I have never been quite sure whether, by virtue of coming from Larne, my wife and I are entitled to regard ourselves as Glens folk born and bred. I have a feeling that those whose pedigree in this respect is beyond question would look upon us as being, at best, a couple of “near misses”! However, if we can’t quite establish our claim by birth, we can certainly do so by association. As some of you may know, my father and mother were for several years seasonal residents — very devoted and enthusiastic ones at that — in the gate lodge at Monavert; and the period they spent there happened to be one in which a certain courtship was showing signs of taking a serious turn. To be more specific it was up the Layde Road from Cushendall one June evening in 1958 that the magical spell of the Glens prompted me to pop the question that sealed my fate! You can see, then, that either way my wife and I had forged a strong emotional tie with the Glens, for in such circumstances one could never recall the event or the location in a dispassionate way; dependent upon the eventual consequences you either curse the day you ever set foot in the place, or you see it perpetually through a romantic, rose-tinted haze. Considering that 28 years later my wife and I are still living together, still speaking to each other and generally getting on pretty well together, you may assume that the Glens have a very special place in our affections.
As a couple of Co. Antrim expatriates, domiciled for the past 25 years in Co. Down, we don’t get back to the Glens so often as we should like; but, as the saying goes, “absence makes the heart grow fonder,” and so the occasional visit such as we are enjoying this evening is all the more welcome. There is, too, the fact that as expatriates we have capitalised on a certain advantage which I enjoy by virtue of my job. You might say, in fact, that the same professional commitments which deny us frequent contact with the Glens have, at the same time, enabled me to bring parts of the Glens to Co. Down; and within my own museum empire we can, if we wish, pay daily visits to the Coshkib farm, the Cushendall courthouse, and the Ballyveridaugh School. The only thing lacking, in fact, is the human element, which, for the moment, is present only in ghostly form. So, if any suitably qualified candidate (and I’m not necessarily looking at Jack McCann) is attracted by the prospect of immortality and would let me know, I’m sure that modern museum preservation techniques could meet the challenge and fill the void.
Tonight, in the month of April 1986, your Society is acknowledging a significant anniversary, and coincidentally, I, too, have had an anniversary — indeed two anniversaries — this month, for it was on the 1st of April last that I completed 37 years in the museum profession and 27 of those as Director of the Folk museum.
During all these years I have seen many changes and many developments within my chosen field, both at home and abroad, none more impressive than the growth of interest in and concern for local history. Furthermore, this is a trend which has been particularly evident here in Ulster. Take museums, for example: when I joined the profession in 1949 there was one municipal museum in Belfast and one county museum in Armagh. Today we have two of national status and at least five regional institutions of significance.
But equally impressive, if not more so, since it involves voluntary, private initiative rather than public corporate decision, has been the formation of local history societies. Today, as you know, there are some 36 in Ulster, all concerned, as their titles imply, with a history to which they have an immediate claim since, being local, it is the history around them and the history more of the ordinary than the extraordinary. In this respect it tends to differ from academic history largely concerned as it is with constitutional matters — with what my wise and distinguished mentor, Estyn Evans, referred to as “the trampling of armies and the wrangling of kings”. It was he who led me to the conviction that it is the history of day-to-day life — that continuum of ordinary human concerns and activities that grinds steadily on more in spite of momentous events than because of them — which in the long run exerts the greatest and most lasting influence on man’s attitudes and outlook.
The distinction I am trying to draw between two differing views of what the term “history” embraces is neatly summarised, I think, in the words of a distinguished French scientist/philosopher who, in a comment peculiarly applicable to Ireland, observed that man had an unfortunate tendency to “celebrate the battlefields on which he meets his death, while scorning to speak of the ploughed fields whereby he thrives!”
It is an unfortunate fact of life today, notwithstanding the efforts of local history groups or of agencies like the Folk Museum, that the history of the battlefield still tends to have the ascendancy over the history of the ploughed field.
Possibly you have read the book, published a few years ago, called “The Narrow Ground” by Dr. Tony Stewart, the Queen’s University historian. If so, you will be familiar with a passage in which he, too, makes the distinction I refer to. He challenges the view widely held and often expressed, that no people are more obsessed by their past than the Irish. According to Dr. Stewart “the Irish are not only capable of forgetting the past, but of quite deliberately purging from their minds whole areas of it. Like other nations they have woven for themselves a garment of myth and legend which they call Irish history. Having designed it themselves, they have taken great care to make it as comfortable as possible, eliminating the loose threads and sharp edges and making it so snug and warm that when they are wearing it they sometimes imagine themselves to be immune to the ordinary dictates of humanity. To the Irish all history is applied history and the past is simply a quarry providing ammunition to use against enemies in the present. They have little interest in it for its own sake. So, when it is said that the Irish are too much influenced by the past, what is meant is that they are too much influenced by Irish history which is a different matter.”
I detect in this, and support, the implication that so far as the past is concerned —compounded of local histories throughout the length and breadth of the island — we still remain pitifully ill-informed.
I am reminded of part of a poem by my friend and one-time museum colleague, John Hewitt — a poem in which he describes a return visit to “the municipal gallery” ostensibly to see an art exhibition but one in which he was diverted by sculptures and illustrations of prominent Irish personalities of the past, some with captions, some without. He finishes his poem as follows:
“And as I moved among these images/nameless or named, still emblems of the power/that wrought a nation out of bitterness,/and gave its history one triumphant hour,/my heart, dejected, wondered which of these/may hold a meaning that will long endure,/for, see, before me, threatening, immense/ the creeping hair cracks of indifference.
Indifference to the past is still all too prevalent today; there is still an uncomfortable amount of truth in the comment that the only thing that history has taught us so far is that it has taught us nothing.
Estyn Evans often liked to quote an amusing but apt analogy, namely that the person who had no interest in his past was akin to the mule, which, being a hybrid, is impotent, and consequently has no pride in its ancestry and no hope for the future!
I offer these comments to you as a preparation for suggesting — though I acknowledge that tonight I am preaching to the converted — that the pursuit of local history is more than a piece of pleasant self-indulgence, more than a means of passing an hour or two of leisure time. Indeed I could offer a tenable point of view that identifies concern for local history as an obligation of good citizenship. After all, when one thinks of it, part of our birthright is a history and a tradition bequeathed to us by our forebears. By inheritance we undertake and share the responsibility of custodianship over that history and tradition. Nor does it end with us: in the course of our lives we add to it a chapter or two before bequeathing it in turn to our heirs and successors. And just as we have the opportunity to judge how well or otherwise our predecessors have performed as custodians and contributors, so our successors will judge whether or not we have acted responsibly. Reviewing in one’s mind the events of the past 17 years, I fear that there are many who are liable to be indicted both for sins of omission whereby responsibilities have been sadly neglected, or sins of commission whereby they have been grossly abused.
But surely it is because of this that the efforts and achievements of those who care about the past, who seek to study it, record it, understand it and learn from it, are all the more important. It is of little consequence whether one engages in it as a professional or as an amateur. These terms do not necessarily offer a qualitative distinction — there ate many first-rate amateurs and more than a few bad professionals. What matters is one’s depth of interest and the honesty and sincerity of one’s purpose. And I feel that if an inspiring example of these qualities were to be sought in one location and in one corporate body, it could be found here in the Glens and in the membership of your Society. Of all such bodies in Ulster, none is held in higher regard than yours, and in saying this I have to confess to a certain feeling of guilt because I recall my first visit to your Society as a guest speaker.
As an organisation you were in your infancy then and I found myself speculating, as I drove north along the coast road, about how many I might have in my audience. I reminded myself of the rule I had formulated earlier in my speaking career that if there were more than two in my audience I would go ahead; if less than that I would call it off. On arrival I was more than a little taken aback to find assembled in this same hotel a veritable horde. I thought to myself, this is still the honeymoon period which most new organisations enjoy. It will soon taper off and either reduce itself to a few enthusiastic stalwarts or die a natural death. To have envisaged then that I would be speaking at a celebratory dinner in this your 21st year would have been beyond my imagination. But here you are; and if you’ll forgive the fact that it is 21 years late may I offer you sincere apology for doubting you.
Your own poetess, Moira O’Neill, ended one of her “Songs of the Glens of Antrim” with the words:
“Keep my love, and send me my desire”.
I hope I have already convinced you of my affection and respect. My desire would be that as your Society now goes on to its Silver Jubilee, its Golden Jubilee and its centenary, it not only continues to flourish as at present, but goes from its considerable strength to even greater strength.
My wife and I thank you for having us as your guests tonight. It is an honour which we deeply appreciate and will long remember.