Derry Essays 7: Derry Culture or Londonderry Culture. Which?
Culture is a slippery concept to get a grip of. According to Chairman Mao: -
“ People live and move in culture as fish live and move in water.”
This is true of an homogeneous people like the Chinese. The people of Derry aren’t homogeneous but are culturally divided. A more apt view of Derry culture is that of Dr Goebbels: -
“ Every time I hear the word culture, I reach for my Luger and release the safety catch.”
This is true of Europe with its plethora of clashing cultures. The clash of cultures in Derry has been a factor in the troubles.
If one were to ask the Bogside —What is your culture? — You would be told –Irish–. But the nature of such a culture is unclear. The people in the Bogside speak English watch the B. B. C. and I. T. V. and read the “ Catholic” Derry Journal. The same is true of the middle class Culmore Rd.
If one were to ask the people of the Fountain Estate their culture, you would be told — British–.but a British culture for the Fountain is as enigmatic as is an Irish culture for the Bogside. The people of the Fountain speak English, watch the B.B.C. and I.T.V. but read the “ Protestant” Londonderry Sentinel.
The same is true of middle class protestant areas in the Waterside. A British culture is puzzle. There are English, Irish Scottish and Welsh cultures for sure but surely British has nothing to do with culture but with political power and economic strength. Sinn Fein’s objection to linking the term U.K. to culture in Derry is valid.
In fact the U.K. is a constitutional matter and is unconnected with culture.
Culture can be expressed in language, a literature of stature, song dance and music. Has Derry got a literature of stature? Brian Friel has rightly won international acclaim for drama but only two of his plays are about Derry. Brian Friel hasn’t attempted to bridge the city’s cultural divide in his writing. He is identified as being on the Irish side of the divide. The same is true of the writing of the Derry academic Seamus Deane.
Nothing more than song reflects the sectarian cultural divide of the city. A well known song about the city has two names — Lovely Derry on the Banks of the Foyle is the Catholic name— Londonderry on the Banks of the Foyle — is the Protestant name. The well-known song by Phil Coulter — The Town I Loved So Well – polarises the communities in these lines: -
“ Now the army’s installed by the old gas yard wall,
And the damned barbed wire gets higher and higher
With their tanks and guns, my God what have they done?
To the town I loved so well.”
This goes down well with the Catholic community but angers Protestants. They point out that these lines are a slur on the British Army and what was done to Derry was done by the guns car bombs and death squads of the Provisional I.R.A.
Dana is associated with the cultural life of the City but the song— All Kinds of Everything—is a song about anything and anyone. But by going into politics in the Republic and as a defender of Catholic values these place her on the Irish Catholic side the city’s cultural divide so like other Derry celebrities she doesn’t bridge the divide.
The Undertones won acclaim far beyond Derry with the pop song —Teenage Kicks –. But here Teenagers from the Protestant Waterside are reluctant to socialise in the Catholic West Bank lest they be assaulted. Those are the real “ Teenage Kicks” of Derry
The people are also divided over dance. Prior to the troubles there was a ballet school in the City but ballet was seen as dance for Protestants while Irish dance was dance for Catholics. Music is similarly divided. There is a beautiful melody associated with Derry but in the Protestant community and by the B.B.C. the melody is named — The Londonderry Air– but in the Catholic community and on R.T.E. the melody is named — The Derry Air—.
The promotion of Derry as the U.K. City of Culture is an attempt by the British establishment in Ireland (North and South) and by Westminster to apply a cosmetic to mask the ugly sectarian scar that disfigures the face of the city. To correct this scar will require radical constitutional surgery not alone to the face of Derry but to the face of the whole of Ireland.
In the meantime Derry would be well advised to put culture on the back burner and make its first priority the eradication of the sectarian sickness that infects the city; the second priority is to have the city’s economic growth increase to raise the level of wealth in the city. Wealth and culture are inter-related.
The outstanding cities of culture in Europe like Milan, Florence, Venice, and Vienna, Paris and Berne are all wealthy cities. A wealthy non-sectarian Derry will be a cultural city. It has been said of Derry— If a Rembrandt were put up for sale in Derry one would be offered a fiver for the frame–.
While you are correct, you are also incorrect. Britain is the territory of Great Britain and its islands. It does not include the island of Ireland and its islands!
Nothing in the replies to my article in Slugger on culture changes my view that Britishness is bound up with political power and economic strength and is apart from culture. The poem Cargoes by John Masefield quoted by Mr Walker reinforces my stance on Britishness. There is a contrast of the cargoes (culture) in the poem. There are the sophisticated glamorous cargoes (cultures) of the Quinquireme of Nineveh and of the stately Spanish Galleon. These cargoes (culture) are contrasted with the Cargo (culture) of the dirty British coaster. Its cargo (culture) consists of articles of trade, items of commerce and economic goods. So Masefield’s view of British culture is much the same as mine. So Mr Walker in quoting this poem has shot himself in the foot.
Mr Walker also noted that Britishness is bound up with war. So it is. Sticking with poetry as a true expression of culture, the English poet Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem for the Irish Guards in W.W.1.because his son fought with the Irish Guards and was killed in action. The poem is long but I’ll give an extract to show its quality
“ Ah France did we stand by you.
Then life was made splendid with gifts and rewards
Ah France will we deny you
IN the hour of your agony Mother of Swords
Old days – the wild geese are flighting
Head to the storm as they faced it before
For where there’s Irish there’s loving and fighting
And when we stop either – It’s Ireland no more
Ireland no more.”
And also
After one hundred and seventy years of fighting
We’re fighting for France again.
While The Irish Guards are a regiment of the British army the word British isn’t used in the poem The Irish Guards aren’t fighting for Britain but for France and Ireland. The poem gives the Guards a strong robust Irish culture not a British culture whatever that is. This can be contrasted with The Ulster Volunteer Force in W.W.1 What poet or poetry expresses their orange culture. I don’t know of any. There is the play –Observe the Loyal Sons of Ulster Marching towards the Somme. This is an anti war play that highlights the emptiness of the Ulstermen’s mission their wrong headedness and their lack of education. It depicts their culture as a thin veneer of Irishness. But the play underscores the folly of war for the U.V.F. in W.W.1
Alias has written another spiel about the distinction between a nation and a sovereign state. I would point to Alias that the well-known song is – A Nation Once Again—Not a Sovereign State Once Again. Americans call their country a Nation not a sovereign state. Instead of setting himself up as a self appointed authority on Nations and Sovereign States the person should look up the dictionary understanding of a nation. I quote: -
A nation is an aggregate of people usually the inhabitants of a specified territory who share common customs, origins, history and frequently a common language with a single government and an agreed constitution.
In that understanding of a nation the six county state doesn’t fit the bill. The people don’t share a common origin. The customs of orange parades aren’t shared but are contentious and are resisted. But above all else the people have been at loggerheads over the U. K. Constitution since its inception. The constitution was imposed in an undemocratic manner in 1801. In the six county state it is still imposed on a significant portion of the population. The current election comes across as another referendum on the constitution showing a people split over it as they have been in every election since 1921. But while the B.B.C hype calls the six county state, a nation, that doesn’t stand up to rational scrutiny.
How ever I don’t wish to get dragged into dispute over an imposed undemocratic constitution with U.K. zealots. What puzzles me is British culture. In my understanding, for a culture to be a culture it must be expressed by poets in poetry. That is a sine qua non of all cultures. What poets or poetry express British culture? Can we lump Shakespeare W B Yeats Robert Burns and Dylan Thomas together and call them British poets expressing an homogeneous British Culture? Surely not. This is false fake phoney bogus and politically stage-managed.
God help anyone trying to be individual, innovative and rebellious then!
Culture from this part of the world in 2010 should be gauged by the people who create it. The danger of over scrutiny and arm chair critique is that it becomes detached from the pulse of what’s happening right now: Progression – that is the most important thing. Romanticising and trying to poetically or specifically categorise culture by Irish/British branding often loses the intended spirit of what was created. I know at least 20 creative people from Derry who wouldn’t put any sort of flag on their creations. There’s more truth in Culture than there is in Politics. I’d rather promote what people are creating than what they are fighting about…
I agree with Paul that there is truth in culture but not in politics. There are of course lots of creative people in Derry; a visit to Mc Gilloway’s Gallery will confirm that. The gallery is strong in landscapes of a high order some of Derry but are mostly of Donegal. For that reason the art in the gallery is best classified as Irish art, but in the classification it’s immaterial if the artist flies the Union Jack, The Irish Tricolour, The Hammer And The Sickle or no flag or how the artist votes. How ever if one calls Mc Gilloway’s Gallery, Mc Gilloway’s U.K. Gallery the art therein is being politicized. That is artistically unacceptable. But in the name Derry, U.K. City of Culture, culture is being politicized and if one politicizes culture one politicizes art.
I’m out with this quote by Charlie Brooker
‘There’s no point debating anything online. You might as well hurl shoe in the air to knock clouds from the sky. It provides scant room for debate and infinite opportunities for fruitless point scoin:the heady combination of percieved anonymity, gestated responses, random heckling and a notational ‘live audience’ quickly conspire to create a ‘perfect storm’ of perpetual bickering. Eventually on side gets bored, comes to it’s senses, or dies and the row fizzles out: just another needles belch in the swirling online guffstorm.’ Perhaps Mr Brooker’s cultural outlook is more concise than all of us…
Just point me to the reference which shows that BOB – otherwise you have nothing to say. Where exactly do these hundreds of people live – you hang out in the Fountain a lot do you? And I thought you said there were thousands – maybe you only know 1 in 40 of the West Bank Protestants?
I do not have to prove anything about where I live to someone who does not live here nor does not know the facts on the ground. I know many Protestant families who live on the Westbank. I do not know everyone who lives on the Westbank but if 1in40 were protestant, then they would represent thousands. Your bigoted views do not allow you to deviate from the unionist rhetoric that is ingrained in your head by the sectarian socialisation accustomed to people like you!!!
BOB – so asking you to back up your wild claims with facts and references makes me a sectarian unionist bigot? how so?
I think we all know who the real bigot is here – I think we’ve all seen your type running about the town.
How would you know your a unionist, according to you, you can’t go ‘over the town’. I’m no bigot, as I have said I know hundreds of Protestant people, I socialise with Protestant people, I live next door to Protestant people, I have no problem with Protestant people. What I don’t like is the propaganda spewed out by people like you and Gregory Campbell, who mis-represent the City and its Catholic/nationalist people and their attitudes towards Protestants. A little question for you. Nationalist taxi’s in the city are attacked every weekend. Who is it that attacks them, loyalist hoods egged on by loyalist bigots in the Fountain and Bond St/Nelson Drive – Fact!!!
Derry’s loyalist bigots need to do what their decent Protestant neighbours do and integrate into the city and end the siege mentality!!!
Just to be hypocritical again. This track is perhaps a better conclusion.
My spelling and grammar is awful in parts & at times I may be off the mark but I cant help thinking this track is related to Stroke City in some way… STRANGE OVERTONES
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DQyusKTAh4
“You are strong and you are tough but a heart is not enough”
I think that sums up the cultural outlook in the north west…
You mean this:
http://www.grannymar.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/hands_across_the_divide_sculpture_derry.jpg
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. British culture was always about manipulating non – English people to act for England’s profit.
Which Union country has profited and grown from the Union?
Which three countries’ growth has not been any were near the dominant nation?
Which Union country got all the motorways while the other three got one each?
Which country gets the most investment in rail infrastructure?
Which Union country, which gets an unfair slice of the pie, draws people to work its industry and commerce?
Which three Union countries, which suffer from massive unemployment, do they mostly come from?