"I Am Determined Not to be Negative, but Many Say We've Heard it All Before"
Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
- Alexander Pope,
An Essay on Man, Epistle I, 1733
[A reference to the "great teacher Death"]
By MAURA McCAY
SEATTLE - In early August, Trevor Lunn, the Deputy Mayor of Lisburn, Northern Ireland, who is a member of the Alliance Party made a visit to Seattle along with the Community Relations Officer for Lisburn, David Mitchell.
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TREVOR LUNN, the Deputy Mayor of Lisburn, Northern Ireland, is a member of the Alliance Party.
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Lisburn City Council is Northern Ireland's newest city council, representing the second largest Council area in Northern Ireland and serves over 110,000 residents. The city of Lisburn spans 174 square miles of southwest Antrim and northwest Down. The community demographic is approximately 2/3 Protestants and 1/3 Catholics roughly.
While in the Seattle area, Trevor Lunn and David Mitchell visited Camp Brotherhood, a 200-acre retreat facility established in 1968 by Rabbi Raphael Levine and Father William Treacy. Located outside Mount Vernon in Washington, Camp Brotherhood is a place where people from different faiths, ethnic and racial backgrounds can come together and learn from one another.
A number of young people from Lisburn have participated in youth exchange programs at the camp, while a group from Seattle's Maplewood Presbyterian Church is preparing for a similar exchange to Lisburn.
During the course of their visit Trevor Lunn and David Mitchell also met with members of the Irish Heritage Club of Seattle and took time out from their busy schedule to speak with The Celtic Connection about their visit and current events in Northern Ireland.
One of the questions we asked related to a visit last March by Cecil Calvert, the now former Mayor of Lisburn, who left a very bad impression with many people in Seattle due to his decision to carry a Unionist flag in the St. Patrick’s Day parade. This was despite a specific request to the contrary by members of the Irish Heritage Club organizing committee, which indicated to him in writing prior to the event, that “such actions would seriously hurt cross-community and cross-cultural interests in Seattle.”
I asked Trevor Lunn if he could comment on these actions and how they are viewed by other members of Lisburn City Council. He replied, “I was not aware of the written aspect of this matter but I know what happened and I would point out that Cecil Calvert comes from one particular perspective within Northern Ireland.
“He is in fact one of a number of Lisburn mayors who have come to Seattle to participate in this event and in the past they have been very well received. The last one prior to Cecil Calvert was from the nationalist side of the political spectrum and the response was very favourable.
“We have a very good ongoing relationship with Seattle in terms of economic and cultural links and St. Patrick’s Day is one of them. Cecil went about it his own way. He was the mayor of the day and he had license to represent us as he saw fit. He didn’t do what he did with the endorsement of the City Council either before the event or afterwards.”
The unfortunate aspect of this is that while the decision was made by one individual, it becomes a reflection upon the whole community which he represents, in this case, the people of Lisburn. I wondered if Mayor Cecil Calvert might have handled this in a different way and there might have been a better outcome.
Trevor Lunn said, “Well, Cecil Calvert had various opportunities to speak while he was here and he could have made the point he wanted to make by speaking to people but he chose to do it in a different way - a more in-your-face way.
“I would point out however that there were people who abused him at the parade – although I believe this was a small number of people – they could also have been a bit more dignified in their response as well.”
“Cecil was a guest here and he wasn’t treated as a guest, although there are some who would say that he didn’t respect the wishes of his hosts who were the Irish Heritage Club. But, I’m not here to apologize for him. The perspective of the Alliance Party would be completely different.”
I pointed out to Trevor Lunn is that perspectives do vary from community to community, even here in North America. In Vancouver a St. Patrick's Day parade was held on the same day as the one in Seattle. It was noted that James Rawlinson, the British Consul General for British Columbia stood on the reviewing stand alongside Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell who was attired in his tartan kilt.
Among the multi-cultural parade participants was the Enniskillen Accordion Band, who had a Union Jack prominently displayed on their float, and nobody batted an eyelid - or at least raised any form of objection. It was a joyous day for everyone, particularly all the families and children who lined the parade route to cheer the procession along.
There were groups from all segments of the community and all ethnic origins and faiths. Chinese and Latinos marching alongside the Knights of Columbus, with Highland dancers and Irish dancers and numerous cultural and sporting organizations all carrying flags and banners representing their particular affiliation.
Trevor Lunn said one of the things he has learned as you go around the world is that the method of celebration tends to vary depending on where you are. He explained, “one thing people may not be aware of is that a few days after the event in Seattle, Lisburn held its own celebration of St. Patrick's day and it was a cross-community event with both Irish and Scottish dancers along with Irish singers and many other people representing all aspects of the community. That same event was organized under the control of the same mayor – Cecil Calvert – who caused such an uproar here.
“There seems to be a problem that one community has taken ownership of St. Patrick’s Day and the other community to which we belong seems to coming to the realization that St. Patrick belongs to all Irishmen, he wasn’t a Protestant or a Catholic – he predates that by about a thousand years.”
In light of the recent IRA announcement of a complete cessation of violence, I asked Trevor Lunn if this development might help ease some of the tensions associated with cross-cultural and community events.
He replied, “we certainly see this as a positive thing but we have to keep our feet on the ground in these matters. This is just the last statement in a long line of statements from various paramilitary groups.
“We had a ceasefire statement from the IRA a number of years ago which really didn’t mean all that much. This one is more unambiguous, it is very clear. They’re asking their volunteers to dump their arms, they’re asking them to pursue exclusively peaceful means of achieving their aims.
“I think it’s a generous statement and I think it’s hopeful but depending on who you would speak to back home, you would get different reactions to it. I represent the centre ground party and we would try to encourage this and I am determined not to be negative about it. But there are lot of people back home who would say we’ve heard all this before and in the end, actions speak louder than words.
Given these steps taken by the IRA, I asked Trevor if there was any signal of similar moves by loyalist paramilitary groups. He said, “not before I came away. The UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force) which is one of the major loyalist paramilitary groups has had a ceasefire for a long time but ceasefires don’t matter very much if you continue to kill people and terrorize and engage in gangster activity such as extortion and punishment beatings.”
Hope is no doubt what has sustained many people throughout the past 36 years of violence in Northern Ireland. They hope that an end is in sight to what has been termed “The Troubles.” So many people have died and there has been so much pain and suffering and devastated lives as a result of the violence, there is renewed hope that the IRA statement of July 28, 2005, will bring about real change.
Trevor said, “I think six months down the line we will have a very clear idea of how much it means. I’m a hopeful person and I would prefer to see the hope in this statement.”*
[Special thanks to Steve McVittie of The Celtic Treasure Chest store, who was the parade marshal for the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Vancouver, for confirming information regarding the 2005 parade.]
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