A Minister for All Cultures, Not Just One

Lee Casey
ÓSF An Lorgain

If only people with closed minds had closed mouths, what a world we would live in. The DUP Minister for culture, arts and leisure, Nelson McCausland MLA is one such example. DCAL is an extremely important department and its actions have wide reaching implications for the cultural soul of the six counties. In the midst of the negotiations over the devolution of policing and justice, we must not take our eye off the importance of this department.


You don’t need to be an expert political analyst to realize that the DUP are using the department of Culture, arts and leisure to perpetuate a hard-line unionist stance in an attempt to gain back some of the 66,000 votes they lost to the Traditional Unionist Voice in last Junes European Election. The philosophy of ‘let’s be as hard as Jim’ manifests itself in the actions of the DCAL minister and his complete lack of acknowledgement of cultures other than his own.

His politically motivated over-reaction to the recent Hunger strike commemoration, which was held in a GAA ground in Galbally, is a recent example. Speaking of the event, the DUP MLA said ‘It cannot be right that a sports ground should be used for commemorating and celebrating something as offensive as the whole H-Block episode.’ This is a typical hypocritical response from a Minister who is also a member of the Orange Order, which annually commemorates a battle which happened over three hundred years ago. Yet an event that still opens up emotional scars in republicans is dubbed as ‘offensive’.

The DUP minister has also examined the possibility of cutting funding to GAA Clubs which are named after our patriot dead. In an interview for the BBC he stated ‘this sort of activity, the naming of things that commemorate and celebrate terrorism, these have to be a thing of the past’. This is none-other than an attempt by the DUP to eradicate any trace of republican history and pride in our patriot dead and must be condemned by anyone with any concept of equality and respect for cultures other than their own. But it is in his total opposition and resentment of the Irish language that fully reveals how one-cultured this poor excuse for a culture minister really is. Speaking of a possible Irish Language Act, which is enshrined in the St Andrews agreement, he arrogantly claimed ‘the DUP has vetoed that. It will not come to pass’.

Nelson McCausland holding a position of influence over culture in a country as rich with culture as Ireland, is comparable to a member of the KKK being in charge of race-relations in some southern-American state. It is a slap in the face to the many people, in the GAA and Irish language movement to name but a few, who have fought to keep aspects of Irish culture alive throughout the dark ages of direct rule and unionist misgovernment. The only thing positive to come out of the DUP’s tenure in DCAL is that it has exposed publicly the ignorance of the DUP; something we all knew was alive and breathing beneath the façade of extremist unionism.

What we really need for the ‘shared future’ that he speaks of is a culture minister who will respect all cultures and traditions and not merely promote his own culture and denounce another culture for political purposes. As Irish Republicans seeking to build a republic of equality, we know the importance of seeking tolerance and respect between cultures. This is why we are vehemently opposed to attacks on orange halls as well as GAA clubs and why we don’t, unlike the DUP, just place emphasis on one over the other. All such cultural attacks are to be totally and unambiguously condemned. This is why we are totally against any form of racism or sectarianism, be it directed at those who identify themselves as unionist or nationalist or at any other group in Irish society. Perhaps the worst cases this year of this sort of behavior were the disgusting and disgraceful attacks on the people of the Roma community in South Belfast. Scenes of this evil episode were broadcast across Europe and did not paint Ireland in a positive light. All such attacks must come to an immediate end and are must be totally condemned by everyone in our society.

Despite the attempts of the DUP and others hostile to Irish Republicanism, Irish culture is as strong as ever and continues to go from strength to strength. It will take a lot more than Nelson McCausland and the DUP to stop this.