud University Nijmegen Instructor: Dr. Olivier T. Kramsch Student: Dennis van der Pligt, s4133625 E-mail: [email protected] Phone number: +31 6 1227 3002 Front cover image was made by the author. The sign stood outside an establishment on Bedford Street, Belfast. 1 A Very Funny Place Contents Preface & Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ 3 I. Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 5 i. Research Question & Context .......................................................................................................... 5 ii. A New Troubles Museum? .............................................................................................................. 7 iii. Other Projects: The Military, Society & Art ................................................................................. 8 II. Theories & Methods ...................................................................................................................... 11 i. Basic Definitions ............................................................................................................................ 11 ii. Imaginative Geographies .............................................................................................................. 15 iii. Sharing Powers, Museums & Identity ......................................................................................... 21 III. Two Troubles: High Politics and People’s History ................................................................... 26 i. What Were the Troubles? .............................................................................................................. 26 ii. Long Road to Peace ...................................................................................................................... 29 iii. Where All the People Have Gone ................................................................................................ 31 IV. The Troubles Displayed ............................................................................................................... 36 i. In the Wake of Memorials .............................................................................................................. 36 ii. Belfast, Ulster, Ireland & the World ............................................................................................. 48 iii. Taking Sides: One, All, None? ..................................................................................................... 54 iv. Violence ........................................................................................................................................ 59 v. Visitors and Participation ............................................................................................................. 67 V. World Wars: To Divide or Unite? ................................................................................................ 75 i. Two Commemorations ................................................................................................................... 76 ii. Constructivist Nationalism & The Freedom Museum .................................................................. 78 iii. Ulster Identity: An Essentialist Nationalism ............................................................................... 81 iv. A Very Long Way from Tipperary ................................................................................................ 90 VI. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 95 References ............................................................................................................................................. 99 2 A Very Funny Place Preface & Acknowledgements “IT WAS OLD BUT IT WAS BEAUTIFUL AND ITS COLOURS THEY WERE FINE” blared among the otherwise quiet student dorm buildings of Hoogeveldt. The COVID-19 crisis had kept many away from Nijmegen. Besides, it was summer. A lone exchange student looked up, but clearly did not seem to understand the music. Neither did I. Or rather: I couldn’t figure out why it was playing here, and so absurdly loud, and not “…AT DERRY, AUGHRIM, ENNISKILLEN AND THE BOYNE”, or something like that. What the heck. Nevertheless there was an odd beauty to it. Not so much the song itself or the production values of this particular version, but that it was so out of context that hardly anyone could be offended or aroused. After all, “…THE SASH ME FATHER WORE!” is considered a sectarian song. A few days later in the middle of the night, a few neighbours of mine suddenly broke into singing the decidedly anti-sectarian composition Zombie. If anything, it proved that equalling the vocal capabilities of the late Dolores O’Riordan is tough, even under influence. Anyhow. Cosmic balance restored, I guess. Speaking of music related to Ireland, one of my personal favourites is The Man from the Daily Mail. I suppose you can interpret it as a rebel song. My preference is to extract from it the fundamental notion that humans, at times, tend to paint simplistic pictures of large groups of other humans and their birthplaces. “Ireland is a very funny place” and “the Irish are a very funny race”, “who are marching to the German goose step”. These connotations are presented as ridiculous and thus as myths. You could interpret it as ‘not fascists but true freedom fighters’, but I prefer to think of Ireland’s peoples are much more than warriors. As humans we have a limited and unsatisfactory capability to grasp reality in full. So strictly speaking, all our beliefs, however intricate, remain mythic to a degree. This thesis is about museums, funny places where the core business is mythmaking, also known under the more benign phrase ‘storytelling’. The 3 A Very Funny Place question is: what myths or stories would actually improve our societies and tie it closer together? Although assumptions, interpretations and mistakes remain mine, I don’t have to answer that alone. I had the help of more than two dozen people who were willing to be interviewed by me, or as I prefer to say, to have a conversation with me. I hereby wish to thank them. I also wish to express gratitude towards my instructor at Radboud University, Olivier Kramsch, who somehow continued to put up with my somewhat chaotic and irregular communications, and who expanded my horizons every time we talked about this thesis; and to Liam Kennedy, who acted as my unofficial instructor when I visited Queen’s University Belfast in late 2019; and to my friend Jorn Bunk, who still pays for my fries “until you find a job for which you have to show your degree”; to Colm Wittenberg as well, a friend whose violin skills mask my limited capabilities on guitar. I want to thank my friend Jean Querelle, some of whose pictures I have used, and whom I visited when he lived in Belfast in 2018; and also my friend Noor de Kort for the discussions we have had about Dutch heritage of 1940- 1949. Final thanks go to my girlfriend, Aaricia Kayzer, who took the trouble of reading parts of my thesis, has supported me throughout, and who lovingly held up the carrot of going on a holiday with me should I finish this work. 4 A Very Funny Place I. Introduction i. Research Question & Context “You do know that this has been tried many times, right?”, curator Hugh Forrester asked me when I spoke to him for this research about a new Troubles museum (2019). The Northern Irish Troubles are a subject that museums sometimes awkwardly dance around, even though open- mindedly engaging with tough historical and political questions should ideally be a hallmark of democracies. Thus, in the main, I’m posing the following question: how do the museum scenes in Belfast and Londonderry, depicting modern violent conflict, relate to the idea of a new Troubles museum? This relation is reciprocal and leads to two other questions. How does the museum scene in Belfast and Londonderry position themselves towards the idea of a new museum for the Troubles? Additionally, what is the effect of such an idea on the existing museum scene, and as such on the wider community in general? As we will see, Northern Ireland still suffers cultural isolation. The world outside that country, the island of Ireland and the United Kingdom is reduced to simplicities and often understood through local lenses by its inhabitants. To further upset the debate, inspire new opinions and widen the horizon of possibilities, I will offer a transnational view. This thesis will also compare the depiction of war in, mainly, a Groesbeek museum (the Netherlands) with those in Northern Ireland. In Northern Ireland, the attention of visitors is split between the Troubles and the world wars. In the Netherlands, however, most public history of war revolves around the Nazi occupation of 1940-1945. These two regions are sufficiently alike to compare them. Both saw modern violence on their territories, and both experienced the world wars. The latter