Libelled At The Transport Hub

Christopher Owens ✍ “Jackboots battering a tattoo on the inside of my skull/Militantly hankering for something never done/High school memories, once a folly/Are now reality due to sheer lack of present/Death without a trial, dyin' ain't a trial/Dyin' ain't a curse but livin' sure is worse/Each experience becomes my epilogue. ➖ Foetus

The opening of Grand Central Station on the 8th September will not go down as a memorable day in the history of Belfast. Unless you drive. In which case you’ll probably remember it as the day traffic congestion in the city seemingly quadrupled due to the closure of the Boyne bridge and the endless taxis sitting on double yellow lines on the Grosvenor Road.

However, there was one aspect that, unintentionally, tapped into a wider existential problem within society.

A few days after the opening, a friend was coming out of the station and, on the outside walls, there are panels dedicated to specific areas that tourists might find interesting. My friend spotted this one and, in particular, the rather bold claim.

On Facebook, he noted that:

It’s a good job Victorian tobacco baron Thomas Gallaher is long dead, otherwise he could sue the Grand Central Station for whatever it cost them to build it.

I mean, sure, cigarettes are responsible for more deaths than all the knife-wielding psychos combined, but that doesn’t technically, historically or legally make Gallaher a “notorious serial killer”.

Mad that this got past an editor.

Upon first viewing, I must admit that I was horrified. Not because I’m an ardent defender of long dead industrialists, but because it was such a rewrite of history.

One that Jonathan Sumption has written about, in that:

It is possible to create an entirely false narrative without actually lying, by exaggeration and tendentious selection. The major threat to historical integrity comes when the criteria of selection are derived from a modern ideological agenda. We have been witnessing the reshaping of the history of the past four centuries to serve as a weapon in current political disputes. Objectivity and truth have been the main casualties.

Could an example of this mindset be outside Grand Central Station?

***

After a quick Google search, this article came up which clarified things:

Sir Edward Harland, co-founder of the shipbuilding company Harland and Wolff, lies alongside tobacco merchant Thomas Gallaher, a man caustically described by Mr [Tom] Hartley as "the greatest serial killer of all time".

There you have it: some minimum wage office worker probably juggling five other projects has misread this and typed it up for inclusion outside a major transport hub! Undoubtedly unintentional but, considering how general history is now hotly contested, one that has the serious potential to mislead.

So, with ‘people have the power’ as my mindset, I emailed Translink the following:

Hi there, in the new Grand Central Station, there is a segment about the City Cemetery. In it, the businessman Thomas Gallaher is listed as a serial killer (which he definitely wasn’t). This is quite a bit of misinformation, and I would like to report it.

A week later, I received the following reply:

Dear Mr Owens

I refer to the feedback that you recently submitted to Translink.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

The information is based on a quote from a local historian, however we will amend the wording to better reflect the context.

Our arts and history wall outside the new Belfast Grand Central Station, which is currently being developed, will celebrate the area’s rich history and heritage through art and storytelling.

As we’ve established, the quote was clearly tongue in cheek. So, a ‘quote’ taken out of all context at best. However, at least it was acknowledged.

***

A few weeks later, when the trains start to run from Grand Central, I visited the site and discovered this.

Victory.

Granted, a small victory in the grand scheme of things but, in this age where activists (in the words of Frank Furedi) ‘…seek to erase the temporal distinction between the present and the past…as if the boundary between the present and the past has disappeared as activists casually cross over it and seek to fix contemporary problems through readjusting what has already occurred’, it’s a victory nonetheless.

⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist.