What did the Normans ever do for us? This small proto-nation of Viking origin in what is now northern France had a remarkable impact on medieval Europe and hence on the world we now live in. At one point Normans held sway over territories from the Mediterranean to the North Sea.
The most famous of them, in the English-speaking world at least, was William, Duke of Normandy, better known as William the Conqueror, the 1,000th anniversary of whose birth falls in 2027. To coincide with the occasion, authorities in modern Normandy have initiated an international event, with participation from France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Channel Islands, Italy, Norway and Denmark.
The Normans reshaped the political order in Sicily and southern Italy, contributed to the emergence of modern France, ended Anglo-Saxon rule in England and, from the 12th century onward, became a powerful force in Gaelic Ireland.
The State’s involvement in the commemoration has aroused the ire of Sinn Féin’s spokesman on Gaeilge, Gaeltacht and Arts, Aengus Ó Snodaigh, who deems it “offensive” due to the connection with William, and by extension with the Norman invasion of Ireland which took place a century after the battle of Hastings.
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This seems hard on William, who never showed any interest in Ireland. But it appears that in the eyes of Sinn Féin he is to be blamed for Strongbow, the Statutes of Kilkenny, Cromwell, the Penal Laws, the Famine and last year’s 5-0 thrashing of the Republic of Ireland at Wembley.
Such a historical nonsense would be laughable were it not for the fact that it trades in the same chauvinistic victimology that is driving the rise of the extreme right across Europe.
Sinn Féin is usually keen to present itself as a modern, progressive and tolerant political movement. But occasionally the mask slips to reveal a pinched and narrow ethnonationalism that denies the complexity of the past and clings to a cartoonish version of history. It is time for the party to decide which version of itself it prefers.
