National heritage week
by planetparker
I often despair that not enough people visit my blog. I know that there is one phrase I have to use and then the visitors swam like maggots. This phrase is, of course, Cavan Coubnty Museum.
Many of my visitors from Cavan are semi-litterate; they can read just about but they can’t write. When I am animated about somebody or something I express my views on my blog. They just love to spread nasty rumours behind people’s backs. “Have ya heard about yan fella?” etc. Sadly they are listened to by people in positions of authority who are no better, and no more gifted than themselves.
This morning I heard an advertisement on the radio for National Heritage Week. This is a worthy week-long event, but my mind slipped back a number of years to a previous National Heritage Week. I returned from holiday in Donegal on a Thursdfay and was casually chatting with an acquaintance here in Cavan who wished me well for my talk in Cavan County Museum the following Saturday. This “talk” was news to me, but my friend, who was by now slightly embarrassed, assured me that such a talk on local history given by Dr Ciaran Parker in Cavan County Museum was partr of the published programme of heritage-week events.
I felt I was being used. The name “Dr Ciaran Parker” apparently had some cachet – it was only when you met the person behind it that the sense of disappointment set in – and someone in the museum had thought they could use my name in an attempt to win greter credibility for their other activities.
The museum had dispensed with my services by this time, and I no longer worked there. I think that people might understand that my feelings toward the institution were not the most cordial. But having said that, if somone from the museum, such as curator Dominc Egan had told me beforehand that they were doing this – still less asked my permission – I would not have minded.
I could imagine what might have happened on the following Sarurday. Dr Parker wouldn’t show up for his talk. This would prove once more his unreliability and give the museum and their puppet-masters in the County Council renewed ammunition for why they had got rid of me. In the circumstances there was only one thing I could do – ring the organisers of the heritage week and explain what had happened. The person with whom I spoke did not seem surprised to learn that some events mentioned by local organisers were fictitious. Naturally I told them of my willingness to participate in heritage week events if told about them, and since then I have done this on numerous occasions.
And as a result I added to the feelings of deep-seated disdain held by the museum’s staff towards me, although I didn’t think I had done anything wrong.
The slogan of heritage week is something like “Heritage – be part of it; it’s part of you”. Our heritage belongs to every man, woman and child in this country. It is our birthright. It does not belong to any super-annuated local institution like a museum, still less to local government bodies.
