Mind the Details by Hanna Nielson

On Human Rights, Dublin Awards and Paying Attention in the Information Age

22 May, 2025

There was a lovely golden crescent moon hung against the blue sapphire sky as I hurried across deserted Belfast on foot to catch the 5.00 AM bus to Dublin, which would arrive at little before the 8.00 AM start time for the Front Line Defenders awards at City Hall.

Somewhere out of sight behind construction cranes and apartment blocks, the Sleeping Giant of Cave Hill was having his chin tickled by an early sunrise. In the newly opened Grand Central Station, there wasn’t even the ghost of a shop open. My much-needed coffee would have to wait nearly three hours.

Dublin was wide awake and abuzz, though I could swear the pedestrian walk signals had been recalibrated to yet another degree of ‘glacial-paced.’ The coffee shops were open, but I didn’t stop – having just fifteen minutes to dash across town. It was a press breakfast; surely there would be coffee waiting. Journalists are fuelled entirely by coffee, gossip, and pastries.

Still recovering from eye strain caused by back-to-back deadlines editing other people’s books, I’d taken a break from screens – so I navigated using my photographic memory of the map of Dublin I glanced at before leaving the house.

Going without a smart phone for some weeks, my brain had snapped back into focus as though the past 20 years of attention span-destroying, technological glut never happened. Maps and memory, paper notebooks and ink pens; the time-worn tools of earlier generations would have to serve me today.

Technology is a tool, yes. And yes, each generation uses technology in a new way. Everything remade and sculpted, as a slightly newer form of society manifests and evolves. Except now, technology has taken to making and sculpting us – our attention spans, our dopamine levels, our access to accurate information. It uses us: our data, images, words – and now, it scrapes entire works of copyrighted literature and artwork into the blender of AI and LLMs.

As much as our lives have become digital, our rights in the digital sphere have barely kept up. There is a battleground taking shape in the palm of our hands. Is anyone paying attention?

CITY HALL

Everyone was fashionably dressed, greeting each other with ‘Dah-lings!’ and smooches. I was dressed like a woman who had to survive crossing Belfast during the witching hour – and naturally I knew no one in Dublin awake at that hour.

The receptionist announced my table number like I’d won a prize. It was the last of the lot, and but for the pillar it was shoved against, it might have toppled out the door. I found my reserved place, and discovered I was seated next to exactly no one.

There was no coffee.

Two casually dressed, middle aged Dubliners joined the table, taking up the unassigned place settings. They asked what I’d done to get exiled to the last table with them, the IT guys. ‘Aren’t you important enough?’ they teased.

‘Ah, there’s always next year,’ I joked, finishing off my complimentary orange juice and hoping to spot a waiter with a coffee pot. No luck. We were quickly served small plates with an homage of an Irish breakfast. Only after we’d eaten were we allowed a ration of coffee.

I frightened a waiter, shoving my child-sized coffee cup at him as he hurried toward a more important table. Adding milk to cool it, I finished it off at once and flagged down another waiter for a refill before the coffee pots vanished.

The presentation began with words from the Board Chair of Front Line Defenders, Kieran Mulvey, who recalled being a young man protesting dictatorships that few now remember – and how it’s important to remember that all things change, but also not to turn a blind eye to events of today.

Co-Founder and Patron, Denis O’Brien, spoke next about setting up the Iris O’Brien Foundation in memory of his mother, and also thanked Front Line Defenders Co-Founder, Mary Lawler, as well as the Department of Foreign Affairs for their continued support. He pointed out that Ireland is just one of a few other European countries currently denouncing the ‘absolute genocide’ in Gaza, despite their economic interests.

The master of ceremonies was Irish-Syrian journalist, Razan Ibraheem, who began by saying, ‘Individuals who often stand alone, who stand up when it’s dangerous to do so, and who support others who do: We see you, we hear you, we honour you.’

Next, Executive Director Alan Glasgow said a few words: ‘Things really are trending in the wrong direction, but today we can offer a little bit of hope.’

AN INTERLUDE

Cormac, one of the IT guys, had become fascinated with the murals near the ceiling of the rotunda and was scouring the web for more information, sporadically updating me with his findings. The awards, the event itself, was none of his concern. He just looked after the receptionists’ computers, and had been promised free breakfast.

A young brunette in a blue maxi dress, her hair in a bun, sprang up from her table, a professional crease of worry between her brows communicated that she was needed elsewhere, and hurried to the coatrack where she doffed a lightweight, khaki mackintosh and rushed out the door – not bothering to notice that it didn’t belong to her. (The email we received after the event included a photo of the same mackintosh; it had been taken and could it please be returned to City Hall as the owner was waiting.)

As my eyes followed her, witnessing the who of the whodunnit before I knew what had been done, Cormac wondered aloud which mural depicted Brian Boru. Distracted, I glanced around the paintings, looking for Irish wolfhounds, knowing that Irish kings were never without them.

AWARDS

The awards honoured five defenders of human rights from various global regions, who put themselves at risk to stand up to oppressive laws and regimes. In spite of risk of arrest, deportation, imprisonment, and torture, they carry on. Each would receive monetary aid and other support, including security, to help them continue important humanitarian work. They were chosen from among 147 countries, who each submitted candidates. [Link here for details of awardees and patrons.]

The first recipient’s speech was both impassioned and inspiring (as indeed they all were). The speaker, Luc Agblakou from Benin, was an advocate for LGBTQIA+ rights and had an impressive speaking voice, reminding me of Martin Luther King, Jr. I struggled to jot down the many quotes from it that I liked.

‘I stand before you today, not as a hero but as an outraged man.’

‘I come from a continent where injustice is not a theory but a daily presence. Where we learn from a very young age that the law is not always on the side of the most just. Those who suffer are not always given a voice, and that sometimes silence kills as much as any weapon.’

‘But I also learned that every voice counts, that every refusal to give up is a spark against the darkness. And that we collectively have the power to push back barbarism, step by step, word by word, deed by deed.’

‘I dream of a world where everyone is born free including sexual and gender minorities, not just in theory but in reality. Where justice doesn’t depend on passport, gender, skin colour, or disability. Where we no longer view the wounds of sexual and gender minorities as a foreign spectacle but as a call to action. This dream is not naïve, it is necessary.‘

Only after he finished did I realise my smart phone could have been some assistance: in recording the audio of his speech. (I managed to capture the other four speeches, however.)

HISTORIC DETAILS

When the speeches were over, and last round of applause smattered out, everyone was in a scramble to leave. I had no point of contact, not having been introduced to any organisers – and I wondered who to ask about getting a copy of Luc’s speech.

I had noticed the translators read aloud from printed pages and thought perhaps I could take a photo of the printed speech, or have a copy emailed to me.

Cormac waylaid me, telling me he’d discovered the details of the other murals. (He was worried the event was too dull for me to have enough for my article.)

Pointing out a mural that had women in it, he said it depicting the founding myth of Dublin, the place name originally being Dubh Linn, meaning ‘Black Pool.’ The goddesses of the river allowed a chieftain to make a settlement near the pool, where the River Poddle empties into the River Liffey – an area long since filled in and erased by the gardens of Dublin Castle. There was no time to hear more about who the women were, whether goddesses or Tuatha Dé Danann, or some lost matriarchal tribe offering a gift of land to settlers, only to be the first who were conquered and displaced in this city of conquering and displacement.

I half-listened as he pointed out two other murals, high up behind our table. In my hurry, I didn’t write down the details or commit them to memory. Sure, I could look up the details later online, I thought.

To my chagrin, I would discover it was no easy task. The website for City Hall Dublin doesn’t provide any description about what the murals depict. Several dozen search results (not Google), repeated the same five, bland facts about the murals. They exist. They’re in the rotunda. They were painted by James Ward, of Belfast. There are twelve of them. Four of them are coats of arms.

A blog from several years ago lists the meaning of five of the historic scenes, (Come Here to Me!, 2013):

-St Patrick baptising the King of Dublin in 448 AD

  -Irishmen oppose the Landing of the Viking Fleet, 841 AD

   -Brian Boru and the Battle of Clontarf 1014 AD

   -Parley between St Laurance O’Toole and Strongbow outside Dublin 1170 AD

   -Lambert Simnel, pretender to the throne, carried through streets of Dublin 1487 AD

There’s nothing about the founding myth or the two other episodes from history. A ‘History of Ireland’ official site names only one (St Patrick baptising the king). An ‘Irish Arts Review’ article from 1999 is paywalled, ‘History, Politics and Decorative Painting: James Ward’s Murals in Dublin City Hall’ by Philip McEvansoneya. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage website doesn’t give anything but a detailed description of the building’s architecture. An image search only shows the rotunda, no details of individual murals.

Given more time, perhaps I could solve it – but why is the information buried in the first place? It seems like something that should be easily accessible for any tourists, school children, university students, new immigrants, or young parents with children wanting to know about the history of Dublin.

What does it mean when the details vanish?

It means I can’t tell you, because someone else decided it wasn’t important enough. Or, they decided it was unfashionable or otherwise irrelevant to current times, so it’s been quietly omitted.

A COPY

Before I left, I asked the receptionist about getting a copy of Luc’s speech. He slowly repeated my words, struggling to comprehend. It was like I had asked him to knit me a sandwich. He flagged down the event coordinator, bright in her summer dress, who brightly suggested I look up the livestream of the event on YouTube.

‘Ah, that’s perfect,’ I said, even though it wasn’t. ‘Thanks very much.’

I understand it’s used as a permanent public archive, especially by non-profits with limited budgets, but YouTube is a private company. They don’t have any obligation to preserve content posted there. The speech I sought would be available ‘for now,’ but not indefinitely.

Back in Belfast, I found the YouTube livestream and, deciding not to trust automatically generated subtitles, made the audio transcription myself. I felt it was worth it, to have a record of the speeches of human rights defenders who face so many attempts to silence them.

The powers that be understand the power of words – which is why the copyright for Martin Luther King Jr’s speeches is jointly held by Apple, Google, and ‘various anonymous corporations’ according to the official website. Why anonymous? And why must we ask the very corporate entities that monopolise our digital spaces for permission to recite, perform, record, or distribute MLK’s words on equality and justice?

CHOICE OF WORDS

When I transcribed Luc’s speech, I discovered that my notes contain a line that the YouTube video does not. There is a glitch or an edit in the video that omits it: ‘I stand before you today, not as a hero but as an outraged man.’

If I had not written it down, this detail would have been lost. Was it merely a glitch of technology that deleted the mention of outrage? Or did someone decide later that ‘outrage’ was out of place, not the right message, or might offend official sponsors?

I wrote down the line because I thought it was a bold message and a necessary one, especially to those grown comfortable in a Western country at peace. To put one’s life on the line in defending the rights of others, to stand up against daily injustice, it requires righteous indignation. Outrage. Daniel O’Donnell’s outrage once echoed among the same columns, the same murals, fighting for the same cause: justice and equal rights.

(I’m not speaking of the clickbait kind of outrage, the hate-baiting, sectarian, or divisionary kind – peddled by those who prefer to keep us distracted from the real-time erosion civil liberties and freedoms, on our doorstep or otherwise.)

The sacred heart, that symbol of a flaming, exposed heart depicted in many paintings of Jesus all up and down Ireland, is not just a symbol of meek-and-mild compassion for mankind – it’s an emblem of radical, burning, mountain-moving love for humanity.

To truly love one’s fellow humans, one must burn with indignation – outrage – at their suffering.

The message of Luc’s speech was a call to so radically love one another that the dream a new society must become reality – because there is no other way. Hatred destroys societies. The end game is not a mystery. And the only antidote is the righteous fire that unites us against it, that demands and will accept nothing less than justice.

WHO PAYS ATTENTION

On the bus ride home, I saw a father wheeling his infant daughter in a pram along the pavement, smart phone to his nose. Choosing to forego the wonder of her eyes and her mind eager for knowledge in favour of scrolling – through hate speech, ads, porn, celebrity news, sports results. His expression bore the ‘flat affect’ of social media addiction, short-circuiting empathy, eyes glued to the ever-shifting jumble of viral memes, war atrocities, and TV trivia.

If all details are equally important, how can we tell what’s truly important?

I trust governments, corporations, and advertisers to get one thing right – the devil is in the details. They already know we can’t change the world if we aren’t paying attention.

TRANSCRIPTS

I believe that in order for societies to change, we need the words of others to inspire us. Humans inspire humans – and for that we need records of what others have said. The heroes and heroines of Ireland or the civil rights movement here and abroad would hardly be remembered if their words had never been recorded, preserved, and passed down.

I don’t consider words that inspire freedom a waste of space; I consider them necessary.

For that reason, as Editor of The Belfast Review, I’ve decided to publish on our blog the transcripts of all the awardees speeches (link at the end of this article).

Please note, this blog should not be mistaken as a permanent public archive – it’s a digital platform owned by a private company and likely some parent corporation. (An important detail.)

[Link to transcripts]