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At St Comgall's, Eileen's shining vision becomes a
reality
St. Comgall’s/Ionad Eileen Howell in Divis St. will be formally opened next week on Thursday the 22 June. In honour and memory of Eileen the refurbished building is being named after her.
The
multi-million pound project has been 21 years in the making. The transformation
of what was for many years a derelict building has been amazing. All of those
who have contributed in any way to its successful renovation should be very
proud of their efforts.
Just over 20 years ago St. Comgall’s, which stands
in the shadow of Divis Tower, had fallen into a scandalous state of disrepair.
It was regularly targeted by anti-social elements and the building was a blight
on the local community and environment. As the MP for west Belfast I spoke
to Eileen Howell in the Falls Community Council about the possibility of
turning St. Comgall’s into a community enterprise – similar to Conway Mill –
that could be a resource for the community and create sustainable jobs.
Eileen was an experienced community activist
and champion for West Belfast who put her considerable energy into
tackling the endemic inequalities and injustices endured by the nationalist
west Belfast community. She was irrepressible, tireless and hugely respected as
a champion of the rights of citizens and of the community. She had a
deep-rooted belief in the imperatives of equality and human rights, and of
economic and social justice. These were her guiding principles. She was a
warrior for working people.
Eileen saw the enormous potential of St.
Comgall’s and she and the Board of the Falls Community Council jumped at the
opportunity to regenerate and develop St. Comgall’s as a community and
regenerative hub.
In May 1932 Saint Comgall’s was opened as a
Public Elementary School and built to the design of R S Wilshire who was then
the education architect in the City. Saint Kevin’s School further up the Falls
is another of his healthy schools. His designs were revolutionary for the
period with lots of light and air.
For the next six decades thousands of Saint
Comgall’s children passed through its doors. The building was at the centre of
much of the local sporting and cultural events during those years. The many
group photographs that exist in the enclosed courtyard are evidence of the widespread
use of the building by the GAA, civic organisations and the local
confraternity. The front hall which has now been lovingly restored was used for
dances and bingo nights.
Uniquely the building bears the scars on its front
wall of the 1969 August pogrom in which unionist gangs, led by the Royal
Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and its auxiliary force the B Specials attacked the
Falls and the Clonard areas of West Belfast, as well as Ardoyne in North
Belfast. Percy St. directly facing St. Comgall’s was largely destroyed, as was
Dover St a short distance away. Residents were beaten and were fired on as they
tried to escape. In St. Comgall’s an IRA Volunteer fired on the mob thwarting
their effort to destroy the school and to attack the houses on that side of Divis
St. The bullet holes on its front wall are testimony to those events.
In 2002 the Falls Community Council purchased the
building with the assistance of Chuck Feeney’s Atlantic Philanthropies. Those
who signed for the building included Liz Groves; Chrissie McAuley; John Fusco;
Mike Ritchie; Ruth Tallion; Jane Craven; Eilish Rooney and Joe Nolan. Some of
those involved in the project subsequently are no longer with us. Including
Eileen. But those I remember include John Quinn; Marie Maguire; Sal
Brennan; Mrs Timmons; Ciaran Kearney; Ciaran Quinn; Claire Hackett; and
Gerry McConville. I’m bound to have left someone out. If so I will rectify that
next week.
Eileen and her colleagues worked tirelessly seeking
long term funding, talking to architects, developing plans, talking to
potential partners, and engaging with the local community. For Eileen it was
the perfect flagship gateway project into west Belfast.
Sadly two years later, in 2004 Eileen became very
ill. She died on 12 June 2004 – her anniversary was on Monday. Her loss was
keenly felt by her family, by her husband Ted, her two sons Eamonn and
Proinsias and the wider family circle. Her death also robbed the west Belfast
community of a skilled and inspirational leader.
In the years since then the Falls Community Council
has worked hard to make Eileen’s vision for St. Comgall’s a reality. She
would be very proud of the St. Comgall’s building that has now emerged phoenix
like out of the ashes of the abandoned and derelict building.
St. Comgall’s/Ionad Eileen Howell is designed to
promote economic, educational, social and cultural benefits for the people who
live and work in the local area and to promote good relations between
communities through the provision of a multi-use community hub. It is a stunning
building. If you want to see what it once looked like and what it looks like
now then follow this link https://www.belfastcity.gov.uk/stcomgalls
You will be amazed.
Richard Gallagher’s ‘Screening Ulster: Cinema and
the Unionists’ is more than its title suggests. The book specifically focuses
on the period from the 1980s. From the first page Gallagher sets his
examination of how unionism has been portrayed in the cinema over the last 40
years.
In his insightful and extensively researched book
Gallagher’s perceptive analysis of political and cultural unionism, its sense
of Britishness, of loyalism, of community concludes that this complexity is
largely absent in the cinema portrayal. What we see on the screen is a “much
narrower definition of the unionist identity that rarely escapes a polarised
relationship with Irish nationalism.” Gallagher finds that “the
many complications and contradictions within both the unionist identity and
unionist perspectives of the Troubles” have been largely ignored.
Where unionism is portrayed it has been primarily
through “associations to Orangeism (parades, loyalist bands and
bonfires)” and through sectarian violence. Orangeism and its
traditions are often presented as supremacist, sexist, intolerant and
uncompromising. According to Gallagher the most dominant form of cultural
expression espoused by unionism is to be found in the loyalist bands that
accompany the orange parades.
In addition, Gallagher asserts that the depiction
of loyalist paramilitaries has increasingly dominated cinematic depictions of
unionists. This has been influenced by the actions of unionist death squads
like the Shankill Butchers. Consequently, in the cinema loyalists are often
presented as “monstrous and indiscriminate in their use of violence.” They
are rarely ascribed with being politically motivated.
Gallagher believes that the crisis in unionism’s
identity has its roots in partition. He quotes unionist commentator Alex Kane
saying; “Because we lost the union between Britain and Ireland, because
we were contained to six counties and a majority that we knew would not be
stabilised at 30%, and because we thought things would grow against us, unionism
became paranoid. It became insular and afraid of everyone.” It was in
reality the outworking of the British colonial experience in Ireland.
Gallagher also references the tensions that exist
within unionism because of its contradictory and at times antagonistic
relationship with the British state. Its loyalism to Britain has always been
conditional. Unionist paramilitaries and political parties have a long history
of links to the British military, its intelligence services and in particular
the Conservative party. Collusion between unionist death squads and the British
state has long been a matter of British policy. However, that loyalty has
rarely been reciprocated by the British state.
A recent example of the dysfunctional relationship
between unionists and British governments, and especially the Tories, is the
frequency with which unionism has been abandoned, commitments given to it
discarded and unionist parties often and very publicly thrown under the bus.
Boris Johnson’s resignation last week as an MP is a
reminder of one British Prime Minister who was wined and dined by the DUP and
who made promises, which he then broke. Remember his triumphant visit to the
DUP’s party conference in 2018? Arlene Foster was delighted. Johnson was
talking their language. A hard Brexit and a hard border. But then the DUP were
ditched and the hated protocol was produced.
Another example of a British Prime Minister dumping
unionism when it was no longer needed. If you have an interest in cinema, how
it has dealt with unionism and what all of this means for unionist identity
then this is the book for you.
Screening Ulster: Cinema and the Unionists by Dr.
Richard Gallagher is published by Palgrave MacMillan: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-23436-1
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