'Zero justification for targeting a healthcare facility' - Anger as republican group attacks hospital statue of Queen Victoria
A republican group has attacked a statue in the grounds of hospital, sparking widespread anger with one MLA stating there is “zero justification for targeting a healthcare facility”.
“Every pound that now has to be spent repairing this damage is a pound taken away from the health service,” said Ulster Unionist Alan Chambers.
This afternoon the group Lasair Dhearg, who describe themselves as “anti-imperialist republican socialists”, clambered onto a statue in Royal Victoria Hospital and splattered it with red paint.
The statue is of Queen Victoria, the monarch who gives the west Belfast hospital its name. It’s located in a courtyard on the Grosvenor Road side of the site, which used to be its main entrance but is now a staff-only access route.
The police have confirmed they’re investigating the incident as criminal damage, while Lasair Dhearg published photos on social media showing one of its people, wearing a hi-vis jacket with the republican group’s name and logo spray-painted onto it, committing the act.
Mr Chambers slammed the incident, describing it as forcing “idiotic political protest” onto a place that’s treating “some of the sickest people in NI at the most vulnerable moments in their lives”.
Said the UUP man: “Whatever views individuals may hold about history or heritage, there is absolutely zero justification for targeting a healthcare facility in this manner.
"At a time when our health service is already under immense pressure, with budgets stretched, it is utterly irresponsible that scarce resources will now have to be diverted to clean up this mess.
“Those responsible show a clear disregard not just for our shared public spaces, but for the patients and staff who rely on the hospital every day.
“I hope they will be held fully accountable, and urge anyone with information about this despicable incident to come forward.”
On social media, Lasair Dhearg branded Queen Victoria “the famine queen” and claimed she “oversaw the Great Hunger and the decimation of the Irish population”.
The “famine queen” epithet was coined by Irish nationalists in the later years of her reign, though disputed by many historians.
A constitutional monarch, Victoria couldn’t intervene in the government of the era’s actions, but is known to have personally donated the equivalent of a six-figure sum in today's money to famine relief efforts, and was rapturously received by the public when she visited Ireland in 1849.