Tag Archives: Che Guevara

A response to Jim Fitzpatrick’s letter supporting a monument to Che Guevara in Galway, published (Having being apparently declined by the Irish Times) in this week’s Galway Advertiser (not yet available online).

From Cuban-born, Castro-loathing Yale professor Carlos Eire:

As a victim of Che Guevara’s atrocities, as a historian, and as a Cuban of Irish descent, I am deeply disturbed by the fact that the city of Galway is planning to erect a monument to Ernesto “Che” Guevara…

Che was my neighbor in Havana, and I actually saw him in the flesh several times.  He lived in an opulent mansion just a few blocks from my very small house, and also ran the prison of La Cabaña, where some of my relatives ended up being tortured and murdered.  Their crime?  Voicing an opinion different from Che’s. Or, in the case of my uncle, simply having a son who voiced an opinion contrary to Che’s.  The awful truth about  Ernesto “Che” Guevara is that he was a violent thug with despotic tendencies.

 

Full letter here

Previously: Jim And Che

Cuban Missed Idol Crisis

Jim Fitzpatrick who created the genuinely iconic Che Guevara poster (above) in 1968 (based on a photo by Alberto Korda) has written to today’s Irish Times to take Declan Ganley to task over his opposition to a memorial to the revolutionary in Galway.

It was ever thus.

From Jim’s website:

“But Ireland was the weirdest: Every shop that stocked the poster was threatened or harassed: in the very fashionable Brown Thomas of Grafton Street, which sold cards and posters in those faraway days, a well-turned out lady bought the entire stock, tore them all to pieces in front of the astonished staff and walked out! I remember the late Ms O’Flaherty and Ms King of Parsons Bookshop on Baggot Street bridge [Dublin], who were great supporters of my art – as they were of every artist and writer in Dublin – getting really upset at the hostility directed towards the poster, which hung proudly in their front window. Despite threats to break their windows they refused to take it down and I was so proud every time I passed that little shop run by two most educated, kind and most educated, kind and charming Dubliners who devoted their lives to the artists and writers of this city. “

Jim Fitzpatrick

Previously and previously.

Also: You’re Havana Laugh