Something between curiosity and aggrievement greeted me as I passed the Custom House each day on my way to work. Once you’ve noticed it, it’s hard to “un-see” the Crown of England perched superior to the Harp of Ireland on that grand building’s ornamentation.
But this was Dublin and I am an Athlonian. Dublin is not my city; who am I to question its iconography? Besides, the Custom House dates from 1791 and I am a physicist, not a historian.
Anyway, whinging about our difficult past was not always welcome. My letter in the Irish Times about Sheela-na-Gig sculptures from my native Westmeath being locked away in London met a swift rebuke. “During many centuries of British exploration and conquest” went the reply:
“Let us hope so indeed” went a third letter:
Historians say that myths tell us more about the society who told, recorded or created them than it does about anyone who went before. The Athlone statue and our passports are of our time. Do we wish to adorn them with colonial money-gods of a “privileged nobility” - at a time when the rest of the world is taking theirs down? Or do we prefer more noble concepts our ancestors sought to communicate to us through our myths, our tales, our stories - concepts that more inclusively span our complex identity spectrum? Surely there is room on our iconography for female as well as male? Surely there is room for curiosity, enlightenment and hope, and all that Sinann inspires?
Reference: The paper that triggered the protests in Athlone: A Networks-Science Investigation into the Epic Poems of Ossian, Advances in Complex Systems 19 (2016) 1650008. DOI: 10.1142/S0219525916500089. Freely available at A Networks-Science Investigation into the Epic Poems of Ossian.
But this was Dublin and I am an Athlonian. Dublin is not my city; who am I to question its iconography? Besides, the Custom House dates from 1791 and I am a physicist, not a historian.
Anyway, whinging about our difficult past was not always welcome. My letter in the Irish Times about Sheela-na-Gig sculptures from my native Westmeath being locked away in London met a swift rebuke. “During many centuries of British exploration and conquest” went the reply:
they brought things with them: law, the conventions of civilised conduct and, perhaps most importantly, the language in which Mr Kenna expresses his opinions - let us hope they do not come looking for these things back.
In all the excitement and pride over our prosperous, modern nation, we tend to forget what a thick, filthy, ill-mannered, poverty-stricken, pig-ignorant crowd of bog-trotters we were just a few short centuries ago, before the British Empire took us under its kindly and cultured wing.
The letter-writer’s sarcastic style was as effective as his knowledge of the past: “Brehon Law … appeared to work quite well”, he said – “the brehons (judges) themselves maintained that the system represented the law of nature.”
Physics is not just about laws of nature; “physics is what physicists do late at night” said Nobel-Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman. As atoms, electrons or quarks interact with each other, so too do people or characters in a story – be they now or in the distant past. And that was my conduit into the days of yore – my route back to Ireland after emigrating to Coventry, where late at night I lay thinking about the Brehon laws of old. All I had to do was to take the maths developed for physics and apply it to old stories.
Surrounded by a vibrant team of mathematicians in Coventry, we analysed a medieval Irish text, telling how an army under the leadership of Brian Boru challenged Viking invaders, culminating with the Battle of Clontarf in 1014. Despite centuries of lore, revisionists of late told us that it wasn’t an Irish-versus-Viking conflict at all! It was the Irish at it again – fighting against each other while the more sophisticated Vikings just helped out.
But mathematics combined with the annals told us otherwise. We developed a way to measure war on spectrum between either side of a binary debate. With an Irish-versus-Viking conflict at one end, and civil war at the other, the annals deliver a score a third of the way along ➖ a predominantly Irish-Norse conflict but not wholly so.
Athlone plays an important role in the story of Viking Age – it sits on Ireland’s longest river, the Shannon – a natural defensive line between the eastern and western provinces. It was at Athlone in 1002 that the king of Meath (which included Westmeath), submitted to Brian Boru, an act that opened the way for Brian’s dominion over all of Ireland. And the importance of Athlone to all of Ireland endured. In 1607 the Flight of Earls had marked the end of the old Gaelic Order and a sad story of emigration started. One Irish soldier returned from Spain in 1626 as a Franciscan friar on a mission to rescue Ireland’s ancient manuscripts - to preserve her identity. It was at a meeting in Athlone in 1630 that they started compiling what would become the Annals of the Four Masters - chronicles of our history and mythology.
Athlone’s role in history continued. It was in 1691 that Sergeant Custume and his stalwart band stood fast against Williamite invasion. It was at Athlone that the “unforgettable fire” decommissioned Moydrum Castle during the War of Independence. It was there that Radio Éireann broadcast to the world from the 1930s. Athlone stood alongside capital cities such as Vienna and Helsinki, embraced as it was between them on the old radio dials. It was at Custume Barracks in Athlone that the 26-county government built a nuclear bunker during the Cold War – a new capital they could decamp to should the missiles fly. It is Athlone that would be capital of a federal reunited Ireland under the Éire Nua". ("New Ireland") proposal.
Thus Athlone is not only the physical centre of Ireland; it is central to her mythology, her history, her identity – no matter where on the political spectrum you find yourself. So imagine my consternation when I arrived home in Spring 2019 and saw in the local newspaper how a statue from the Custom House had been selected to represent my town.
Two years ago, Westmeath County Council called for a new sculpture for Athlone. It was to be “uniquely 'of' the town” and address its “heritage, memory and environment.” And “in particular”, it should address the town’s “location in relation to the River Shannon.” To my dismay the Council decided on a replica of Custom-House iconography! It is not a crown but a neo-classical Neptunesque figure - a “river god of the Shannon”, claimed to “hark back to Irish mythology.”
Why is this so very, very wrong? And why should you care?
In 2016 we published further mathematical investigations into the past. In the 1760’s, shortly before John Beresford had the idea to build the Custom House, James Macpherson published what he claimed were translations from Scottish-Gaelic sources of a third-century bard named Ossian. He tried to align his work with the Classics as, during the Imperial Era, British administrators viewed themselves as inheritors of the torch of civilization - passed on from ancient Greece and Rome. Conquest and colonization were justified if a devalued, inferior and even expendable Gaelic culture was replaced by something that emulated the eminence of the Classics. So, positioning the epic poems of Ossian within a classical context would add legitimacy and authority to the new Scottish epic.
Ireland’s antiquarians were aghast! They protested at attempts to misappropriate Ireland’s heroes and identified thinly veiled characters from the Irish epic tradition. Ossian, “an illiterate Bard of an illiterate age” in Macpherson’s work, was Oisín, the warrior-poet of the Fenian Cycle in Irish mythology. Ossian’s father, Fingal, a Scottish king for Macpherson, was Fionn mac Cumhaill, leader of the Fianna. They accused Macpherson of lacking “decency in the illiberal abuse of all ancient and modern writers who endeavored to throw lights upon the ancient state of Ireland.” In our paper, we analysed Ossian in a similar manner to how we had previously analysed the Fenian Cycle and indeed the Viking age. Again, the mathematics gave a clear answer ➖ “quantifiable structural affinities with the Irish texts and a dissonance from the Classics.”
In Irish mythology the personification of the Shannon is Sinann. She is a woman – not a hairy man. She is the granddaughter of Lir (of the “Children of Lir” fame) and her story is as beautiful as it is inspiring. As Athlonian, Celtic scholar and linguist Maud Joynt wrote in 1912: “To the Boyne as well as the Shannon among Irish rivers was attributed the gift of inspiration.”
Whatever about Macpherson’s inspiration, we certainly know what inspired Beresford. He was the first commissioner of revenue for Ireland and his world was one of “privileged nobility”. Beneath it lay “the impoverished underclass struggling for basic civil rights” who “should be kept down by a policy of unyielding repression.” Of the 14 “river heads” on the Custom House only the Liffey is female – a “quite conceivable eighteenth-century misunderstanding of Anna Liffey” as personification of Abhainn na Life. The river heads represent commerce and profit – hence their appearance on reverse of old bank notes. They have nothing to do with Irish mythology. The prime position of the Custom House is still held by a crown perched superior to the harp which is surrounded by the lion and unicorn. Just in case anyone is in doubt as to what they celebrate, the hairy-faced neo-classical river head concocted to represent the Boyne has the inscription “1690”.
Athlone’s unfortunate sculpture is therefore neither “uniquely 'of' the town” nor does it address its “heritage, memory and environment.” Its claim to “hark back to Irish mythology” in relation to the Shannon represents ignorance at best - or triumphalist colonial misappropriation of identity and gender in a town devoid of secular female iconography. It stands for profit and domination – not for curiosity and education that Sinann inspires.
Ossian provoked the greatest literary controversy of all time. Athlone’s new statue is controversial too. It initially found favour when Westmeath County Council put a model up for public viewing in January 2019. But the Council - ranked “worst in country for transparency, accountability and ethics” - failed to share its symbolism or to explain that in Irish mythology the river takes the female form of the goddess Sinann. When informed of our paper, people rejected the statue. Peaceful street activities, art, poetry, newspaper items, radio broadcasts, an open lecture and a petition followed. But these failed to convince the Council of their folly and Athlone’s mayor proudly declared they are “not for turning.” They erected the statue in the dark of night at the darkest time of year (19.12.2020) at Custume Place, named for Ireland’s defenders and directly outside the Williamite HQ where the “grim Dutch gunners eyed them well”. Over 90% of a thousand comments posted online in the days after erection of the statue shared my dismay.
So, this is an Athlone issue - why should you care? What has it to do with your identity? If issued in the last few years, perhaps you should look at your passport - it may well contain the same symbolism:
Physics is not just about laws of nature; “physics is what physicists do late at night” said Nobel-Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman. As atoms, electrons or quarks interact with each other, so too do people or characters in a story – be they now or in the distant past. And that was my conduit into the days of yore – my route back to Ireland after emigrating to Coventry, where late at night I lay thinking about the Brehon laws of old. All I had to do was to take the maths developed for physics and apply it to old stories.
Surrounded by a vibrant team of mathematicians in Coventry, we analysed a medieval Irish text, telling how an army under the leadership of Brian Boru challenged Viking invaders, culminating with the Battle of Clontarf in 1014. Despite centuries of lore, revisionists of late told us that it wasn’t an Irish-versus-Viking conflict at all! It was the Irish at it again – fighting against each other while the more sophisticated Vikings just helped out.
But mathematics combined with the annals told us otherwise. We developed a way to measure war on spectrum between either side of a binary debate. With an Irish-versus-Viking conflict at one end, and civil war at the other, the annals deliver a score a third of the way along ➖ a predominantly Irish-Norse conflict but not wholly so.
Athlone plays an important role in the story of Viking Age – it sits on Ireland’s longest river, the Shannon – a natural defensive line between the eastern and western provinces. It was at Athlone in 1002 that the king of Meath (which included Westmeath), submitted to Brian Boru, an act that opened the way for Brian’s dominion over all of Ireland. And the importance of Athlone to all of Ireland endured. In 1607 the Flight of Earls had marked the end of the old Gaelic Order and a sad story of emigration started. One Irish soldier returned from Spain in 1626 as a Franciscan friar on a mission to rescue Ireland’s ancient manuscripts - to preserve her identity. It was at a meeting in Athlone in 1630 that they started compiling what would become the Annals of the Four Masters - chronicles of our history and mythology.
Athlone’s role in history continued. It was in 1691 that Sergeant Custume and his stalwart band stood fast against Williamite invasion. It was at Athlone that the “unforgettable fire” decommissioned Moydrum Castle during the War of Independence. It was there that Radio Éireann broadcast to the world from the 1930s. Athlone stood alongside capital cities such as Vienna and Helsinki, embraced as it was between them on the old radio dials. It was at Custume Barracks in Athlone that the 26-county government built a nuclear bunker during the Cold War – a new capital they could decamp to should the missiles fly. It is Athlone that would be capital of a federal reunited Ireland under the Éire Nua". ("New Ireland") proposal.
Thus Athlone is not only the physical centre of Ireland; it is central to her mythology, her history, her identity – no matter where on the political spectrum you find yourself. So imagine my consternation when I arrived home in Spring 2019 and saw in the local newspaper how a statue from the Custom House had been selected to represent my town.
Two years ago, Westmeath County Council called for a new sculpture for Athlone. It was to be “uniquely 'of' the town” and address its “heritage, memory and environment.” And “in particular”, it should address the town’s “location in relation to the River Shannon.” To my dismay the Council decided on a replica of Custom-House iconography! It is not a crown but a neo-classical Neptunesque figure - a “river god of the Shannon”, claimed to “hark back to Irish mythology.”
Why is this so very, very wrong? And why should you care?
In 2016 we published further mathematical investigations into the past. In the 1760’s, shortly before John Beresford had the idea to build the Custom House, James Macpherson published what he claimed were translations from Scottish-Gaelic sources of a third-century bard named Ossian. He tried to align his work with the Classics as, during the Imperial Era, British administrators viewed themselves as inheritors of the torch of civilization - passed on from ancient Greece and Rome. Conquest and colonization were justified if a devalued, inferior and even expendable Gaelic culture was replaced by something that emulated the eminence of the Classics. So, positioning the epic poems of Ossian within a classical context would add legitimacy and authority to the new Scottish epic.
Ireland’s antiquarians were aghast! They protested at attempts to misappropriate Ireland’s heroes and identified thinly veiled characters from the Irish epic tradition. Ossian, “an illiterate Bard of an illiterate age” in Macpherson’s work, was Oisín, the warrior-poet of the Fenian Cycle in Irish mythology. Ossian’s father, Fingal, a Scottish king for Macpherson, was Fionn mac Cumhaill, leader of the Fianna. They accused Macpherson of lacking “decency in the illiberal abuse of all ancient and modern writers who endeavored to throw lights upon the ancient state of Ireland.” In our paper, we analysed Ossian in a similar manner to how we had previously analysed the Fenian Cycle and indeed the Viking age. Again, the mathematics gave a clear answer ➖ “quantifiable structural affinities with the Irish texts and a dissonance from the Classics.”
In Irish mythology the personification of the Shannon is Sinann. She is a woman – not a hairy man. She is the granddaughter of Lir (of the “Children of Lir” fame) and her story is as beautiful as it is inspiring. As Athlonian, Celtic scholar and linguist Maud Joynt wrote in 1912: “To the Boyne as well as the Shannon among Irish rivers was attributed the gift of inspiration.”
Whatever about Macpherson’s inspiration, we certainly know what inspired Beresford. He was the first commissioner of revenue for Ireland and his world was one of “privileged nobility”. Beneath it lay “the impoverished underclass struggling for basic civil rights” who “should be kept down by a policy of unyielding repression.” Of the 14 “river heads” on the Custom House only the Liffey is female – a “quite conceivable eighteenth-century misunderstanding of Anna Liffey” as personification of Abhainn na Life. The river heads represent commerce and profit – hence their appearance on reverse of old bank notes. They have nothing to do with Irish mythology. The prime position of the Custom House is still held by a crown perched superior to the harp which is surrounded by the lion and unicorn. Just in case anyone is in doubt as to what they celebrate, the hairy-faced neo-classical river head concocted to represent the Boyne has the inscription “1690”.
Athlone’s unfortunate sculpture is therefore neither “uniquely 'of' the town” nor does it address its “heritage, memory and environment.” Its claim to “hark back to Irish mythology” in relation to the Shannon represents ignorance at best - or triumphalist colonial misappropriation of identity and gender in a town devoid of secular female iconography. It stands for profit and domination – not for curiosity and education that Sinann inspires.
Ossian provoked the greatest literary controversy of all time. Athlone’s new statue is controversial too. It initially found favour when Westmeath County Council put a model up for public viewing in January 2019. But the Council - ranked “worst in country for transparency, accountability and ethics” - failed to share its symbolism or to explain that in Irish mythology the river takes the female form of the goddess Sinann. When informed of our paper, people rejected the statue. Peaceful street activities, art, poetry, newspaper items, radio broadcasts, an open lecture and a petition followed. But these failed to convince the Council of their folly and Athlone’s mayor proudly declared they are “not for turning.” They erected the statue in the dark of night at the darkest time of year (19.12.2020) at Custume Place, named for Ireland’s defenders and directly outside the Williamite HQ where the “grim Dutch gunners eyed them well”. Over 90% of a thousand comments posted online in the days after erection of the statue shared my dismay.
So, this is an Athlone issue - why should you care? What has it to do with your identity? If issued in the last few years, perhaps you should look at your passport - it may well contain the same symbolism:
Half-form images of 14 different river gods – like those on the Custom House and Liffey bridges, in Dublin city centre – are at the edge of each page.
Historians say that myths tell us more about the society who told, recorded or created them than it does about anyone who went before. The Athlone statue and our passports are of our time. Do we wish to adorn them with colonial money-gods of a “privileged nobility” - at a time when the rest of the world is taking theirs down? Or do we prefer more noble concepts our ancestors sought to communicate to us through our myths, our tales, our stories - concepts that more inclusively span our complex identity spectrum? Surely there is room on our iconography for female as well as male? Surely there is room for curiosity, enlightenment and hope, and all that Sinann inspires?
Reference: The paper that triggered the protests in Athlone: A Networks-Science Investigation into the Epic Poems of Ossian, Advances in Complex Systems 19 (2016) 1650008. DOI: 10.1142/S0219525916500089. Freely available at A Networks-Science Investigation into the Epic Poems of Ossian.
Ralph Kenna is an Athlone native and Professor of Theoretical Physics at Coventry where his research includes mathematical investigations into epic narratives, especially those from Ireland.
