Maria Steen tells Percy French Summer School Ireland faces a 'crisis of identity'
Maria Steen, one of the speakers at yesterday's event at the Percy French Festival at Castlecoote House in Roscommon, with Paul Healy, editor of the Roscommon People newspaper, who was MC at the Festival. Pictures: Michael Finan/Roscommon People
Percy French would have approved. The summer school in Castlecoote House in Roscommon that takes his name is full of the talk and musing that defines these gathering, but is also interspersed with song. So it was that there was a song before John McGuirk launched into the a talk on “combatting the culture of fear”.
Fittingly there were three songs before the main event, former presidential aspirant Maria Steen.
Tis the season for summer schools and Kevin Finnerty of Castlecoote House is trying something different. The title of this year’s school was The Crisis of Identity. And it’s fair to say that most of those who spoke believe there is a crisis that has been created by so-called progressive forces. In that respect Maria Steen is viewed as an articulate voice of conservative Ireland.
Her contribution was a letdown for anybody who was expecting a state of the nation address. Instead, the thrust of her argument was to oppose the deletion of any reference to God from judicial declarations of office. If you were unaware that this was an issue of major public interest, don’t worry, you’re not alone.
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Steen continues to represent something of a lost leader for a swathe of the population that is disillusioned with what they see as the mainstream. They believe that she was blocked from running for president although any analysis of that contention would render it to be on shaky ground.
Still, there is no doubt there is an uneasiness out there among some that is not being addressed. In other countries such sentiment has tended to gather around politicians of the populist right. There is no equivalent here so when somebody pops into the public consciousness, he or she tends to be seized on as the messiah of those who like to cast themselves as the plain people of Ireland.
Castlecoote House, set among the drumlins of Roscommon, is a credit to the vision of Finnerty. After a long spell working abroad he came home to the area from whence he had sprung. He set about restoring the Georgian mansion and grounds into a magnificent setting. He also initiated the summer school over twenty years ago, and its patron is none other than former president Michael D Higgins.
One suspects that Michael D would have likely broken out in a rash at some of the fare that was on view this week. For he is a man of the left and much of what was discussed might accurately be described as populism, fairly cast as right wing populism, but don’t mention the far right.
First though, the main attraction. It will not come as a surprise that Steen is of the opinion that there is a God and he is part of what we are as Irish people. The big G, she points out, was recognized by this state’s founding fathers, so who are we to show Him the door.
“What does it mean to be Irish,” she asked the assembled one hundred or so school goers. “Our identity is our heritage . We know who we are because of what came before us.”
All fair enough but she believes that there is a concerted campaign among some crowd she references as “the materialists” to get God out of the constitution. So she set about showing where these materialists have the wrong end of the stick.
In another setting, this stuff might have been interesting and informative because she is well able to assemble an argument. But the issue which she chose to expound on is the product of a private member’s bill and unlikely ever to be passed into law. Still, Ms Steen, who mentioned she had recently returned from pilgrimage to Lough Derg, obviously sees it as the canary twerping in a coalmine.
“It strikes me we do not have confidence in who we are because we have forgotten from where we came, she said, sounding for a minute like Bob Marley singing “if you know your history then you will know where you’re coming from.”
She did have a few dark messages, including that “our children are now indoctrinated in school into belief that abortion is ok…that a child can have two mummies or two daddies”.
If that wasn’t dark enough she isn’t holding out hope for the long term.
“We are facing a potential demographic collapse that is more realistic than the climate disaster but our leaders won’t tell us that.”
The audience drank it in. For the most part, as one of their number noted in a Q&A session, it was a mature and very mature demographic who came to hear about this crisis of identity.
Following her address they had their say. One woman swooned. “Hi Maria, I wish I was saying president instead. You are a beacon of light, a role model we need more women like you to inspire us, I hope you do get a foot in the door and get into the Dail next time.”
The entertainer Paddy Cullivan asked about the system which had denied her the chance to run for the presidency. She wasn’t going to fight old battles, but did manage to get a dig in.
“It was never a problem before,” she said of the nomination process. “Certain people behaved in a certain way and used the system and that’s fine. It would have to be seriously examined before it is changed.”
She was also asked would she go again, to which she replied, understandably, that it is a long way off.
Her address was the culmination of three days where the focus was largely on the direction of the country.
Immediately preceding her was John McGuirk, who edited the media outlet Gript.ie until recent months gave his version of what sounded like a cultural armageddon afflicting society. He told the assembled elder audience that the country “needs more rebels”.
“The politicians are on one said and the vast majority of the public on the other,” he said. This is the kind of stuff that is all over social media but all that is evidence of is the capacity to amplify and distort online.
Before him, barrister Sarah Ryan spoke in a similar vein, particularly on the canard de jour for the populist right – the linking of immigration to crime. One of the audience helpfully pointed out to her during the Q & A that there is no evidence for this.
It is fair to say that Summer schools in general tend, and particularly the most prominent ones, tend to be dominated by those who might broadly be described as the establishment. Hearing from voices who claim – against with only dodgy evidence – to be representative of great swaths of the population can only be a good thing, especially if their views are challenged with facts.
But at least the spirit of the occasion prevailed with plenty of story and song that would have made Percy French proud.
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