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A city councillor in Cork, Ireland is advocating to erect a public statue of a mosquito.
It wouldn’t be a statue of just any mosquito , but of the pest that some — at least in Cork — believe bit the English invader, Oliver Cromwell, sending him home to die of what was once known as “Cork fever,” an old name for malaria.
If built, it would be “definitely … the smallest public statue in the world,” Green Party councillor, Oliver Moran told As It Happens guest host Nora Young. Moran is proposing the diminutive statue be placed atop an empty plinth outside Cork City Hall, among some other ideas he’s considering,
Moran acknowledges that Cromwell remains a deeply divisive historical figure, depending on which side of the Irish sea you hail from. In Ireland, Moran says Cromwell is remembered for the brutal Cromwellian campaigns of the 17th century — military invasions that killed hundreds of thousands in a quest to secure English control over the country.
Needless to say, Moran says Cromwell isn’t the most popular among the Irish, which is precisely why the councillor thinks honouring his supposed insect assassin may be appealing to so many people.
Moran spoke with Young about how he came to embark on this mission to honour this midge. Here’s part of that conversation:
What was the moment of inspiration behind your idea to have a statue honouring a mosquito?
The idea came from a conversation on social media. Very often you would have people who are studying Cromwell, primarily from an English perspective, and they would know that he had visited Ireland, that there had been a campaign in Ireland, and then would often come to social media asking questions of Irish people, wondering, “Well, what are your views?” And it can often be a grab-the-popcorn moment and go to the comment section. And that’s what I did on this occasion, too. And within the comments was a post saying that the person responding was surprised that the people of Cork had not put up a statue to the midge that had bitten and eventually led to the death of Cromwell. And I said, “Well, hold my beer. That’s a great idea for a public monument.”
In the 19th century, Italian prince, banker and collector Alessandro Torlonia, gathered 623 ancient Roman sculptures. After being shown at the Louvre in Paris, the Torlonia Collection has touched down in Montreal, where it will remain on view at the Museum of Fine Arts until July 19.
Some of our listeners may not have heard of Oliver Cromwell, and others may have been taught that he was a hero who helped bring democracy and parliamentary supremacy to England. How is Oliver Cromwell remembered where you live?
Yes, that definitely is two different views across the Irish Sea. So there is a statue to Cromwell outside the British House of Parliament. What you would receive when you’re visiting there is that people would point it out, or a tour guide would point it out, and then notice, oh, there’s Irish people in the audience, too. And oh, yes, I believe Cromwell also went to Ireland. But that’s about the extent really of their knowledge. It’s a very different experience in Ireland. So in the Cromwellian campaigns, somewhere between 200,000, 600,000 people were killed. That’s between 15 and 40 per cent of the pre-war population, depending on how it’s counted. It’s an entirely different view, and one that’s coloured by a sense of atrocities and of military violence.
Can you describe what you’re imagining a statue would actually look like?
I think we’re at the really beginning of any proposal here, and I’m really delighted in the way that people have responded to it. Where we would locate it, look, we’ve toyed with several different ideas. There happens to be an empty plinth outside Cork City Hall. I’ve suggested that we might even possibly say the statue is already there. And do you not see it? There’s other places in the city, too. There is a large stone fort from the period and that has Cromwellian associations within the centre of Cork. That’s another place where we could locate and put it within the context of everything about that time.
In the 1600s, there weren’t exactly epidemiologists and they certainly didn’t trace all of Cromwell’s malaria to a specific mosquito. And Cromwell died years after leaving Cork. Is it possible that your proposal might be long on legend and a bit short on facts?
Look, I think if you were to look at it too closely from a historian’s point of view, I think you could take the joy out of it. Cromwell did die of malaria or a recent illness. He probably did contract it during his Irish campaign, and the story is that it was a midge or mosquito from the Cork area. I think the story is really what inspires people. One thing which I like about it is that it tells a story of the downfall of tyrants and about how the mighty can be taken down by something tiny — and that relationship between the powerful and the meek.
So you’re trying to make a larger point about public art in a city, a city like Cork?
Yeah, 100 per cent. You know, a city isn’t only just, for example, the people within it, but it’s also its environment. And so the relationship between the environment, Cork is built on a marsh. The name actually means a marsh in Irish. And so that natural life of the city as well is something to be explored within proposals like this.
