Charlie Flanagan: Calling off RIC commemoration 'right thing to do'
Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan has said that calling off the planned commemoration for the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) was “the right thing to do.
“There was a particularly hostile atmosphere, there was a lot of division - and of course the purpose of the event was to bring people together.
“This is about reconciliation, this is about our shared history,” he told the Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk.
“Of course it's difficult, of course it's controversial - but this was going to be too divisive.
I acknowledge that some mistakes were made, but I believe it's important that we continue with what was a rally important decade of commemoration.
“Who were the RIC? The RIC were Irish people like you and I and it's important that we remember them, it's important that we acknowledge them - warts and all.”
Asked how he would distinguish between those in the RIC who may have been associated with the Black and Tans, Mr Flanagan said: “That is the great complexity.
“That is why we're having this decade so as we can, 100 years later, acknowledge for example that member of the RIC were Irish - as were the freedom fighters in the IRA.
“But the reality is that this is our history and it’s a shared history that needs to be acknowledged.
The Irish story being more than one nationalist story.
The Minister said he had been taken aback by some of the backlash.
“I think the important thing is that we consult - and if there's any lessons to be learned from the last 48 hours from my point of view and that is perhaps the consultation process wasn't exhausted.
“I was struck over the last 48 hours at the nastiness, at the vitriol at the e-mails that I got, the phone calls that I got.
“This is far from a programme of reconciliation - I was quite shocked.”
Earlier: 'Somebody lost the run of themselves' in organising RIC event
Former senator Maurice Manning has said that personally he would prefer to see an academic conference as the means to commemorate the role of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP).
He rejected a suggestion that the Government’s decision to defer plans for commemorative events was an indication that “tolerance has gone out the window.”
Speaking on Newstalk Breakfast, the Chancellor of the National University of Ireland, said that the Minister with responsibility for the event, Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan, had “behaved with great integrity”.
However, Dr Manning acknowledged that the execution of what would happen had been wrong. While consideration should be given for an event to commemorate the RIC, he thought an academic conference would be more appropriate.
On Tuesday it was announced that the Government has deferred an event that planned to commemorate the place of the Royal Irish Constabulary and Dublin Metropolitan Police in Irish history.
The event, which had been scheduled to take place in Dublin Castle on January 17, had drawn widespread criticism from TDs, elected representatives and members of the public.
Dr Manning, who is a member of the expert Advisory Group on Centenary Commemoration appointed by the Government, said that the group had recommended a simple ceremony in Dublin Castle, but “somebody lost the run of themselves and called it a State event.”
He suggested that the centenary of the founding of An Garda Síochana might be a more appropriate occasion to “remember their predecessors.”
