Sir, – While the loan of the Gal Gréine banner by the Royal Collection Trust is to be welcomed ("Fianna Éireann banner returns to Dublin 100 years on", March 3rd), I wonder what the noticeable absence of any demand for the permanent return of items taken as spoil tells us about our continuing post-colonial mentality?
Your readers may be aware that Jesus College, Cambridge, has removed a Benin bronze sculpture from its main hall and is now considering its repatriation to west Africa. This was the result of agitation by students of the college who see it as celebrating a racist and colonial past.
The bronze is a representation of a cockerel known as the okukor and which was taken from a royal palace in Nigeria and donated to Jesus College by a captain in the British army.
As your report of the loan of the Gal Gréine states, “it was taken as a war trophy by the British army and became the property of the Royal Collection Trust at Windsor Castle”.
I think the parallels are striking. And so is the “dog that did not bark” – ie our representatives who express their gratitude for the loan without once mentioning the provenance of the banner. Nor do they point to the fact that it is only a single example of much of our national heritage that was taken as colonialist spoil. Nor, finally, do they utter a single word in protest to demand the return of these items to the people of Ireland.
The obsequiousness of the post-colonial mentality is with us yet as we enter on our decade of celebrations! – Yours, etc,
CATHAL KERRIGAN,
Cork.