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An open letter to the
Primate of all Ireland on the Memorial to the China War at St.
Patrick's Cathedral
Remember When the
Irish First Met the Chinese?
By RONAN SHEEHAN
To: The Most Reverend Robert
Henry Alexander Eames, Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of all Ireland
and Metropolitan; The Most Reverend John Robert Winder Neill,
Archbishop of Dublin and Bishop of Glendalough, Primate of Ireland
and Metropolitan; The Very Reverend R.B. MacCarthy Dean and Ordinary
The National Cathedral and Collegiate Church of Saint Patrick.
Dear Reverend gentlemen,
We recently conducted a Chinese
visitor upon a tour of Dublin.
The context of this was the
developing relationship between Ireland and China flowing from
the remarkable growth of the economies of our two countries.
Ireland and China have entered into agreements covering, inter
alia, economic and cultural issues.
Essential to the growing spirit
of solidarity is the principle that we
share a common heritage as victims of colonialism. The first
thing
which caught our visitors' attention upon the streets of our
capital was the prevalence of heroin addicts. It had been the
determination of the Chinese government to resist the importation
of drugs into their country, said resistance being the pretext
for the invasion of China in 1841.
The one hundred and sixty-fifth
anniversary of that illegal invasion occurs this year on May
24. That was Queen Victoria's birthday. Who was the head of
the Church of Ireland. Let us go back to the first encounter
between the Irish and the Chinese.
The commander of the invasion
force was Hugh Gough, of Tipperary. Soldiers of the 18th Royal
Irish Regiment were the first Europeans the people of Amoy ever
saw. Many committed suicide. At Tinghai, the
Royal Irish bayonetted defenders along the wall of the city until
they reached Pagoda Hill. There they planted the colors. The
Chinese had no weapons to match those of the invaders. The Royal
Irish slaughtered
them.
At Ningpo, the citizens opened
their gates without a struggle, thereby frustrating Sir Henry
Pottinger's object of plundering the town as a punishment for
resistance. He proposed instead to steal public and
ransom private property. Gough demurred, declining to disperse
his men "to punish one set of robbers for the benefit of
another set".
Gough and the Royal Irish moved
on to Chapoo, where the stiffest resistance was offered by the
Tartars, many of whom, preferring death to the dishonor of defeat,
destroyed their wives, their children and
themselves. On to Chingakingfoo where again the Tartars fiercely
resist, where again they kill themselves in defeat. At Nanking,
Pottinger offers to spare the city on payment of a ransom. The
Tartars refuse to accept these terms, so Gough prepares to bombard
them into submission. Then emissaries arrive from the Emperor,
sueing for peace. They agree to indemnify the opium sellers and
make a present of Hong Kong to the British, among other concessions.
Returning to the present day,
our Chinese friend noted that Saint Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin
flies the colors of the Royal Irish Regiment (1837-54). And noted
that there was a large monument to some people who had died perpetrating
the rape and humiliation of his country. A monument which attributed
success in this action- called "The China War"-- to
the intervention of Jesus Christ.
How can a national Cathedral
of a country which presented itself to China as a fellow-victim
of colonialism commemorate the humiliation of China? It was clear
that the people who stole Hong Kong from the Chinese in 1842
were the same as those who had stolen Saint Patrick's Cathedral
from the Irish in 1532, through a "surrender".
Dean and recalcitrant elements
of the chapter of the then Catholic Cathedral-- some of whose
sacred relics remain to this day beneath the altar-- were locked
up in a room until they submitted to a man named
Browne, who described himself as "a protestant", and
agent of King
Henry VIII.
The ancient sacred staff of
Saint Patrick was burned by Browne an act designed to humiliate
the Irish people. So now instead of finding in our national
cathedral the staff of our national saint, our Chinese
visitor could find the standards of an army which had crushed
and humiliated his people, and ours.
And our Chinese visitor was
obliged to confront the pretence of the Cathedral: that the gospel
of Jesus Christ was implicated in the humiliation of the Irish
and the humiliation of the Chinese.
The British lease on Hong Kong
ran out in 1991. Had not the lease on
Dublin run out in 1922?
In 1948, when the British were
evicted from India, all the imperial statues on the streets of
Calcutta were collected and re-housed in Barrackpur in a kind
of reservation for British imperial art.
Something of that nature might have happened to Saint Patrick's
cathedral. It didn't.
Shortly after the Chinese re-occupied
the city of Hong Kong, every vestige of British imperial domination
was removed. overnight.
Something like that might have happened to St. Patrick's Cathedral.
It didn't.
It is a matter of urgency now.
Because the Church of Ireland Prelates have not condemned the
illegal invasion of Iraq anymore than their forbears condemned
the illegal invasion of China. Irishmen are part of the occupation
force. At least one has died. There is a space on the wall of
the North transept.
There are many Muslims in Dublin.
Our Chinese friend and ourselves
concluded that seisin of Saint Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin should
be surrendered to the people of Dublin. To all of us. Catholic,
Buddhist, Orthodox, Hindu, Muslim, Jew, Sikh, Confucian -- everyone--not
least the protestants, who are as sick of the duplicity of the
hierarchy of the Church of Ireland as the rest of us.
If the surrender is not volunteered,
it might be encouraged in the manner of the previous surrender.
The Primate, the Archbishop and the Dean might be locked up in
a room. And a deed of surrender slipped
under the door. For execution.
There should be no need for
that.
Our Chinese friend and ourselves
shall be pleased to receive the surrender of Saint Patrick's
on behalf of the people of Dublin.
Yours faithfully,
Ronan Sheehan
Ronan Sheehan is co-founder of the Irish Writer's
Co-Op. His novels are "The Tennis Players"; and "Foley's
Asia". He won the Rooney Prize for
Literature. He lives in Dublin and is proud that he can count
among his ancestors John Philpot Curran, the defender of Robert
Emmett and the Sheares Bros, who and tried to save Wolfe Tone
& Lord Edward Fitzgerald. His email address is sheehanwriter@yahoo.ie
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