09 July 2007
Northern Ireland Exhibit Encourages Rethinking of Province
Folklife festival highlights music, sport, art, industry of Northern Ireland
Washington – Sean Doherty, a retired judge from Alexandria, Virginia, who has been to Northern Ireland a few times over many years, has seen a transition in the province.
Several years ago, Doherty passed through guard towers at the province's border with the Republic of Ireland and saw armed soldiers on the streets of Northern Ireland’s towns. During a recent visit, he found “no visual sign separating the two Irelands, only a change of currency.”
The annual Folklife Festival on the National Mall, which rarely in its long history has focused on a West European country, this year featured Northern Ireland, the six counties that are part of the United Kingdom. In 2003, the Northern Ireland government asked host Smithsonian Institution to consider an exhibit that would “get Americans to rethink Northern Ireland,” said curator Nancy Groce.
Approximately 35 million U.S. residents claim Irish ancestry, according to the Census Bureau, and most have not traveled recently to Northern Ireland, as Doherty has. The organizers of this year's Folklife Festival, which ended July 8, hoped to end stereotypes caused by the area’s troubled political history. The southern portion of the island of Ireland formed an independent country in the early 20th century, but the northern portion remains part of the United Kingdom. Its political status has been a point of sometimes violent contention between the Protestant and Catholic populations of Northern Ireland in recent decades.
Doherty spoke of an easier border crossing between the two Irelands, but culturally, there has long been a “blurry border,” Groce said.
The music at the festival testified to such a blurring. Under tents named for Northern Ireland rivers, Roisin White sang songs in Irish that she learned on the Aran Islands (located off the western coast of the Republic of Ireland). The Low Country Boys sang in Ulster-Scots with an infusion of American gospel and bluegrass. And internationally renowned singer Tommy Sands sang social-activist ballads.
Storytellers entertained children, and step-dancers dazzled audiences with fast-paced jigs and reels. The food was authentic -- sausage, salmon, cheeses, brown bread, shepherd’s pies and Guinness or Harp beer. There were exhibits on Northern Irish pottery, linen, fishing, farming and industry.
Athletes from the sports of hurling and Gaelic football spoke to sports fans. A visitor told an athlete that he thought the hurling sticks were replicas of weapons used by the heroes of ancient Celtic myths “to club each other over the head,” causing a laugh.
“We’ve moved on from that,” assured the player.
DRUMS, MURALS, SYMBOLISM
“The exhibits were excellent. The people putting them on could not have been more open or more informative,” said Doherty. “There was a discussion group that spoke of efforts to let children now feel safe in public areas. There was discussion of problems of immigrants in Ireland by an Indian woman. All was positive and informative," he said.
“Then I heard the big drums, and my reaction was an emotional one to the history of the sectarian parades as provocation to violence,” he said.
Doherty referred to Lambeg drums – double-headed, 17th-century military drums, three feet in diameter and two feet deep – that have been used in recent decades by Unionists to mark Protestant traditions. At times drummers have marched through Catholic neighborhoods in Belfast, Northern Ireland, to celebrate the anniversaries of English military victories, causing rioting.
Most visitors did not make this association with the drums. But Groce said that the drum tent had been a touchy area even for other exhibitors. She said that, at first, the Lambeg demonstrations “drowned out even those more positively inclined toward them.” But in an effort worthy of the new Northern Ireland, an accord was agreed upon. There would be a “Lambeg five minutes” every hour. Nearby performers would stop at that time. “It works well now,” Groce said. “And people who are not Lambeg fans, those who are here from Northern Ireland, who never would have listened to them before, have realized they do not just make noise.”
On either side of a replica of a Belfast rowhouse at the Folklife Festival, painters worked. Mural painting in Northern Ireland dates to the 19th century, and during political trouble, these artists painted to make statements or commemorate activists. With the return of peace in Northern Ireland, artists have replaced the more divisive murals with new ones.
Will Kelly, one of the “The Bogside Artists” who historically represented Northern Ireland’s Catholics, painted a mural depicting U.S. civil rights hero Martin Luther King Jr., the Statue of Liberty and a dove. The mural on the other side of the faux rowhouse, celebrating Belfast industry, was painted by the East Belfast Muralists, who historically represented the Protestants.
Kelly said all the painters got along. “We talk[ed] every day,” he said. “Artists have common ground on which to converse.”
Groce said that overall there was a balance of Catholics and Protestants participating at the festival. “They [were] here to talk about who they are and where they come from. They can disagree with each other. They don’t have to talk about politics. They [were] talking directly to the American people,” Groce said.
In May, Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government convened, ending years of direct rule from London and raising hopes for a permanent, peaceful coexistence between Northern Ireland’s Catholic and Protestant communities. (See related article.)
In the first major cultural outing since Stormont (the parliament) convened, seven Northern Ireland ministers came to review the Folklife Festival. “They seemed delighted,” Groce said. “They seemed to be very, very happy.”
More information on the 2007 festival is available on the Smithsonian’s Web site.
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
