Cartoon by Brian Mór
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Last Saturday, 30 April, at Conway Mill in Belfast, The Family and Friends of Brendan Hughes hosted the first annual Brendan Hughes debate and discussion. Myself and Brendan's brother, Terry Hughes, were speakers. This is the text of my talk.
Terry Hughes, Tommy Gorman and Anthony McIntyre
Introduction
I doubt somehow if Brendan Hughes would appreciate a crowd of us gathering in his name. He was often the subject of attention but not its seeker. And he was suspicious of many aspects of commemoration culture, thinking that it was the past being manipulated for the purpose of plagiarising authenticity for the present.
These days we see much of commemoration culture. We might genuinely be forgiven for thinking that people are being invited to reflect on the republican past for the purpose of numbing them to the bleak and desolate republican future. No matter how we might spin it comrades Mervyn and Wesley of the PSNI are just hard to swallow. A republican peeler sounds just about as right as a black Ku Klux Klan member. After leaving a bad taste in the mouth, the term republican peeler sort of sticks in the republican gullet.
But that is what is passed of as success these days. It was a success that looked too much like defeat for Brendan Hughes. The political structure that delivered that defeat, the Good Friday Agreement, was abbreviated to its acronym GFA. For Brendan this stood for Got Fuck All. For his ability to see behind the waffle he too got fuck all but abuse from key figures in the movement resentful of his willingness to forthrightly state his position.
Commemorations have always been a feature of republican culture. And they are sometimes the source of dispute. We need merely reflect on recent comments by Phil McCullough in relation to the series of events in March 1971 that culminated in the death of IRA volunteer Charlie Hughes, a first cousin of the man in whose honour tonight’s event is staged. McCullough’s account of the time was challenged by someone from the Official IRA. It is not for me to decide who is right or wrong; the Official IRA member or Phil McCullough. 40 years after the event exactitude may be beyond the memory skills of most people. But in defence of both parties to the dispute, if I understand them correctly, it can be said that they were arguing over events of the past rather than interpreting those events so that they might fit into a different era altogether.
There is no reason not to continue with commemorations even if the circumstances in which activists died remain disputed. Arguments about this or that based on what is remembered from the staccato of gunfire or the thunder of explosions are par for the course and do not in themselves detract from the integrity of those who died. But the republican dead should be remembered in terms of what they fought and died for. They should not be weaved into a current project which they knew nothing about, and at the time of their death would not have recognised as bearing the slightest resemblance to republicanism. Can any one name a single republican volunteer who died during the war thinking that Stormont was a good idea never mind serving in the British micro government there? Many people who were republican activists have since come to the conclusion that being part of the Stormont coalition is a good idea. But the point being made here is not whether Stormont is bad or good per se, simply that it did not figure in the considerations of republican volunteers who felt it better to send a car bomb into the building rather than a politician.
It is the weaving of the republican dead into a narrative that they neither knew nor anticipated that devalues commemorations. The dead are not being remembered but used.
Another aspect of commemoration culture, by no means restricted to Ireland, is that the eulogies to the person being remembered depict them in such a light that they resemble less and less what they actually were. In death they have become something else. It is the equal and opposite of what the propaganda of those we term ‘the other side’ does. The dead are deified by their one side and denigrated by the other. The average punter is left to wonder if two separate people are in fact being honoured.
In all of this we can’t be responsible for what the other side does. We are responsible for what we do. So to portray Brendan as something he was not would be a disservice to a man who while a larger than life republican walked the road with absolutely no air and graces. He certainly didn’t feel he was larger than the people he met on the street, in the pub or at the various events he attended.
Terry Hughes, Tommy Gorman and Anthony McIntyre
Introduction
I doubt somehow if Brendan Hughes would appreciate a crowd of us gathering in his name. He was often the subject of attention but not its seeker. And he was suspicious of many aspects of commemoration culture, thinking that it was the past being manipulated for the purpose of plagiarising authenticity for the present.
These days we see much of commemoration culture. We might genuinely be forgiven for thinking that people are being invited to reflect on the republican past for the purpose of numbing them to the bleak and desolate republican future. No matter how we might spin it comrades Mervyn and Wesley of the PSNI are just hard to swallow. A republican peeler sounds just about as right as a black Ku Klux Klan member. After leaving a bad taste in the mouth, the term republican peeler sort of sticks in the republican gullet.
But that is what is passed of as success these days. It was a success that looked too much like defeat for Brendan Hughes. The political structure that delivered that defeat, the Good Friday Agreement, was abbreviated to its acronym GFA. For Brendan this stood for Got Fuck All. For his ability to see behind the waffle he too got fuck all but abuse from key figures in the movement resentful of his willingness to forthrightly state his position.
Commemorations have always been a feature of republican culture. And they are sometimes the source of dispute. We need merely reflect on recent comments by Phil McCullough in relation to the series of events in March 1971 that culminated in the death of IRA volunteer Charlie Hughes, a first cousin of the man in whose honour tonight’s event is staged. McCullough’s account of the time was challenged by someone from the Official IRA. It is not for me to decide who is right or wrong; the Official IRA member or Phil McCullough. 40 years after the event exactitude may be beyond the memory skills of most people. But in defence of both parties to the dispute, if I understand them correctly, it can be said that they were arguing over events of the past rather than interpreting those events so that they might fit into a different era altogether.
There is no reason not to continue with commemorations even if the circumstances in which activists died remain disputed. Arguments about this or that based on what is remembered from the staccato of gunfire or the thunder of explosions are par for the course and do not in themselves detract from the integrity of those who died. But the republican dead should be remembered in terms of what they fought and died for. They should not be weaved into a current project which they knew nothing about, and at the time of their death would not have recognised as bearing the slightest resemblance to republicanism. Can any one name a single republican volunteer who died during the war thinking that Stormont was a good idea never mind serving in the British micro government there? Many people who were republican activists have since come to the conclusion that being part of the Stormont coalition is a good idea. But the point being made here is not whether Stormont is bad or good per se, simply that it did not figure in the considerations of republican volunteers who felt it better to send a car bomb into the building rather than a politician.
It is the weaving of the republican dead into a narrative that they neither knew nor anticipated that devalues commemorations. The dead are not being remembered but used.
Another aspect of commemoration culture, by no means restricted to Ireland, is that the eulogies to the person being remembered depict them in such a light that they resemble less and less what they actually were. In death they have become something else. It is the equal and opposite of what the propaganda of those we term ‘the other side’ does. The dead are deified by their one side and denigrated by the other. The average punter is left to wonder if two separate people are in fact being honoured.
In all of this we can’t be responsible for what the other side does. We are responsible for what we do. So to portray Brendan as something he was not would be a disservice to a man who while a larger than life republican walked the road with absolutely no air and graces. He certainly didn’t feel he was larger than the people he met on the street, in the pub or at the various events he attended.
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