Che, part Irish, gets monument in Ireland

Prof. Manuel Barcia, Univ. of Leeds (aljazeera.com, 3/30/12); Eds., Wisdom Quarterly

LEEDS, United Kingdom – The normally peaceful Irish city of Galway, on the west coast of Ireland, has made the news.

This is due to the polemical decision of its city council to build a monument to Cuban freedom fighter Ernesto “Che” Guevara.

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The decision has been based on the fact that Che, a descendant of the Lynch clan, was himself partly Irish, Cuban, and Argentinian.

This attempt to celebrate Guevara’s Irish heritage has been met with resistance in some conservative quarters within Ireland and subsequently in the United States.

Revolutionary hero Che (Alberto Korda, 3/5/60)

First, Irish businessman and campaigner Declan Ganley suggested the monument would drive away tourism from Galway – an unlikely outcome, as it is well-known that Che Guevara’s image is found among the most popular merchandise in the world.

Then, Yale-based academic Carlos Eire and Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lethinen added their voices to Ganley’s and requested that, since Guevara was a murderer and a war criminal, the Irish should scrap the project altogether and, in the words of the latter, build instead a monument to “the enslaved Cuban people.”

“Guevara was much more than a grotesque criminal, as it has been suggested.” One can only wonder, why this opposition all of a sudden? More importantly, do they have a point?

I've got the rebel "fighting Irish" spirit in me.

Ernesto Guevara, better known simply as “Che,” was a guerrilla ["little war"] fighter and one of the leaders of the Cuban Revolution of 1959.

Soon after coming to power, Guevara was in charge of carrying out a number of executions of people – some accounts mention hundreds – that the new Cuban leadership considered to be “enemies of the revolution.” More

Che Guevara statue spurs controversy in Ireland

An Irish city’s plan to erect a monument to the revolutionary icon has piqued conservatives.

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  Manuel Barcia

  Dr. Manuel Barcia, professor of Latin American history at the University of Leeds