Dear Sir,

Afford me please the space to respond to last week’s article on ‘the Tricolour’s raising at castle’. 

It seems highly appropriate to write on this issue on this week which marks the creation of Northern Ireland arising from the partitioning of Ireland. 

The article refers to the Tricolour as the Republic of Ireland flag. This, in my opinion is factually incorrect. It is and has been called the Irish flag in my lifetime i.e that pertaining to the whole geographical entity of Ireland.

The article speculates widely as to the motive of the raising of the Tricolour but what is clear to all is that the overnight foray, in my opinion, has happened at the Enniskillen Castle Barracks site for a reason. 

This is significant as the Castle Barracks name suggests, this was and remains a living symbol of Enniskillen’s most prominent fortification when the English military forces laid siege and swept away the Maguires from the Castle Keep, the original castle in the centre of the Enniskillen Castle Barracks yard. 

All that remains to acknowledge the presence of the native Irish ruling clann in Fermanagh is a wholly inadequate, tokenistic exhibition to the Maguires confined to the ground floor of the three floored, castle keep building.

The flagpole where the Tricolour was raised overnight is literally just feet away from the main entrance where the severed heads of Irish rebels such as Bishop Heber McMahon of the 1641 rebellion were hung up high on a pole above the walls to act as a deterrent to others of a rebellious, nationalistic mindset. As if to reinforce the colonial history of the Castle Barracks in more recent times, the Council was behind the relocation of the Imperial Boer war monument to the front entrance of the castle. 

Even the Inniskillings regimental Museum, housed in various quarters of the walled fortifications now has needlessly spread more of its military hardware on show such as the huge war cannons out onto the inner castle barracks courtyard. 

Despite the presence of the Council’s revamped museum and new Visitor’s Centre, Enniskillen’s Castle Barracks, most definitely at the present moment in time, cannot be viewed in any shape of form as a shared site for Ireland’s two competing identities. 

The Castle Barracks for certain, I believe, remains ‘a cold house’ for Nationalist identity thus a real, possible reason for the Tricolour being raised at this location.

For all of the above, I would suggest that Nationalists would view the erection of the Tricolour not at all as ‘illicit’ as your photo caption describes but as a token assertion of sovereignty, another demonstrative act/statement that the Irish Tricolour has a rightful place to be flown in its own right on the original Maguire settlement that give rise to the birth of Enniskillen town.

Despite calls, there is no need for an over the top reaction to spend wasteful monies on extra security, not a bit of it! 

Unless the Department for Infrastructure wishes to expend extraordinary public monies on building higher, fortified walls, install security cameras or maybe enclosing the listed stone fortifications altogether that ring the Castle barracks site. 

In relation to Councillor Tommy Maguire’s incisive commentary on why there are many union flags continually being displayed on arterial routes into Enniskillen, many of which are being hung ‘illicitly’ on Department for Infrastructure lampposts all year round, his commentary alludes to the obvious lack of local coverage given by the excellent The Impartial Reporter to this annual and needless “branding” of Enniskillen which tries to portray that Enniskillen, after all the centuries of change and challenge, remains a British garrison town.

However, there is hope as an £800,000, long awaited commission report on Flags, Identity, Culture and tradition will be published soon but I remain doubtful there will be any will shown by the Department of Infrastructure to tackle the medieval practice of raising flags as it has become a tangible, community relations issue at Enniskillen Castle Barracks. 

Any expectant regulations from the commission’s report will, at the very least, demand a simple application and absolute necessary and impartial enforcement of new legislation.

Yours faithfully, 
Flagged out 
Name and address supplied