Letter: National Museums NI should stay clear of politics as debate around Maze site is divisive
A letter from Stevan Patterson:
On hearing that National Museums Northern Ireland are involved in talks about developing access and interpretation of the former prison site at the Maze I believe this to be very unwise and will be seen as taking a one-sided approach to our history which no museum must ever do.
It’s like a museum promoting and honouring the Nazis.
The old Maze prison hospital block should have been razed to the ground long ago instead of being given listed status as this has delayed development of the rest of the huge Maze site for the good of Northern Ireland.
As the block unwisely still exists it is and will continue to be politically divisive because of those would wish to turn it into some kind of macabre shrine to terrorist mass murders or psychopaths with mental illness conditions that starved themselves to death.
As such, National Museums Northern Ireland should stay clear of current political debate.
If National Museums Northern Ireland want to help in developing the site more generally then that is to be welcomed and I would suggest they should double their efforts for a museum to our own Harry Ferguson and all those from Northern Ireland who helped make the Ferguson System the success it would become to fight hunger and world poverty and not death and destruction.
Stevan Patterson, Castlederg