History clash Norman links reopen debate on identity

Nearly nine centuries after the Normans clanked ashore with swords and armour, Ireland is still wrestling with the question: what did they ever do for us?

- By Rory Carroll

A decision by the government last week to join a European cultural initiative called 2027 European year of the Normans has reopened a debate that goes to the core of Irish identity.

On the one hand, say historians, they built castles and cathedrals and enriched culture and literature; on the other, they dispossessed the native Gaels and paved the way to invasion and occupation.

Sinn Féin, the main opposition party, said the commemoration was offensive because it would honour William the Conqueror, England's first Norman king, and the subjugation inflicted by his successors.

"What will they think of next: a festival of Cromwell? A Famine Queen jubilee?" said the party's culture spokesperson, Aengus Ó Snodaigh, referencing Oliver Cromwell's bloody 17th-century conquests and Queen Victoria's reign during the 1840s famine.