Galway City Council is to remove a controversial 1916 commemorative stone in Mervue, which has caused a political row since its unveiling on Holy Thursday.
Chief Executive Brendan McGrath said that the stone will be removed, as the council had not given permission for it to be erected in a green area at Connolly Avenue.
He said the Council is not aware who paid for and erected the engraved stone, but he accepted it was not the Mervue Residents’ Association.
At a local authority meeting, Fine Gael councillor Padraig Conneely proposed a motion (seconded by party colleague Pearce Flannery) that the commemorative stone be removed.
He said it carried the Sinn Féin emblem of an Easter Lily and should be removed as it was on Council land. Cllr Conneely contends that SF members are responsible for installing the stone.
Cllr Anna Marley (SF) said it would be a shame to have the stone removed at this stage, and she took issue with the “amount of hysteria” over the issue, asking “is a post-colonial inferiority complex at play here?”
Mayor Frank Fahy (FG) said he was “very offended” that he had not been invited to the unveiling of the stone, yet an “unknown” Sinn Féin TD was there.
“I’m very offended by that. To think that in my own parish, where my people have been since 1640 I wasn’t invited and local area councillors [with the exception of Sinn Féin’s Mairéad Farrell] weren’t invited. I was offended.
“It’s not acceptable that anybody should do something on public land without the permission of the council. I have no issue with it as long as proper procedures are followed,” said the Mayor.
He pointed to the commemorative stone and tree-planting ceremony which took place in Shantalla over Easter weekend, which had permission from the Council.
Prior to the meeting, Cllr Conneely said an invite sent around to locals was signed by Cllr Mairéad Farrell. This, he said, indicated she was connected to the stone and had prior knowledge of it.
“Who is fooling who here? The invite was signed by Mairéad Farrell, and the invite has a picture of her on it with a Sinn Fein activist, so quite clearly she has a connection to the stone and she was aware of who erected it. Let’s get real here. This is a Sinn Féin stone. It is not a community stone. It is political propaganda. The invite went out in her name.”
Councillor Farrell reiterated the stone was for all the community, and rejected the assertion that it was the Republican party’s stone.
“The stone is a community stone not a Sinn Féin stone. I helped organise the unveiling event and sent invites because I think for a community event like this it was important to invite as many people in the community as possible. It is a lovely stone. I really don’t know what the issue is with all of this,” she said.
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