It might be tempting to regard the removal of the four statues from the front of the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin city as a silly season story of little consequence. But there are important issues at play here.
Let’s get one thing straight at the start. The statues do not depict slavery in any way. The figures are not manacled. They are not even servants. They are clothed in flowing gowns. They were commissioned in the mid-19th century from a catalogue of statuary published by a French bronze foundry which reproduced the sculpture of Mathirin Moreau. Kyle Leyden, an art historian, has traced their origins and the evidence is clear – there is no hint of slavery.
All four statues feature anklet jewellery. All four are clad in a manner that rules out any suggestion of slavery. A recent newspaper story claimed that the four statues are worth € 300,000.
The false suggestion that two of the statues are Nubian princesses and that two of them are their slave attendants dates back at least to Elizabeth Bowen’s history of the hotel, published in 1951. It appears that this untruth became conventional understanding in the following half century. Someone apparently decided that the anklets worn by all four figures – including the princesses – were manacles or leg-irons!
Fast forward to the summer of 2020. An “angry Irish-American”, we are told, complained to IrishCentral, an online Irish American news service founded by Niall O’Dowd, about the statues, claiming they depicted slavery. IrishCentral took up the hue and cry. They contacted the hotel about the statues and published a piece online describing the statues as manacled slave girls and stated “For shame, they must be replaced with true Irish anti-slave heroines”.
The Shelbourne Hotel building is owned by the Kennedy Wilson international property group, controlled ultimately in California and having Irish subsidiaries and properties. The hotel’s business is run by Marriott Hotels International, based in Maryland. Kennedy Wilson invested in a magnificent refurbishment of the building for which they received an award from the Irish Georgian Society in 2016.
It isn’t clear whether it was Kennedy Wilson or Marriott which issued a statement on July 27th attributed to the hotel. The statement said the statues had been removed in light of what was happening in the world.
External complaints
Online news site Extra.ie quoted the hotel general manager as saying the decision to remove the statues was “internal” and had not been prompted by external complaints. He said the 2015 restoration had been carried out “in consultation with Irish Heritage and the Irish Georgian Society and that the advice of those bodies would be sought once more when it came to replacing the statues”.
Mr O’Dowd of IrishCentral hotly contested the suggestion that the removal had not been as a result of its published complaint. But the general manager told Hugh Linehan of The Irish Times that it had been coming for some weeks in light of what was happening in the world – presumably a reference to the Black Lives Matter campaign against slave-related statuary.
The Irish Georgian Society immediately denied any involvement in the removal or replacement of the statues. The hotel’s published statement claimed it was “working in collaboration with Irish Heritage to identify and plan for replacement in line with the heritage and values of the property”.
Who or what is Irish Heritage? It definitely isn’t the Irish Heritage trust, a respectable charity based in Parnell Square. Could it be a reference to Heritage Ireland, a division of the Office of Public Works? Or could it be a reference to the Heritage Council, another statutory body?
It seems inconceivable that the OPW or the Heritage Council or any other State body would collaborate in the removal or replacement of the four statues, which are part of a “protected structure” for the purposes of the Planning Act of 2000. Planning permission has to be sought for the removal or alteration of protected structures.
And so the saga commenced. I raised the matter in the Seanad and asked that the Minister with responsibility for culture, Catherine Martin, could inform the House of her attitude to the removal. Frank McDonald of this parish and I separately wrote to the planning authority, Dublin City Council, asking them to enforce the law in relation to the removal of the statues.
The council has stated that it is not aware of any permission having been granted for the statues’ removal and has commenced the enforcement process by issuing a warning letter under section 152 of the Planning Act. The Act sets out a very powerful set of sanctions and remedies for any unauthorised development including alteration or removal of a protected structure. Penalties of up to €10 million or two years’ imprisonment and High Court civil injunctions are provided for.
Symbols of white privilege?
Various academics have suggested that wider issues of race, gender, colonialism and public images are engaged, as though it was irrelevant whether or not the statues were depictions of slavery at all. One even suggested that the statues and the hotel were symbols of white privilege and that the statues conveyed a sense of subjugation of women.
Now that it has been conclusively established that the statues are not slave-related at all, it seems only right that the “Shelbourne Four” should be liberated from storage and allowed to resume their pedestals without wasting the courts’ time. Their removal was a classic overreaction to a false notion that they glorified or depicted slavery. There is no case for persisting with their storage.
If we cannot defend our protected structures from the misplaced sensitivities of misinformed, angry “woke” activists, it is a poor look-out.
Look at the present Phoenix Park reopening controversy. If hyper-sensitive “woke” opponents of imperialism and colonialism pondered the Wellington Testimonial, Europe’s tallest obelisk, and read its inscriptions, they might claim to be offended as they passed through the park. But it is now part of the fabric of our history. Luckily, the money ran out before the Iron Duke could be physically commemorated with its planned equestrian statue. Otherwise a previous generation of “woke” patriots would have had another victim.