The Ulster Museum controversy (6)

During the course of the Seven Days programme on Radio Ulster yesterday, there was several very significant comments by Richard Warner, who was formerly a curator in the Ulster Museum. 

He said, 'Nobody who is a properly trained museum curator, let's say in the history of Northern Ireland, is going to ignore the Orange Order. The Orange Order will be put there within the display. It is part of what formed Northern Ireland. There has always been reference to the Orange Order in there. The balance may or may not be right, according to other views. It has always been seen by the curatorial staff in the Ulster Msueum as a very important part of Ulster history.'

The Ulster Museum reopened on 22 October 2009, after a major refurbishment, and just a matter of days before the opening there was no representation of the Orange Order at all!  The cursory reference that is there now was inserted in the last few days, when it was pointed out to the museum that they had ignored the Orange Order.

Yet Richard Warner states that, 'Nobody who is a properly trained museum curator, let's say in the history of Northern Ireland. is going to ingore the Orange Order.  It has always been seen by the curatorial staff in the Ulster Museum as a very important part of Ulster history.'

Yes the Orange Order was included in the Ulster Museum story before it closed.  Why then was it that just days before the Ulster Museum reopened the Orange Order had been airbrushed out of the story?  That is a question that requires an answer.

Earlier in the programme Richard Warner also spoke about museums 'using objects to illustrate the story they are telling.'  That comment is particularly relevant to the Orange Order because there are no Orange Order artefacts in the exhibition.  The museum has artefacts in its stores but they not in the exhibition for the public to see.

The fact is that in the last few days before the Ulster Museum reopened a single board was added with five or six sentences about the Order.  That board was added as an afterthought and that is why it looks like an afterthought.  It was possible to add a single board with text on it but without redesigning that part of the museum there was no space to add a cabinet with Orange artefacts.

The fact that it was an afterthought is highlighted by the stark contrast with the adjacent displays on the Irish Volunteers and the United Irishmen, where there are a number of cabinets with artefacts.

The Ulster Museum controversy (5)

I have just listened on BBC iPlayer to the Seven Days programme on Radio Ulster. The programme, which was broadcast yesterday, included a discussion on the Ulster Museum and the contributors were Christopher Stalford (DUP councillor), Richard Warner (archaeologist and a former curator in the Ulster Museum), Daniel Jewsbury (artist and co-editor of Variant) and Deirdre Nelson (Independent councillor in Ballymena).

Deirdre Nelson was critical of my position and said, 'The Orange Order is now, whether people like it or not, a minority organisation within Northern Ireland. It also has its own very well equipped museum up at Schomberg House. If the Orange Order wants to promote and portray its history, they have a museum.'

This is a bizarre argument from the Ballymena councillor. Yes there is a interesting display of Orange artefacts at Schomberg House and the Orange Order plans to develop a museum located in Schomberg House and Loughgall but that does not justify the exclusion of any Orange Order artefacts from the Ulster Museum.

The Ulster Museum controversy (4)

Yesterday the Sunday World reported that it had copies of the minutes of a meeting that I held with the chairman and some of the trustees of the National Museums of Northern Ireland on 28 April 2010. 

Not only has someone leaked the letter that I sent to the chairman but they have also leaked minutes of a meeting with a number of trustees.  This confirms my point that the malign individual who leaked the letter and now the minutes has no respect for the museum or the trustees.

Of course the Sunday World started its article by claiming that 'The Minister wants the museum bedecked with Orange flags,' but then the Sunday World has been known to engage from time to time in sensationalism and exaggeration!  The word 'bedeck' means to 'decorate lavishly' and the inclusion of an Orange banner would not, by any stretch of the imagination, fit the description of 'decorate lavishly'.  At present there is a trade union banner on the wall and no one would suggest that the museum is 'bedecked' with trade union banners.

During the course of that meeting on 28 April I simply suggested that some artefacts associated with the Orange Order might be displayed in the Ulster Museum.  After all, what s a museum without artefacts?  There is already a trade union banner up on the wall of the museum and there is no reason why the museum could not add banners to represent some of the fraternal organisations, including the Orange Order.

 

 

The Ulster Museum controversy (3)

Eamonn Mallie's comments on the museum controversy

Even if one disagrees with Creationism v Science what would be wrong with juxtaposing the two illustratively in Museum? End absolutism.

3:17 AM May 26th via UberTwitter

We must all learn to be a broad church in NI. I would like to know and be exposed to manifestations of Ulster Scots even in Museum.

3:14 AM May 26th via UberTwitter

Can you imagine if the Ulster Museum mounted a century of GAA history the hundreds of thousands of people that would suck into the Museum?

3:10 AM May 26th via UberTwitter

World has moved on. Member of Orange Order gives talk in my Alma Mater Abbey CBS Newry. Why not? We need to understand each other.

3:09 AM May 26th via UberTwitter

Some kneejerking to N/Mc Causland's untimely intervention in Museum affairs just as Museum is in running for top award. Debate worth having.

3:06 AM May 26th via UberTwitter

I welcome these thoughtful comments from Eamonn Mallie and there is a debate that is worth having.  We need to understand each other better if we are to build a 'shared future' and that was the basis of my letter. 

He refers to members of the Orange Order speaking in the Abbey Christian Brothers School in Newry and some years ago, when I was convenor of the Orange Order's education committee, I visited the school to speak to the students and answer their questions.

The Ulster Museum controversy (2)

Alf McCreary has commented on the issue in tonight's Belfast Telegraph.

Nelson's right to make 'art luvvies' live in real world

It is amusing to watch the 'art luvvies' in hysteria because our esteemed Culture Minister Nelson McCausland suggested that our museums should reflect more of our local culture.

I am not one of those who embrace Creationism, nor am I a member of the Orange Order or a Hibernian, but these are all part of our culture.

There is already a wonderful William Conor painting of The Twelfth in the Ulster Museum.

Nelson McCausland, or any minister, certainly cannot and must not dictate what should go into our museums, but he has a right to make suggestions.

Sometimes the 'art luvvies' need their cages rattled to remind them of real life.

The Ulster Museum controversy (1)

I indicated recently that I would post some general observations on  the issues I had raised in my letter to the trustees of the Ulster Museum and this is the first of them.

Back in 1988 the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum had a magnificent exhibition entitled Brotherhoods in Ireland.  It told the story of the many fraternal organisations that have been such a feature of life in Ulster for hundreds of years.

They included monastic and medieval organisations such as the Knights Templar, the Knights of St John and merchant, craft and religious guilds.  There were also the 'charitable and convivial brotherhoods' such as the Freemasons and the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes.

Friendly Societies were a significant feature of life in the 18th and 19th centuries as a 'poor man's life assurance'.  These included the Loyal Order of Ancient Shepherds, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Ancient Order of Foresters, the Irish National Foresters, and the British Order of Ancient Free Gardeners.  In the long run, however, National Insurance and competition from insurance companies led to their decline and today only the Irish National Foresters survive as an organisation.  There were also temperance brotherhoods such as the Independent Order of Rechabites and the International Order of Good Templars.

Finally we have the Orange Order, the Royal Arch Purple Chapter, the Royal Black Institution, the Independent Orange Order and the Knights of Malta, as well as the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Knights of St Columbanus.

The 1988 exhibition was comprehensive and informative and showed that many of these organisations had much  in common, with their lodges, passwords, degrees, regalia, banners and processions.  This was a high quality exhibition that was truly a credit to the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum.  It showed what can be done.

Of course this was a special exhibition but even a general exhibition on the history of Ulster must take account of and give adequate, appropriate and proportionate representation to the main fraternal organisations, especially the Orange Order and the Ancient Order of Hibernians, both of which have played a signficant role in the political history of Ulster.  The Orange Order has always been associated with Unionism and the AOH was for many years the power base of Joe Devlin and the Nationalists.  Devlin was president of the AOH from 1905 until his death in 1934.  We cannot understand the history of Unionism without acknowledging the role of the Orange Order and we cannot understand the history of Nationalism without appreciating the role of the AOH.

Moreover, do these organisations not lend themselves very naturally to incorporation and representation in a museum?  It is the artefacts in a museum that make it special for the visitor.  The interpretation is important but without artefacts there is no museum and both the Orange Order and other fraternal organisations have plenty of artefacts, with their regalia, banners, symbols and warrants etc.

I have seen such artefacts in museums in Scotland, England and the Irish Republic and is it unreasonable to expect similar representation here in Northern Ireland, the place where both the Orange Order and the AOH were founded?

As we seek to build a shared and better future in Northern Ireland we need to increase our understanding of each other and of our cultures, our histories and our traditions.  Our museums and other cultural institutions  have an important role to play in that process of mutual understanding and we must do all we can to encourage them in that role.

Antrim Coast Road

The current issue of the DRD magazine On The Move reports the unique challenges surrounding the Antrim Coast Road, which was originally constructed in 1842 by the 'men of the Glynnes'. 

It did not require any major improvement works until 1967, some 125 years later.  At that time a new section of road was constructed further out to sea to remove any danger from the eroding rock face south of Glenarm.  This stretch of road forms a physical barrier to the sea erosion on one side and the cliff and land erosion on the other.