Museum Of Manipulation

From The Transcripts, John McDonagh explains a controversy over a piece of Brian Mór O’ Baoighill’s artwork that was donated to the Free Derry Museum.

Radio Free Éireann
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New York City
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(begins time stamp ~17:12)


John: The thing I wanted to bring up that – we had this problem when Brian Mór was alive. He designed a 1798 poster and when one of the Sinn Féin members became the Lord Mayor of Belfast he put it up on the wall there and we issued a statement on behalf of Bernie to say that he wanted that down – he didn’t want it to be up where British rule was being administered. And then – now all these years later Timmy Myles, AOH member from Nassau, had one of Bernie’s artwork from the Irish People newspaper of his drawing about Bloody Sunday in 1972.

And Timmy thought instead of keeping it in his house he would donate it to the Free Derry Museum. So when this happened Kate Nash said they got word that British soldiers were up on the same all walls as the people that were killed by the British soldiers and we knew that Brian Mór would not want to be a part of a museum that was honouring British soldiers and the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary).
The friends of Artist Brian Mor O'Baoighill know that he would demand that his artwork be removed from the Free Derry Museum until the names of the British soldiers and RUC men are removed from the exhibit, and are making that request on his behalf.
Brian Mor O'Baoighill was deeply honored when his artwork was donated and displayed in The Museum of Free Derry. He would be horrified to learn that the Museum now includes a display honoring the RUC and British Soldiers who died...

So I got in contact with people from the National Irish Freedom Committee, Bernie’s partner, Joan, and I said: Listen, Bernie would not like this. So we issued a statement. It’s on Facebook – at Cabtivist on the Facebook and I’ll be reading that out when we get Kate Nash on the show.

But it’s just the high-jacking that Sinn Féin does – whether it’s the graveyard saying: If this guy was alive today he would support British rule in Ireland – but now it’s sort of the artwork saying: These artists support what’s going on now. And we wanted to put a stop to that.

And we were going to have Kate Nash hold the drawing until the names are taken down and then bring it back to the museum – which, when we talk to Kate Nash, there has been movement on that and we believe a lot of that has to do with her going to the museum with a letter from us in New York to take down the painting that’s up there.

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