Mayor denies ‘Kilkee extremist’ link

In the wake of controversy in Galway over proposed plans to erect a statue of Che Guevara, Mayor of Kilkee, Elaine Haugh Hayes, has defended the hosting of a festival in Kilkee, which highlights Guevara’s visit to the town in 1961.

This week, US Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, urged Galway City Council to reject the proposal to erect a monument honouring Che Guevara.
“Despite the image makeover which some try to give him, the real Che Guevara was a mass murderer and human rights abuser. To honour him with a monument would be an outrage and would be a futile attempt to hide the brutal acts, which he committed. The romanticising image that this monument would portray would serve to diminish the brutality that was committed by Che and the painful suffering endured by many Cuban-American families and his other victims far and wide. Che Guevara was a ruthless killer who should not be idealised. Instead of honouring a killer, the City Council of Galway should honour the victims of Che and the Castro dictatorship by rejecting this proposal,” Ileana Ros-Lehtinen claimed.
Galway businessman Declan Ganley alleged the proposal to erect a statue was to “satisfy a small number of extremists in the Labour Party”.
However, Councillor Haugh Hayes said the Kilkee festival, which was held for the first time last September, is completely different.
“It’s a cultural weekend. It’s not anything else. We’re not going into the politics of the man or we’re not going into his life. The man stopped off in Shannon and was brought to Kilkee. His name was famous and we just worked off that to create a festival where we can get people in to help local business,” she said.
The town mayor denied there are extremists in Kilkee.
“There are no extremists in Kilkee at all. We just picked up on something that the world recognised. It’s a whole different scenario in Galway, where they’re trying to put a statue up with public money. That’s a whole different ball game altogether. We’re trying to bring Cuban food and culture to Kilkee. What’s the problem with that? It’s not about the man’s political views or how many people he killed.
“We’re a small town that had a glimpse of a man who came in, who was famous for maybe all the wrong reasons. Our idea was to bring something a bit new in to Kilkee. That was it,” Councillor Haugh Hayes added. The second annual Che do Bheatha festival will be held on the weekend of September 28 to 30.
“This year, we’ll be promoting it again but we’ll be concentrating on the music and the cultural society more than the Che Guevara side of it,” she noted.
Last year, the town marked the 50th anniversary of the visit to the town of Che Guevara and his entourage in September 1961, with a three-day celebration of Cuban/Latin American cultures. The ambassador of the Republic of Cuba, her Excellency Ms Teresita Trujillo, opened the festival.
Che Guevara and Kilkee might sound like a rather unlikely combination but when one of the world’s most famous revolutionaries, in the eyes of some people, stayed in Kilkee in 1961 the iconic image, seen throughout the world on posters and t-shirts, was created.
The world-renowned image was designed by Kilkee artist Jim Fitzpatrick, after he, by chance, served a drink to Che Guevara in the Marine
Hotel Bar during that visit 51 years ago.
The image was based on an already existing photograph by the late Alberto Corda but once it was recreated in that most famous image by Fitzpatrick, it became a worldwide phenomenon, which is still evident on political paraphernalia today.
Jim Fitzpatrick was in Kilkee during last year’s festival, giving a talk on his chance encounter with one of the world’s most influential left-wing rebels and how the iconic poster was born as a result.