Despondent natives on both sides of the traditional divide are whooping for joy, writes EIMEAR O'CALLAGHAN
FOLLOWING DERRY’S selection as the first UK City of Culture 2013, the city of paradoxes is celebrating an injection of promise and possibility, the likes of which it has never experienced before. For the second time in a month, a trickle of uncharacteristic optimism had begun to seep into the minds of its inhabitants. Spurred on by press speculation that Derry had already clinched the cultural accolade, people more accustomed to knock-backs and rejection dared to believe.
And just as it had when the Saville report was published, the trickle of optimism turned into a torrent of euphoria, when the UK culture minister Ed Vaizey announced “Derry-Londonderry” had beaten off the challenges of Birmingham, Sheffield and Norwich. An instantly galvanised and energised community metaphorically punched the air with a communal “Yes!”
Even before a job is created or the first new tourist puts his or her foot on Derry soil, the bestowal of the honour has achieved what many would have thought unachievable. For the first time, the city’s contentious nameworked to its advantage: it spoke eloquently to the judges about uniting a place of two cultures. Unionists and nationalists were as one in supporting the bid. Avowed republicans tolerated the “UK” epithet attached to an Irish city and Apprentice Boys walked in step with Irish dancers.
“Derry wans” aren’t used to getting breaks like this – to receiving such public endorsement for their erstwhile beleaguered city: an intoxicating coming together of the best of times and the worst of times, a rare occasion when “hope and history” rhyme.
A proud son of Derry and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness hailed it as “a precious prize for the peacemakers”; Gregory Campbell MP spoke of the need to leave behind the divisions of the past. The city’s young SDLP mayor, Colum Eastwood, joked that Derry, which had previously “fought the Brits, could now be hosting The Brits” in a reference to the star-studded events which could make their way to Derry as part of the 2013 celebrations.
Unquestionably, the prospect of such red-carpet occasions, one-quarter of a million tourists and thousands of new jobs is a glorious prize; but the greatest gift granted to the people of Derry was the invitation to hope: to quote Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, one of the champions of the bid: “So hope for a great sea-change/on the far side of revenge./Believe that a further shore/ is reachable from here./Believe in miracles/and cures and healing wells (The Cure at Troy).
Such hope doesn’t spring forth naturally in the Maiden City. Despondency and hopelessness have long been a part of the Derry psyche, fuelling low expectations, educational underachievement and a widespread dependency culture. Unsympathetic outsiders delight in maligning those who complain that the city doesn’t receive an equitable share of the North’s economic spoils as “whingers”.
Derry people of a certain age recite a well-rehearsed litany of wrongs done: a second city scarred by historic underinvestment and record unemployment; a second city which doesn’t have a motorway; a second city which doesn’t have an autonomous university; a local government district which, according to the 2010 NI Multiple Deprivation Measure, has the highest percentage of its population income-deprived – 38 per cent, compared to the NI average of 25 per cent; a city ravaged by violence and over which the threat from dissident republicans still looms. Little wonder, then, that more than 70 per cent of A-level students said they planned to leave Derry for university elsewhere and didn’t foresee returning.
The significance of the announcement lies in its potential for raising the aspirations of a generation; for lifting its eyes to a new horizon of opportunities, above and beyond the musical and cultural extravaganzas which will delight and entertain in 2013.
No one who knows the city ever doubted its cultural credentials: a monastic settlement and seat of learning in the sixth century; the jewel in the crown of the Ulster Plantation; the alma mater of two Nobel Laureates, Seamus Heaney and John Hume; the home of Brian Friel, The Undertones, Roma Downey, Josef Locke, Maurice Harron, Phil Coulter, Jennifer Johnston, Nadine Coyle and Seamus Deane.
Derry didn’t need a panel of judges to validate its claim to be a cultural capital.
The accolade brings no official funding but money – lots of it – and bucketloads of political goodwill will be needed to transform promise into delivery. The onus now lies on Belfast and London, and the private sector, to delve deep into their coffers and ensure that 2013 is the harbinger of a long-lasting and sustainable “spring of hope”, rather than merely a year-long party.
Derry’s year of celebration, 2013, coincides with the 400th anniversary of the building of its historic, but contentious, walls. What a time for nationalists and unionists alike to honour each other and cast aside the shibboleths and mistrust which have divided them for so long. What a chance to create the circumstances in which creativity melds with technological advances brought by new investment. What an opportunity to realise the vision of a confident and prosperous shared future.
Eimear O’Callaghan is a freelance journalist based in Derry.
Breda O’Brien is on leave