MEATH PEACE GROUP and the MEATH ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY JOINT SEMINAR
“HISTORY IN MODERN IRELAND/NORTHERN IRELAND”
Saturday, 13th September 2014
St Columban’s College, Dalgan Park, Navan, Co. Meath
Session I. “The Socio–political importance of History in Modern Irish/NI Society particularly in this Decade of Centenaries”
Mary Ann Lyons (Head of History Dept, Maynooth University),
Gordon Lucy (Belfast historian)
Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fáil Senator)
Chaired by John Clancy
Report includes:
- Presentations of speakers in Session I
- Relevant quotes from Session II (“History in Irish Education” – Damien English TD (Fine Gael), Minister of State at the Department of Education; Professor Fionnuala Waldron (Dean of Education, SPD/DCU). [This session was chaired by Peter Connell and was also addressed by Niamh Crowley of the History Teachers Association – a full report is in progress]
- Questions and Comments (summary)
- Biographical notes on speakers etc
- Footnotes
Session I presentations
1.Mary Ann Lyons (Professor of History, Head of History Department, Maynooth University)
“I would like to thank Julitta for her very kind invitation to participate in this seminar. I want to speak about the socio-political importance of history in modern Irish society particularly in this decade of centenaries. Most of my comments will focus on the Republic of Ireland, as I know Gordon will be referring to Northern Ireland in his presentation.
‘States have long had an interest in how key events in their past are commemorated, and historians have equally long been complicit in promoting dominant political mythologies. Since the development of professional academic history, however, its practitioners have tended to view commemorations more as opportunities for attempting new interpretations, and for critiquing the official version. Yet, when the event commemorated has clear implications for ongoing conflict and attempts at reconciliation, historians can come under intense pressure … to prioritise contemporary political concerns over their primary duty to engage critically with the sources’.1
Historian Tom Dunne from UCC contends that this is what happened in Ireland during the late 1990s when the bicentenary of the 1798 rebellion coincided with the final stages of a complex peace process aimed at ending the conflict in Northern Ireland. Dunne claims that the bicentenary as a result was based ‘in large part on a blurring of historical memory’2 since the Irish Government was eager to find a way of commemorating the rebellion that did not emphasize the sectarianism and violence that were also at the heart of The Troubles in Northern Ireland during the 1990s. The government, he contends, found this in the idealism of the rebellion’s ostensible organizers, the United Irishmen, whose Belfast origins and commitment to a union between Catholic and Protestant were especially helpful. But as Dunne also points out, regrettably the role of the United Irishmen and the relevance of their ideals in Wexford were unclear in the historical record in contrast with accounts of the sectarian conflict and violence which absolutely dominate contemporary sources.3
What Dunne found particularly regrettable was the regressive step for historical scholarship that this involved on the grounds that
‘In the decades prior to the bicentenary a highly complex picture of Irish politics and society during the 1790s had been developed, yet [in publications to mark the bicentenary] many historians of the period appeared to endorse the state’s idealistic, one–dimensional approach to the rebellion as a ‘United Irish Revolution’.’4
In light of this relatively recent experience of contentious commemoration, with this decade of anniversaries now under way, it is timely to reflect on some of the challenges and opportunities facing historians and commemorators alike.
To this end, I propose to present you with a very general overview of some of the major issues that leading historians working in the field have highlighted as worthy of reflection and debate.
It is worth remembering that we in Ireland are by no means alone in facing the challenge of interpreting the contentious events of 100 years ago. Tom Dunne has sought to contextualize our decade of commemorations by reminding us that historians the world over are grappling with how to interpret and write the history of difficult chapters in their respective lands. Citing three ongoing situations of historically inflected conflict or controversy, namely the treatment of Jews by their Polish neighbours during World War Two; Turkey’s responsibility for the massacre of Armenians during the World War One, and the legacy of the wars in former Yugoslavia, he points to historians from across national and ethnic divides who are attempting to write ‘shared narratives’ of these past events in an attempt to contribute to present–day conflict resolution.5
But such participation in collaborative work with a political goal clearly presents challenges to historians engaged in scholarly research. Whilst acknowledging the validity of Professor John A Murphy’s assertion that an historian’s primary duty is to historical research and not to historical healing6, at this time it is worthwhile asking whether there might be ways of making that principal duty of the historian compatible with a reconciliation agenda, without compromising the professional integrity of history or of historians.
Dunne is not optimistic. He is wary of the language used by the ‘Advisory Group’ of historians assisting the Irish Government’s ‘Consultation Group on Centenary Celebrations’ who have promised to consult widely, “at all times acknowledging the multiple identities and traditions which are part of the historic story of the island of Ireland and Irish people world–wide”.7 He also has concerns in relation to the Northern Ireland Executive’s stance. Commenting on its appointment of two ministers to “jointly bring forward a programme for a decade which will offer a real opportunity for our society to benefit economically and continue its transformation into a vibrant, diverse and enriched place to visit”, Dunne thought it significant that while the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin could agree on the tourist potential of the centenary celebrations, if nothing else, and have thus promised commemorations involved “inclusivity, tolerance, respect, responsibility and interdependence”, no reference was made to achieving historical understanding.8
He does, however, commend Belfast City Council Subcommittee for its commitment to approaching the decade in a spirit of ‘Shared History, Differing Allegiances’ which is more in line with the international model of ‘shared history’, involving cross–community organizations such as ‘Healing through Remembering’ in projects aimed at promoting a genuine shared history at grassroots level.9
Dunne singled out as significant the endorsement of that approach in an editorial featured in the Irish Times two years ago, on 29 September 2012, which urged that we all
“go beyond grudging tolerant understanding of the other’s history” by developing a greater understanding of the “interconnectedness of our stories”, this being the best way of “celebrating our different narratives”.10
There have been some positive developments in this regard; for example, the change in approach to commemoration of those Irishmen who died during the Great War, notably initiatives by individual politicians in Northern Ireland and in the Irish Republic, followed by the participation in Remembrance Day ceremonies in Northern Ireland by An Taoiseach Enda Kenny and An Tánaiste Eamonn Gilmore in 2012. (Dunne also draws encouragement from the recent attempt by some members of An Gárda Síochana to commemorate their RIC predecessors.11)
And yet, despite these positive developments, Dunne warns against complacency, remarking that despite World War One becoming a sort of neutral ground in terms of commemoration, there still appears to be a nervousness in the official approach on the part of politicians both North and South around the commemoration of complex events of 100 years ago. He points to how the former Northern Ireland secretary, Owen Paterson, cautioned the Oireachtas Group on Centenary Commemorations about the “danger that people who do not have such a benign view could hijack them” and also to a TD’s admission that “some of these commemorations may be taken over by hard–line people from both traditions”.12
Dunne has highlighted the significant and relatively unique stance assumed by President Michael D. Higgins who, in a number of addresses, has emphasized the need to commemorate “in a spirit of tolerance and mutual respect” with making “historical accuracy a cornerstone of commemoration”. In this, Dunne asserts, President Higgins has provided historians with an important lead, in sharp contrast with what he denounces as
‘Fear of causing offence, an obsession with ‘balance’ and all the other manifestations of this damaging ‘political correctness’ [that] can only lead to bland, meaningless history that may get political establishments safely to the end of the decade but will do nothing to deepen understanding of this island’s historical past]’.13
Dunne is also encouraged by the fact that the Advisory Group of historians assisting the Irish Government includes historians Eunan O’Halpin (TCD) and Diarmaid Ferriter (UCD), and by the latter’s blunt assertion that “commemorations should be divisive. They should create a certain discomfort. You don’t have to please everyone. History is about conflicting interpretations.”14
If we embark on commemoration in this spirit of openness and loyalty to the historical record, certain demands are made on us as historians and as commemorators. We need to broaden our horizon, dispensing with one of the most unhelpful divisions that has been set up in how we view the 1910s, namely the separation of the Irish experience in the 1910s from its European context.
As TCD historian Anne Dolan has observed, the thought of placing the Irish story within a wider European narrative, of sacrificing Irish exceptionalism, still seems to frighten some: we need to reflect on why this is so. In a thought–provoking article titled ‘Divisions and divisions and divisions: who to commemorate?’, Dolan posits the notion that arguably Ireland was never so European as it was in that decade, if we consider the trenches dug in St Stephen’s Green during the Rising, the appeal to Versailles for recognition, the Treaty that placed the Irish Free State at the heart of the Commonwealth. At each stage, Ireland was very much part of a wider international and European history.
Dolan goes further, challenging us to consider the reasons for this reluctance to view the Irish experience in a European context, suggesting that this may stem from the fact that when viewed in that comparative light, we see that Ireland had ‘small wars, few casualties, and a remarkably quick return to peace and stability’.15 The trouble is, if we admit that, do we undermine all the importance that so many have placed on those small wars for so long?
Yet another division that historians and commemorators have been slow to address is that of class. As Dolan has pointed out, class divisions are among the most striking of this decade in Ireland, and yet no one seems keen to seek out ‘shared history’ here, arguably the easiest place to find that ‘shared history’ North and South. Consequently, she asks: ‘Is it not a division that should occupy us all a little more?’16 Dolan presents us with another challenge, asking: ‘Do we … miss the division between the ardent and the indifferent at our peril?’17 It is worth reminding ourselves that far more people carried on with their everyday lives throughout all these wars than went out to take whatever part in the conflict, and yet we listen to, write about and commemorate the minority of fighters, for whatever cause, so much more. Dolan argues that it is precisely in focusing on the lives of these ordinary men and women who got on with their daily lives in spite of the conflicts, that we are most likely to find some form of ‘shared history’ or common ground through which they too can be commemorated. She poses the penetrating question: ‘What will happen to those who did not follow any flag when flags come to be half–masted in 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2021?’18 Here, perhaps the Letters of 1916 Project which is based at Maynooth University is a good approach. This crowd–sourced project invites people holding any type of letter dated 1916, from Ireland, regardless of its subject matter, to submit the letter which is the added to a fast growing collection of letters capturing not just the Easter Week events but a plethora of aspects of everyday life in Ireland at that time.19
Professor Keith Jeffery from Queen’s University Belfast equally throws down the gauntlet to historians and commemorators on where we go from here in commemorating Irish involvement in World War One and 1916. Commenting on the blossoming of First World War commemoration that we have witnessed from the late 1980s, he has observed how ‘much of this enhanced … commemoration draws on a belief that shared military experience and the shared human costs of that experience might transcend local Irish political and sectarian differences.’ On the other hand, he remarks that to our great cost, ‘one thing [that is] largely absent … from what we might call the ‘civil war’ of the Troubles is any sustained sense that shared military experience on each side of the conflict might have any sort of reconciling potential.’20 And the same, he contends, can be said of 1916.
Jeffery then presents us with a stark challenge in the following terms:
‘If we are serious about trying to extract some good from common suffering in 1914–18, then we must also seriously contemplate the possibility that some good might be extracted from an understanding of the common suffering and loss not just on the battlefields of continental Europe but also here at home’.21
He goes on to suggest that ‘Ireland’s domestic (and not just recent) past is perhaps so painful that we may require the more remote experience of, for example, the First World War to help us come to terms with it.’22 Jeffery also presents us with a thought–provoking speculation for the commemorative attraction in Ireland of the First World War, namely that commemorating the Great War affords people, North and South, the opportunity to reach back to a time when Ireland was politically united, albeit it under British control, and he suggests that this might help engender a sense of unity between those on both sides of the subsequently created border.23
Another leading historian in this field, David Fitzpatrick (TCD), has itemized many challenges facing us all in this decade of commemorations. Rather like Tom Dunne, he is especially wary of the desire for pluralism that so often goes with commemoration. He reminds historians and commemorators that it is ‘all too easy to achieve the spurious appearance of ‘inclusivity’ in ceremonies, events or exhibitions by adopting simplistic misleading dichotomies.’24 Here, he asserts, it is incumbent on the historian to complicate the picture. Fitzpatrick believes a connected problem is an excessive focus on 1916, the year of the Battle of the Somme and the Dublin rebellion, as commemorators find irresistible the temptation to weave these two episodes into ‘a seamless sacrificial narrative’.25 It is not appropriate, he argues, to concentrate on a single year marked by massive casualties on the Western Front or on the dramatic character of the Easter rebellion in isolation since to do so ‘fails to convey the slow and messy course of political change in Ireland or the monotony and attrition of trench warfare… To sideline the seamier aspects of the past is to distort public understanding of history.’26 Fitzpatrick also acknowledges that in the present day, ‘many would prefer to remember constructive rather than violent aspects of the revolutionary epoch in Irish history’27 and argues that the problem for historians is that it is not ‘easy to devise a truthful narrative incorporating supporters and opponents of the Anglo–Irish treat in a common enterprise of democratic state–building in the South, given the performance of both parties in the Civil War. Faced with this conundrum, many historians as well as politicians have portrayed those who actively supported the Treaty as democrats acting in accordance with the will of the majority, and their opponents in the Civil War as idealists’.28
That way, no one is too upset. But as Fitzpatrick is quick to point out, that is a spurious comparison since of course ‘there were idealists on both sides but very few genuine ‘democrats’ in either party until it became apparent, after the Civil War, that the constitutional framework of the Free State offered practical opportunities for all factions.’29 Equally, Fitzpatrick, emphasizes, it is not acceptable to depict Ulster Unionists as unwavering imperialists and opponents of home rule. After all, the Ulster Unionists almost rebelled against the Crown in 1912–14; their leaders proved reluctant to urge their followers to commit to the imperial war efforts, and they eventually accepted and controlled a home rule state of their own in Northern Ireland.30
So what does this mean for commemorating their experiences? According to Fitzpatrick, ‘good commemoration would stress the common influence of fraternity and solidarity in nationalist and unionist Ireland rather than the strength of political idealism.’31 This would reflect the historian’s overriding concern which is historical accuracy.
Fitzpatrick also identifies another ‘tempting but dubious stratagem for commemorators’, namely, ‘the notion of equality of suffering between perpetrators and victims of political violence.’32 He insists that suspending moral judgement when attempting to give meaning to human losses results in poor history. He also insists that historians must draw a clear distinction between on the one hand combatants who delivered and often courted death, and on the other, non–combatant civilians who did neither. In that context, he reminds us that non–combatant civilians constituted the great majority of fatalities in 1916 and almost half of those killed between 1917 and 1921, which begs the question – how will they be commemorated, if at all? Fitzpatrick strenuously argues that the lives of both perpetrators and victims should be remembered, but not in the same way. He asserts that ‘far from avoiding all forms of judgement, historians should try to add moral intensity to the ways in which we commemorate and comprehend the past. Morally neutral commemoration’, he warns, ‘is a dangerous deception …’ and ‘commemoration, like good history, should help us to understand what forces impelled people to commit terrible as well as courageous acts.’33 While he admits that the outcome of such investigations is ‘often contentious and morally unsettling’, nonetheless he is convinced that it is ‘preferable to a bland recitation of general blamelessness.’34 In this context, the work of Fitzpatrick’s TCD colleague, Eunan O’Haplin, in identifying many alleged civilian spies and informers shot dead by the IRA during the War of Independence has shed valuable light on a long concealed, deeply problematic and still highly sensitive secret that has, until recently, been preserved in local communities the length and breadth of Ireland.35
Furthermore, Fitzpatrick warns again the peril of crude stereotyping that so often accompanies commemoration; here again he sees historians playing a crucial role in challenging stereotypes. In this context, he also issues a warning against efforts to de–politicize the commemoration of the Crown forces in Ireland by reverting to use of stereotypical representations of the Black and Tans, the Auxillaries, and others.36 Here, like Keith Jeffery and Anne Dolan, Fitzpatrick presents us with some potentially difficult–to–swallow pills. Although on first reading it may seem bizarre, he suggests that one area in which we could have common commemoration is in relation to the Black and Tans in Ireland. He dismisses the notion, often advanced by conciliatory figures, that the Black and Tans behaved as they did because they themselves were victims of ‘brutalisation’. He backs up his claim citing comparative studies that have shown they were no more brutalized than the bulk of Europe’s male population who survived the Great War. Fitzpatrick argues that most atrocities committed by the Black and Tans were ‘largely the result of weakness of central control compounded by paranoia arising from ignorance of their opponents.’37 The same was true in the case of the IRA and the civilian population’s paranoia and ignorance of the Black and Tans.
Hence, Fitzpatrick suggests that a way forward in commemorating the War of Independence is to view this as a shared psychological problem inviting common commemoration, arising from ‘shared fear, ignorance and indiscipline’.38A controversial view indeed, but then the job of the historian and of good commemoration is to challenge, to unsettle, to probe debate and reflection in the hope of achieving deeper understanding of our historical past and how it has formed our outlooks, values and aspirations today.
Again and again, historians emphasise that the 1916 Rising, the Battle of the Somme, the Treaty, the Civil War are much more than significant historical events; they are also cultural products of generation after generation of Irish men and women, products whose significance is constantly changing. Thus, the Newcastle–based historian Róisín Higgins predicts that 2016 will be an opportunity ‘to assess the progress made in Ireland over one hundred years and to consider the benefits and abuses that have resulted from independence.’ The commemorations will, she believes, ‘operate as a bellwether for the Irish state and nation’, reflecting people’s view of the credibility of those who represent power in Ireland – north and south. As such, she argues, the commemorations will be ‘a telling indication of Irish citizenry’s relationship with authority.’39
Fearghal McGarry, from Queen’s University Belfast, approaches the commemoration of 1916 from a slightly different angle, seeing it as providing historians with an opportunity to advance a re-evaluation of the Rising on three counts. Firstly, it affords historians a chance to show that the Rising was in fact ‘infinitely more complex than the historical myth’ would have us believe.40 Secondly, he argues that although the memory of 1916 is frequently invoked to criticize the manifold short–comings of the present–day Irish State (most recently when the IMF intervened to address our financial crisis), there is a need for a much more nuanced understanding of rebel ideology since, on the basis of his study of the testimony of rank–and–file rebels, even in 1916 there were ‘tensions between the Proclamation’s egalitarian rhetoric and the social conservatism that characterized much of the revolutionary movement.’41 Lastly, and in common with Anne Dolan, McGarry stresses the need to interpret and commemorate the 1916 Rising as ‘part of the broader historical experience of the Great War rather than as an event that occurred parallel to it’42 on the grounds that the Great War backdrop ‘explains much that is otherwise inexplicable about the British State’s response to the 1916 rebellion’ and it aftermath (the Army’s willingness to devastate the city centre by artillery bombardment; the preemptory nature of the executions; the heavy–handed coercion that followed; the attempt to impose conscription).43
As I hope I have shown through introducing you to the perspectives of this selection of historians currently publishing in this field, there is consensus among most professional historians of the revolutionary period in Irish history today that in terms of the decade of commemoration, we should (in the words of David Fitzpatrick): ‘do our best to avoid the use of simplistic and exclusive dichotomies or facile attributions of motive; raise awkward issues, and above all, seek to broaden the terms of debate in this interminable round of national soul–searching that we now face’.44
I conclude with a recommendation for some reading. One of the hardest–hitting but challenging and stimulating studies of the fraught business of commemorating a key event of this era which appeared in recent years in is the TCD historian Anne Dolan’s book Commemorating the Irish Civil War: history and memory, 1923–2000, published by Cambridge University Press in 2003. Dolan asks a penetrating question which she pursues with a relentless incisiveness and humanity that one might wish to see underpinning all debate around this decade of commemorations:
She asks:
‘After civil war can the winners honour their victory; can they commemorate it; can they raise their flags, cry from their well–guarded rooftops; can they hail their conquered heroes with the blood of their comrades still fresh on their boots? Or does civil war, by its very nature, demand silence? Should the winners cover themselves in shame, bow their heads and hope that the nation forgets ‘our lamentable spasm of national madness’?45
With that thought, I thank you for your attention.”
Chair (John Clancy): “Thank you Mary Ann…. We will have a Question and Answer session after the presentations. Our next speaker is Gordon Lucy who will give a perspective from Northern Ireland…
2. Gordon Lucy (Belfast historian)
“First of all, I would like to thank you all for having me here today, particularly Julitta where I think the invitation originated, so I am very very grateful. May I also say that I am somewhat overawed by my predecessor because it was a tremendously substantial and meaty presentation compared to this rather feeble one I think in comparison.
France:
The Rough Guide to France used to describe Le Chambon-sur-Lignon as a ‘rambling, rather unattractive village with a somewhat faded air’. It doesn’t get a mention in the current edition of the Rough Guide at all. However, this village in Haute-Loire has two significant claims to fame. First, Albert Camus, who won the Nobel prize for literature in 1957, stayed nearby in 1942 and wrote part of The Plague [La Peste] here. Secondly, and more importantly, the town offered sanctuary to thousands of French Jews during the Second World War. In all, the people of Le Chambon may have saved the lives of as many as 5,000 Jews. In 1988, Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Institute, counted the war-time population of the village among the ‘Righteous among the Nations’. Le Chambon is the only place in France to have been accorded this honour.
Just before the 60th anniversary of D-Day, Jacques Chirac – the then French President – visited the village and claimed:
‘here in adversity, the soul of our nation manifested itself. Here was the embodiment of our country’s conscience‘.
Unfortunately, this assertion is not true. Robert Paxton, the American historian and political scientist, has estimated the number of active resisters to be ‘about 2% of the adult French population (or about 400,000)’. The post-war government of France offically recognized 220,000 men and women as active resisters.
Pierre Sauvage, a film-maker born in the village on 25 March 1944 and who emigrated to the United States, claimed:
‘There is nothing at all symbolic about Le Chambon as far as war-time France goes. Quite the contrary: it was the exception in a country that overwhelmingly submitted to the Nazi regime.‘
Secondly, in an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country, the area’s inhabitants were predominantly Protestant. Sauvage, a Jew, contends:
‘The key to their extraordinary behaviour during the war is their collective memory of their own persecuted past.’
One pastor told Sauvage: ‘The Jews felt close to us, because we believed in the Old Testament and they were people of the Old Testament.’ The day after France surrendered, Pastor André Trocmé told his congregation it was their duty to protect the Jews. His flock agreed: ‘Everybody knew of their presence and were involved in protecting them’. 46
Let’s fast forward a few years. In 2008, President Sarkozy, who is of Hungarian and Greek Jewish ancestry, stirred up a hornet’s nest with an instruction that every ten-year-old French pupil should know the identity of one of the 11,000 Jewish children who were deported from France to their deaths at Nazi hands. And in a speech to Jewish leaders on 13 February 2008, President Sarkozy said that France should be secular but positive about religion. ..’The tragedy of the 20th century was not born from an excess of the idea of God, but from His … absence‘.
Writing shortly afterwards in Libération, the French historian Henry Russo observed that for President Sarkozy, ‘The past has become a depository of political resources where everybody can pick what they want to serve their interests.’
Spain:
In a similar vein, there is a Spanish proverb: ‘History is a common meadow in which everyone can make hay.’
In The Spanish Holocaust, published in 2012, Paul Preston detailed the brutal and murderous persecution of Spaniards between 1936 and 1945: the mass extra-judicial murder of some 200,000 victims, cursory military trials, torture, the systematic abuse of women and children, sweeping imprisonment, the horrors of exile. Those culpable for crimes committed on both sides of the Civil War are named; their victims identified.
How have the Spanish coped with the turbulent past and can we identify any lessons for us?
After the death of General Franco in 1975, both the parties of the left and the right agreed that it was desirable to have a period of silence – the pact of forgetting (‘El Pacto de Olvido‘) – to underpin and facilitate the transition to democracy and to facilitate the reconciliation of the ‘Two Spains’ [‘Las dos Espaňas‘] which had confronted each other during the Civil War. 47
In October 2007, the then ruling PSOE [the Party of the Spanish Socialist Workers] passed a law of historical memory (la ley de memoria históica), assigning public funds to the families of victims of the Civil War (on both sides) and the victims of the Franco Regime so that they can exhume their bodies. The Law also formally condemned the Franco Regime. Two parties opposed the Law but for diametrically different reasons. The Popular Party accused the Socialists of weakening the political consensus which facilitated the transition to democracy and ‘using the Civil War as an argument for political propaganda’. However, in fairness, it is also worth noting that the Popular Party supported some elements of the Historical Memory Law, including seven amendments to the original text of the law, facilitating the ‘depoliticisation’ of the Valley of the Fallen (Valle de los Caídos, where Franco is buried) and monetary aid to victims of the Civil War and Franco regime.
The Republican Left of Catalonia, on the other hand, voted against the Law because it didn’t go far enough.
In 2011, the Popular Party returned to power after seven years in opposition, but the Party has neither repealed nor amended the Historical Memory Law. The Centre for Historical Documentation [Centro Documental de la Memoria Histórica] gives information on victims of Francoist repression, but the government has curtailed State help in the exhumation of victims – now that could be just simply as a result of the economic crisis, I just don’t pretend to know.
Interestingly enough, the United Nations has repeatedly urged Spain to repeal the pact of forgetting, for example in 2012, and again in 2013. The United Nations maintains that under international law amnesties do not apply to crimes against humanity.
Why Study History?
In 2008, Penelope J. Corfield (a professor of history at Royal Holloway, University of London) wrote:
‘All people and peoples are living histories. To take a few obvious examples: communities speak languages that are inherited from the past. They live in societies with complex cultures, traditions and religions that have not been created on the spur of the moment. People use technologies that they have not themselves invented. And each individual is born with a personal variant of an inherited genetic template, known as the genome, which has evolved during the entire life-span of the human species.
She then proceeds to observe:
‘understanding the linkages between the past and the present is absolutely basic for a good understanding of the condition of being human. That, in a nutshell, is why History matters. It is not just ‘useful’, it is essential.’
Elsewhere Professor Corfield writes that she is strongly opposed to the current trend in education-politics which elevates ‘Skills’ above ‘Knowledge’. That, she says, is not only wrong in principle but it also leads to an inadequate learning of skills, thus defeating the very aim of the ‘Skills’ mantra.
That would be a view I would share very strongly.
I also looked at the website of the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, because I have had the privilege of speaking at Irishfest in Milwaukee twice, and the Department of History offers the following excellent rationale as to why you should study history:
‘You should study history if you wish to learn how and why the world and its peoples came to be as they are today. History asks “How did things get to be this way?” There is nothing in the world that does not become more intriguing and far more mysterious – once we recognize the complicated events and causes that led to its creation.
At the same time, history also recognizes that there is far more to the past than the events that created the world we know today. As the British writer L.P. Hartley once famously remarked, “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” Recognizing what we share with people in the past, while simultaneously exploring how profoundly their lives differed from our own, provides some of history’s most fascinating insights.’
Cambridge University offers a similar rationale for studying history which has much to commend it:
‘The aim of studying history at university is to further your understanding and knowledge of the past and your ability to present that understanding and knowledge with clarity, insight and discrimination. The historian has to mine a large body of material efficiently; to evaluate its significance and utility in answering important questions about societies, institutions, cultures and individuals; and to order her or his thoughts on these matters succinctly, clearly, yet with sensitivity. The teaching that you will receive over the next three years is designed to develop these skills’
TheTeaching of History:
From the origins of national school systems in the 19th century, the teaching of history to promote national sentiment has been a high priority.
In most countries, history textbooks are tools to foster nationalism and patriotism, and give students the official line about national enemies. In many countries – probably most countries – history textbooks are sponsored by the national government and are written to put the national heritage in the most favourable light. For example, in Japan, mention of the Nanking Massacre has been removed from all textbooks and the entire Second World War is given at best cursory treatment. And of course Japan’s neighbours have complained bitterly about it, not least the Chinese. And of course, it was standard policy in communist countries to present only a rigid Marxist historiography.
In the United States after the Great War, a strong movement emerged at the university level and in public schools to teach courses in Western Civilization. And the reason for this was to assist their students to identify with the home countries in with Europe. Since the 1980s, in the United States attention has increasingly focused on teaching world history and requiring students to take courses in non-western cultures, to prepare students for life in a globalized economy.
In Northern Ireland the most popular subject for males at A-Level is mathematics, while the top choice for females was biology. The other three subjects in the top five are religious studies, history and English. 2, 260 students sat A-Level history this year, representing 7.2% of the total. That actually strikes me as quite shocking, not that so many people study history at A-Level in Northern Ireland but actually that so few do.
Through the study of history, students in Northern Ireland are expected to explore the key political, economic and social events that have helped shape today’s institutions, governments and societies. And there’s a wonderful wish-list of what History is supposed to achieve, particularly A-Level History:
A-Level History is supposed to –
‘develop an interest in and enthusiasm for history’
‘gain an appreciation of different identities within society and an appreciation of social, cultural, religious and ethnic diversity through the study of British and Irish history and aspects of European history’
That would be excellent too but I suspect that teachers are much more interested in enabling their pupils to pass their exams rather than achieve all those things.
It’s also supposed to –
‘develop the ability to ask relevant and significant questions about the past, to carry out research and evaluate conclusions;
‘gain an understanding of the nature of historical study, for example that history is concerned with historical interpretations based on available evidence’
If A-Level History in Northern Ireland achieved all the things it’s supposed to achieve I would think we would have grounds for being very happy indeed; I am just a little sceptical, I am conscious of the fact that I think that much of what passes for historical knowledge in Northern Ireland is on the level of ‘a man in a pub told me…’
Decade of Centenaries:
In June, 1988, in a talk at the Library of Congress in Washington DC, Roy Jenkins delivered a paper entitled ‘Should politicians know history?’ I just want to pick one line from it:
‘No communities are more difficult to bring together‘ – and he then cites Northern Ireland and Cyprus – ‘than those where the contemplation of ancient wrongs is a way of life.’ 48
We are in the midst of a decade of centenaries during which unionists and nationalists are celebrating, commemorating or marking centenaries of a wide variety of events. Some people have viewed these anniversaries with fear and trepidation, and they may still be proved right.
However we could approach this decade of centenaries in a different spirit; we could embrace these anniversaries as opportunities to learn about the past, to reflect soberly on those events, and to evaluate their significance. Above all, these anniversaries afford us the opportunity to explore the complex relationship between the past and the present and to contemplate the challenging relationship between the past and the future.
The Peace III Southern Partnership, based in Newry & Mourne, Craigavon, Banbridge and Armagh Council areas, has been conspicuously successful in enabling people on both sides of the border to move beyond ‘the contemplation of ancient wrongs‘ and consider the past more dispassionately and more objectively. The Partnership has organised a travelling exhibition, talks and lectures and conferences in both Newry and Dundalk. These have all been well-received and I would like to see the Peace III Southern Partnership’s efforts extended to the rest of Northern Ireland – and other parts of the Republic should the demand exist. I would be of the opinion that the demand clearly exists in County Louth, I am not too sure about County Meath.
And one of the reasons why I am so keen to see Peace III Southern Partnership’s efforts extended throughout the rest of Northern Ireland is that, as Professor Lyons has already said, two Ministers were appointed to oversee the Decade of Centenaries in Northern Ireland and it’s not exactly obvious to me what precisely they have done. There is a job of work to be done, but it is not being done, and it would be nice to see the efforts of Peace III Southern Partnership extended … what I would suggest is that time spent studying these events is a significant investment in the future. Thanks very much.”
Chair (John Clancy): “Thank you very much, Gordon. I would like now to call on Senator Thomas Byrne…”
3. Senator Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fáil Seanad spokesperson on Public Expenditure and Reform)
Thanks very much for having me speak here this morning, and I would of course like to give the apologies of my party leader Micheál Martin who was originally invited to speak but unfortunately could not be here this morning, and he sends his best wishes and regards to both societies and for the seminar.
If Gordon Lucy feels feeble, I certainly feel that after both those presentations, and indeed it’s a privilege to speak on the panel alongside them.
I suppose I do have some practical experience in this area because I am a member of a political party that actually carries out commemorations on an annual basis in various parts of the country and indeed in part of County Meath as well. But I suppose the very fact that we have to discuss commemorations shows that they are problematic, and those of us in political parties can often overlook the problematic elements of Irish commemorations when we do indeed carry them out.
Commemorations in other countries – France for example – don’t appear to be so complicated. I suppose their main focus of commemoration generally is of the birth of the nation state…
In Ireland, because of the diversity of traditions – both north and south, and then within the political party structure in this country – we have a wide variety of commemorations not all of which relate back to the commemoration of the foundation of the State. In fact the foundation of the State itself is disputed….
From a personal and practical experience, the commemoration of the Civil War in this country is the most problematic of all, and I was taken by Professor Lyons’ quotation from Dr Anne Dolan of Trinity – ‘does civil war demand silence?’ And I have to be honest, I have often thought that myself … That would present further complications in the early part of the next decade. I myself come from a family that, on one side, was very active in the Civil War – on the republican side – in this area, and on the other side, my grandfather and two of his brothers were gardaí at the foundation of the State, and they certainly weren’t on the republican side … in that era.
These commemorations are complicated, and they are increasingly complicated …. and we do have to think carefully, we do have to think of the sacrifices made by the people who died and the ideals and the visions and the values that they had, and the reality of what they did, and the good that they did, but also recognise that at the time there was another point of view which was oftentimes radically different.
So we have a lot of commemorations, and I suppose what is happening – and I am not sure if it is positive – is that many people, depending on their own particular political or social position, are latching on to a particular commemoration, saying ‘we’ll commemorate that‘, and we have certain groups – and I am not criticising any of them, all of these events deserve to be commemorated – but the point I am making is that some people perhaps commemorate them more than others do.
The Lockout [Dublin, 1913] has particular resonance for maybe the Labour Party and the trade union movement. That’s to be recongised. Maybe other parties on the political sphere didnt get involved so much. The Civil War, as I mentioned, will be commemorated by many, but maybe not by everybody in society. And then we have commemorations connected to the Unionist tradition which will perhaps be given more emphasis in that tradition….
What I would be arguing for is that we really should decide as an Irish nation what is the most important commemoration, and by that I mean what is the commemoration that celebrates the foundation of the State … and the ideals of the State we are in, the ideals that we live for? And in my view that must mean the Easter 1916 commemoration, that must be the one thing that gives us common purpose in the Irish nation, and particularly as an Irish republican…. and we must give recognition to that as a key stepping stone in making our country free, if we are to be honest about it.
There were men and women who fought for those ideals in 1916, including guaranteeing religious and civil liberties, equal rights and opportunities for all … cherishing the children of the nation equally….
The key principles of the 1916 Rising have to be, in my view, the cornerstone of Ireland today, how we interact together as a country and how we emerged from that Civil War, but also how we relate across the border, the two parts of this island….
So we should remember them with reverence, with regard, and with – I would say – recognition of the fact that the Irish state in its modern form was born at that time.
Now I would say as well that there are certain elements at official level and at Government level which maybe aren’t as keen to emphasise the importance of the 1916 Rising and the commemoration thereof. And in the experience of some of my colleagues who serve on the Decade of Commemorations committee, they certainly have the feeling that the 1916 Rising – which in our view, and in my view, is the most important of the commemorations – that that is being kind of played down at official level and at Government level, and that the Decade of Commemorations is giving equality to a wide variation of commemorations when in fact it is the 1916 commemoration which in our view should be celebrated as the most important one, as the key moment in the modern history of the State.
The 1600 men and women who went out on Easter Week took on an empire on which the sun had never set at that time – by the time the First World War had finished, there were 17 million men mobilised … the Irish Volunteers at the time were taking on 11,000 to 1...
We did at that time obtain our freedom as a nation – and I am being deliberately controversial here – but we must recognise that, that we were able to get our freedom, and we cannot be embarrassed about commemorating that. There is in my view an element of that going on at the moment.
Now what we have done, at a practical level, in our party is to commemorate in Ashbourne, particularly the battle of Ashbourne, and we also commemorate Philip Clarke of Monknewtown who died in Stephen’s Green in Dublin.
The economic benefits were mentioned, I think, in passing at the very start – and I suppose it is right in an historic forum not to emphasise them – but I think it is important that we do show ourselves as a modern nation, as a state that is happy in itself, happy together looking north and south … but is not ashamed to say these are the historical facts, what happened…
And while, as Professor Lyons said, it is important to look at the ordinary lives of people at the time, the extraordinary sacrifice of a relatively small amount of men and women who went out in 1916 should be recognised with poignancy in this State.
I am not saying that you ignore everything else, it’s important we commemorate all the sacrifices, all of the events that went on including the terrible Civil War that took place, and I have questioned myself whether we should almost forget that … …. but I think the 1916 Rising was such a key event in this country and it should be the key celebration. And it’s not controversial for me whether the royal family are here …. I don’t think that’s the point. The real point is that we show ourselves as a forward-looking independent nation that is proud …
Chair (John Clancy): Thank you Senator. This morning has been an excellent session. Professor Lyons has opened the kaleidoscope in terms of the dilemmas of historians, and the danger of how history can be treated. I’m going to invite questions from the floor. I did like Gordon’s idea of history being like the ‘meadow’ in which we all can make hay’….
Gordon Lucy: “I was quoting that….!”
John Clancy: “Nonetheless it is true… And [we had] Senator Thomas Byrne’s point that 1916 is the core issue in terms of the celebrations of this decade of centenaries. So we invite questions…..
QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS (Summary)
Q1. “Can I ask a question to each panel member? Three questions, and after that I’ll keep quiet!
(i)for Gordon: “should we have politicians at all or just have historians and technocrats to administer the way a country is run?
(ii)for Professor Lyons: “can we really face the truth, or whatever the truth is, and how do we bring that out into the public space – in a tentative manner or more robustly?
(iii)to Senator Byrne: “is 1916 finished or is there any unfinished business there? And what exactly do you mean by the Irish State, or the Irish nation?”
Chair (John Clancy): We have quite a lot to go with there. Can I ask the speakers to take them in the order that the questions were given.
Gordon Lucy: “I think I regard politicians increasingly as a necessary evil. I’ll leave it at that!
Professor Mary Ann Lyons: “I was very struck by something that the Senator said which was this idea of embarrassment.It’s something that iscoming through more and more in the literature about commemoration in Ireland. If you look at how in the immediate years after the ‘teens’ in Ireland, there is this recurrent pattern of embarrassment in the government and polities but also in local communities. And I think something that could be quite positive that might come out of this decade is by actually exploring the realities of what went on in this ten year period that we might actually take out and address why we are embarrassed, what’s so awkward? And by shedding or throwing light on those awkward questions, those things that people are partly ashamed of or feel awkward about, that in the process then you can dust yourself down …and begin to move on and say ‘this is where we are now, warts and all’.
Part of the problem I think has been that there has been a reluctance to go beyond the familiar narrative and the familiar myth. I think that’s what’s really exciting actually about now and history is that people are lifting stones and seeing sometimes quite ugly realities, but getting a much more real sense of what happened in Ireland in that ten years. And I think that will help us move on, much more mature …”
Sen. Thomas Byrne: “I had an answer to the first question actually – we already have technocrats and historians running the country and I’m not sure whether the politicians have too much influence … the civil servants have the entire say! But the point that I’m trying to sort of form in my own head – I think many people still are in this country – is what is Ireland, and you asked the questions. And I suppose that if we were to say ‘well, the 1916 Rising – this is what the State is about, this is what the nation is about’ – and I refer to the modern sense of it, it’s an attempt to take the Rising for that purpose and I think there’s some justification for doing that.
But that’s not to say that people who were involved in other events of that time are not relevant. I was very pleased to see – maybe some of you were there …. the Bellewstown Historical Society commemorating all the men who went to fight in the First World War … to see the names of the people commemorated there, they are all local names, they all have relations living around there, but that was hidden in this country for quite some time. I can think of one Fianna Fail councillor long dead whose father fought in the First World War, and that was certainly an unspoken topic, that was never mentioned. And I think that if there is one thing that is hugely positive about the Decade of Commemorations …. is that these things that were closed down in Irish society for a long time are now being remembered and commemorated.
And when I make the point about 1916, I’m not trying to say that they were terrible, listening to John Redmond and going over there – absolutely not! I mean some of them did it for his reasons, some of them did it out of sheer economic necessity. But when you actually see the names of the people who went over there to fight in World War One, and to realise that each and everyone of them you know who their relations are, and that this was never mentioned! It was never something I learned in school … there were always Remembrance Day commemorations in towns around the place but they weren’t community events I suppose, they were maybe one tradition … But now I see a much more involved commemoration of those events, and I think … the principles of 1916, and the principles of the Proclamation – that’s the practical application of it, I hope, even if it is not exactly what the people of the time had in mind.
Q2: “Just two comments… Seven years ago I went to a seminar in St Patrick’s College Drumcondra on slavery, which related to the whole issue of human trafficking today. So that’s the first point I want to make, about the strength of the arguments that teaching history is irrelevant to the development of human rights in the broader sense today
The second point I want to make is more significant, and that’s on tools of analysis, because I don’t think it’s enough to have information about history, and knowledge about history, without understanding, and there I think there is a deficit that could perhaps be enrichened … one has the opportunity through the study of politics and philosophy and so on. To give an example of what I mean – outside an academic setting …. for example, at the Kells Hay Festival I gave a lecture on Francis Ledwidge and I said what I thought were some provocative and challenging things, that at the end of the day I thought he was wrong to go to war. On another occasion, I talked about … a young Meath man who ended up as a strike-breaker in 1913 in Dublin and was killed … But there was very little response, because I think people don’t have the tools of analysis to engage these issues properly, we don’t have the confidence. And in that context, the default position is usually a conservative position – and these issues aren’t adequately addressed. So if I could just get a response from the panel to the second issue in particular?
Professor Lyons: “ … I am not sure that it’s a question that people don’t have the analytical capability, or the analytical skills. I think if you look, for example, at the popularity of, say, Michael Collins …. as opposed to, say, Arthur Griffith. I think we need to be conscious that we are very susceptible to the cult of personality, and in that context, for example, film representations of iconic charismatic characters in history.
And sometimes it’s down to simply a question of the idea of a particular character being out there, being constantly portrayed, as – in his case – the role of the unfulfilled hero… and all of that. And there’s a degree of laziness on the part of not just historians but also of the wider public, to actually look beyond that very attractive character for other more complicated, less charismatic characteristics, but it’s nonetheless extremely important. So I think we are very comfortable with the traditional narrative … and part of what we are trying to do now is to look beyond that, trying to get the sense of a much more complicated picture and to dare to ask … I have a colleague who is a military historian who had the audacity to say that Padraig Pearse was not a wonderful military leader, some of the students complained, ‘how dare he say that?’ But Padraig Pearse was an ideologue, he certainly wasn’t a military strategist, yet there’s that protectiveness around Pearse’s character. So it does take bravery, it takes confidence as well, but it also takes work to follow up …”
Sen. Byrne: ‘Just to follow up on Professor Lyons there – you can compare I suppose the public knowledge and perception of Francis Ledwidge with that of John Boyle O’Reilly. Both of them lived right beside each other, and yet Francis Ledwidge is much more widely known than John Boyle O’Reilly who was the republican. I don’t know why that is, maybe just the poems are just better known, but they are both very important people from the same area. Ledwidge is on the school curriculum, I suppose, it’s as simple as that, he’s better known, maybe his memory is preserved very well there. I certainly grew up going to the John Boyle O’Reilly commemoration with my uncle…
Q.3: “ I would like to ask – is it the way we actually teach history that we are so different? For instance, if we are supposed to be talking about a shared island now, that period we are talking about, pre the 1913 Lockout, from the early 1900s – if that were taught right up to 1916, right up to ’22, ’23 and beyond, you have a different mindset because you are covering all things, and you can’t cover all of them without covering north and south, and particularly the Somme… And this idea that men were great in 1916 – any man who gives his life for anything is great – but are they lesser men because they went out to Europe and they actually died in the fields or whatever, and they had this notion of home rule anyway… So, I am just thinking north and south here, if that were taught, that whole period, it would leave us much more attuned as to what actually happened, both north and south, for A-Level and for Leaving Cert?
And another thing I feel strongly about is when we commemorate something… it’s always soldiers, men out there in black suits with white shirts telling us about their perspective of history. So if we had schools like this [seminar], summer schools in conjunction with all of that, surely the next generation would learn far more, and I actually think you have got to start from an historical perspective in the schools, and I just wonder if there are any moves made by anybody in that area, either north or south?
Sen. Thomas Byrne: “Just in relation to our own party commemorations – and the other parties have their commemorations – our commemorations are very old-fashioned, they really are, and it is probably about time for us to look at how we actually do them. There is kind of a militaristic tone to some of them … it actually got laughed at in one of the papers a couple of years ago, the Daily Mail, there was a picture, two or three of the flag-bearers weren’t wearing caps, wearing quasi-military garb, it doesnt look modern. Personally I would move on from that, we need to look at how we have our commemorations. What we try and do – I have given orations here locally and the party leader does them when we commemorate Wolfe Tone or when we commemorate 1916 or the Civil War and the individuals in them- we do try and look at the relevant text, the Proclamation in the case of 1916, or we look at the lives of the people who died in particular commemorations and we try to apply that to modern life.
These things are sensitive too though because in many places there are very close relatives still alive for whom these ceremonies are extremely important…
Questioner: “I have people who were involved in the War of Independence and the Civil War. I have gone right back through genealogies to what they did. Some of them I approve of, some of them I certainly do not, but that’s up to me to interpret what my vision is going to be, and that vision should be shared by each person. Just because it’s sensitive does not mean it shouldn’t be out there. It’s okay having all these commemorations … and the amount of people that are actually studying history, and of that, how many are going on to TCD or any of these colleges, who actually take it as a degree… Where are the informed, is there an intelligentsia behind the Government who are informing them, I sometimes do wonder about that?
Sen. Thomas Byrne: “The first point you made, about your own personal story. I get my own conflicting impressions of the Civil War, coming from two sides, that’s a difficulty I have, and everybody has difficulties. You mentioned the Somme and the First World War, and I agree with a lot of what you said there…”
Q.4: “When you reflect back, 1916, the Civil War, they generated an awful lot of hatred…..there was a negativity generated in Ireland. I see it in lots of little places, different areas, Catholics didnt like Protestants, and Protestants didnt like Catholics and I suppose the poor old Jew, he wasnt happy either… Negativity on a vast scale – how did it influence modern Ireland as it is at the moment, and if it has forged the bitterness in us, how long do you think it might last?
Mary Ann Lyons: “.. the complexity of trying to commemorate that period is down to precisely what you have put your finger on now, which is, that when people were killing each other with different causes in mind, obviously that left a huge legacy, and as Irish people we had some success in generating different strategies for dealing with that – in some instances it’s trying to ignore what happened, in government or in society in general, in some instances it’s silence, not talking about it..…. The legacy of it is, for us sitting here today, is trying not to shoe-horn the experiences of those people into some sort of an anodyne commemoration where we put people who would be turning in their graves if they thought they would be put in the same sentence … This is where I think that group in Belfast have really developed something very important which is there will be a shared experience but different traditions. It recognises that, in some respects, never the twain shall meet ….
Gordon Lucy: “There’s a lot to be said for just agreeing to differ… The Senator’s view on 1916 and mine don’t exactly dovetail, but I won’t fall out with the Senator on it. … At school I spent a term and a half studying 1916…. but I still end up with a different perspective on it from the Fianna Fáil Party. We just agree to differ.”
Thomas Byrne: “There was some research done … in DCU – on these differences in Irish society and they believe that they are tribal and go back many hundreds of years in fact, but that the Civil War showed them up, and they may continue for many more hundreds of years in other forms, I don’t know.”
Q.5: “I remember growing up in the 1960s, we got the Proclamation in 1966, I remember people with poppies out, I remember we got a free day off school on 21st January 1969 for the 50th anniversary of the First Dáil. Those commemorations then disappeared and it’s only in recent years there has been a procession past the GPO, I think that was re-introduced around 2006, so how we remember and why we were embarrassed for those 30 or 40 years to commemorate those things I am not sure.
If we look now at this Decade of Commemorations, there is only one county council – as far as I know – in the whole of Ireland that has put together a document (I think that is Mayo) – and with the election of new councils this year the emphasis was on positions on committees and things, and I think in our neighbouring county, Cavan, one political party tried to go back and re-negotiate who was getting [the office of] Cathaoirleach for 2016! They realised afterwards that it was of such significance for their political party that they wanted to be Cathaoirleach or Chairman of the particular area for one part or the other part of that year. So I suppose, how we commemorate, and the emphasis of the commemoration, and history – as Professor Lyons said – the vast majority didn’t know about 1916, and it raises the question as well: do we remember those people who died as martyrs or heroes, without any human faults? I am struck with the Civil War – one side remembers Michael Collins, the other side remembers Liam Mellowes, the martyrs are remembered with rose-tinted glasses. And maybe that’s where we are headed in relation to 2016 – that some people want to remember it with rose-tinted glasses, and the rest of the people won’t have anything to do with it because of that.
Chair (John Clancy). “Thank you – we’ll take the next question, this is the last question.”
Q.6. “It’s not so much a question as an observation. First of all, thank you very much to all the speakers, a wonderful presentation. I was struck by what Gordon said aboutamnesia in Spain. I have been in a number of countries where I came across the same thing, but in different ways. In Austria, where I was until a few years ago, there was a strong amnesia factor at work there about the role of the Austrian people, the Austrian State, in the Anschluss and subsequent events which has only in recent years begun to be rolled back and recovered. And it’s the subject of lively debate in Austria up to the present day. And it used to be said – Austrians themselves used to say – that Beethoven was an Austrian and Hitler was a German, whereas the opposite of course is the case, because that’s what suited their view of history. In contrast to that, in Italy, you have a diferent kind of amnesia, amnesia to a certain agree about the Mussolini Fascist period, but what totally infuses Italian politics right up to the present day is the Civil War that took place after the capitulation of Mussolini and the division into the Left and the Right, the partisans on the Left and the pro-Fascist rump on the right. That is still the essential division in Italian politics today so these things do sometimes have a different kind of amnesiac effect.
I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s here and we had our own amnesia about the events of the Civil War in particular, but even about the 1919-21 period. Very little was taught about it in the schools, we as kids only learned about it through commemorations that took place at that time. Now – as Danny was saying – we have sources and resources, we now have a much better database of resources available to us…..”[tape incomplete]
Closing the first session, John Clancy thanked all the speakers and participants and invited all to return after the break for the 2nd session “The Place of History in Irish Education” chaired by Peter Connell and addressed by Damien English TD (Minister of State at the Dept of Education and Skills), Professor Fionnuala Waldron (Dean of Education, SPD/DCU) and Niamh Crowley (Vice-President, History Teachers Association).
Session II – report in progress – below are some comments made in relation to the Decade of Centenaries:
Speaking in Session II – “the place of history in Irish education”, Minister of State Damien English TD (Fine Gael)also addressed the theme of the Decade of Centenaries: “I note that the final event on this Society’s calendar for 2014 is linked to the events of a hundred years ago [MAHS lecture by Ruth Illingworth on “National Volunteers and Irish Volunteers 1914-16”, Nov. 26th, St Mary’s Church of Ireland, Navan at 7.30pm]. I think you will be happy to know that my Department and the educators of Ireland continue to be heavily involved in what is called the Decade of Centenaries.
Every historian likes to argue that their research period is the most seminal in history. However, those involved in researching the events of 1912-1922 have a considerable advantage in this regard. This decade witnessed some of the most traumatic events of Irish history and directly led to state formation on both sides of the border. These events include the Home Rule crisis; the formation of the Ulster and Irish Volunteer Forces; World War 1; the 1916 rebellion; the formation of the 1st Dáil; the War of Independence, and many more.
My Department is seeking to ensure that the education sector contributes to and benefits from the commemoration of these seminal events in Irish history. The ‘Decade of Centenaries’ all-island schools’ history competition was a significant success in this regard in the last school year. The competition, which was a joint venture by my Department and the Department of Education in Northern Ireland, with support from ‘History Ireland’, stimulated a remarkable response from primary and post primary schools across the island.
The winning competition entry, ‘The Mystery of the Medal’, was produced by a primary school in Donegal. It was a fascinating story which combined a number of narratives – World War 1, the war of independence, and the civil war –which impacted on the history of one particular family from Tipperary. The enthusiasm of the students and teachers who got involved in the competition indicates the passion for history that exists across the island. All 12 of the winning essays are available to view on the scoilnet website which is funded by my Department and we are hoping to run a similar competition again in this new school year.
My Department is also currently working with the Royal Irish Academy to develop history lesson plans for post primary schools. These plans focus on items that have been selected from the ‘A history of Ireland in 100 objects’ series for their relevance to the ‘decade of centenaries’ period. The lesson plans are currently being developed by the RIA and will be launched later in 2014.
In addition, my Department hopes to be able to support a number of potential ‘flagship’ projects in the third level sector that are relevant to the period 1912-1922. The intention is that any projects funded in this manner will involve schools as well as third level institutions. My Department is determined to ensure that its contributions to the ‘Decade of Centenaries’ commemorations are as accessible and inclusive as possible. ”
Professor Fionnuala Waldron (Dean of Education, SPD/DCU) asked some key questions in relation to the commemoration of 1916: “how do we manage the tensions between celebration and commemoration in the context of child education, between the expectation of many parents and some teachers that what children should experience is an uncomplicated, consensual national narrative and the recognition that 1916 cannot and should not be reduced to a single story? What kind of context does the Irish classroom provide for such engagement?How important is it for student teachers to interrogate their own assumptions and perceptions of past events? Is child education an appropriate space to engage with those tensions?”
ENDS
Seminar recorded by Anne Nolan; report compiled and edited by Julitta Clancy.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON SPEAKERS and CHAIR
Mary Ann Lyons is Professor of History and Head of the History Dept at NUI Maynooth. She is President of the Irish Historical Society and Chair of the Irish Committee for Historical Sciences. Professor Lyons’s publications include France and Ireland, 1500-1610: politics, migration and trade (London, 2003); Church and Society in County Kildare, c.1470-1547 (Dublin, 2000); Gearóid Óg, the ninth earl of Kildare (Dundalk, 1998), and (with Thomas O’Connor) Strangers to Citizens: the Irish in Europe, 1600-1800 (2008).
Gordon Lucy is the author of Schomberg (2004), The Great Convention (1995) and a new edition of The Ulster Covenant (2012). He has co-edited (with John Erskine) Varieties of Scottishness (1995), which examines the relationship between Ulster and Scotland, and (with Elaine McClure) The Twelfth: What it means to me (1997), Remembrance (1997) and Cool Britannia? What Britishness means to me (1999)
Thomas Byrne is Fianna Fáil Spokesperson on Public Expenditure and Reform in Seanad Éireann (Senate). A solicitor by profession, he previously served as TD for Meath East from 2007 to 2011. Most recently he ran as his party’s candidate in the Midlands-North West constituency for the 2014 European Parliament election.
Chair: John Clancy is President of the M.A.H.S. and a member of the Meath Peace Group. An architect by profession, he has been very involved in the preparation of the M.A.H.S. submissions on planning/heritage issues, and is one of the Society’s representatives on the Meath Heritage Forum.
Seminar organisers: Julitta Clancy and Kevin Reilly with assistance from the committees of both groups.
Acknowledgments: The Meath Peace Group and the Council of the Meath Archaeological and Historical Society would like to thank all who have participated in this seminar and all who have helped with planning, publicity, organisation and catering on the day. In particular we thank the speakers and chairpersons, the organisers, and the audience, some of whom travelled long distances. Special thanks are due to Cllr Jim Holloway, Chair of Meath Co. Council (who opened the seminar), to Anne Nolan, Marie Cosgrave, Leona Rennicks and Canon John Clarke, and to the Columban Fathers and Lisa and David of Dalgan Park for assistance on the day, and to the Dept of Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund for financial assistance given to the Meath Peace Group.
MPG and MAHS report; (c) Meath Peace Group and Meath Archaeological and Historical Society
footnotes
1 Tom Dunne, ‘Commemorations and ‘shared’ history: a different role for historians’ in History Ireland, 21, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 20130, p. 10.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid., pp 10–11.
5 Ibid., p. 11.
6 Cited by Dunne in ibid., p. 11.
7 Ibid., p. 12.
8 Quoted in Dunne, ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 Quoted in Dunne, ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Quoted in ibid.
13 Ibid., p. 13.
14 Quoted in ibid.
15 Anne Dolan, ‘Divisions and divisions and divisions: who to commemorate’ in John Horne and Edward Madigan (eds), Towards commemoration: Ireland in war and revolution, 1912–1923 (Dublin, 2013), p. 151.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
20 Keith Jeffery, ‘Irish varieties of Great War commemoration’ in Horne & Madigan (eds), Towards commemoration, p. 123.
21 Ibid., p. 123.
22 Ibid., p. 124.
23 Ibid.
24 David Fitzpatrick, ‘Historians and the commemoration of Irish conflicts, 1912–23’ in Horne & Madigan (eds), Towards commemoration, p. 126.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid., pp 126–27.
27 Ibid., p. 128.
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid., p. 127.
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid.
35 Professor Eunan O’Halpin was principal investigator on an Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences–funded project The Dead of the Irish Revolution. For an introduction to one aspect of this project see his essay titled ‘Problematic killing during the War of Independence and its aftermath: civilian spies and informers’ in James Kelly and Mary Ann Lyons (eds), Death and dying in Ireland, Britain and Europe: historical perspectives (Dublin, 2013), pp 317–48.
36 Fitzpatrick, ‘Historians & the commemoration of Irish conflicts, 1912–23’, pp 127–8.
37 Ibid., p. 128.
38 Ibid.
39 Róisín Higgins, Transforming 1916: meaning, memory and the fiftieth anniversary of the Easter Rising (Cork, 2012), p. 209.
40 Fearghal McGarry, ‘1916 and Irish Republicanism: between myth and history’ in Horne & Madigan (eds), Towards commemoration, p. 52.
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid.
43 Ibid.
44 Fitzpatrick, ‘Historians & the commemoration of Irish conflicts, 1912–23’, p. 129.
45 Anne Dolan, Commemorating the Irish Civil War: history and memory, 1923–2000 (Cambridge, 2003), p. 4; see also David Fitzpatrick, Ireland and the First World War (Dublin, 1986); Ian McBride (ed.), History and memory in modern Ireland (Cambridge, 2001); Mary E. Daly and Margaret O’Callaghan (eds), 1916 in 1966: commemorating the Easter Rising (Dublin, 2007); Catherine Switzer, Unionists and Great War commemoration in the north of Ireland, 1914–1918 (Dublin 2007); Mark McCarthy, Ireland’s 1916 Rising: explorations of history–making, commemoration & heritage in modern times (Farnham, 2012).
46The were hidden in private homes, on farms in the area, as well as in public institutions. Whenever the Nazi patrols came searching, they were hidden in the countryside. After the war, one of the villagers recalled: “As soon as the soldiers left, we would go into the forest and sing a song. When they heard that song, the Jews knew it was safe to come home.” In addition to providing shelter, the citizens of the town obtained forged identification and ration cards for Jews to use and then helped them cross the border to the safety of neutral Switzerland.
47A consensual agreement to simply “forget” and never to discuss the war or the 40-year dictatorship that followed it.
48Roy Jenkins, ‘Should Politicians Know History’, in Roy Jenkins, Portraits and Miniatures, Selected Writings (London, 1993), 212
Meath Peace Group Talks
No. 67 – ‘Towards a Shared Future: Ballymena’
Monday, 21st May 2007
Newgrange Hotel, Navan, Co. Meath
Speakers:
Jackie Patton (Community Relations Officer, Ballymena)
Delia Close (Vice-chair, Ballymena District Policing Partnership)
Ronnie Hassard (Principal, Ballymena Academy)
Kate Magee (Principal, St. Patrick’s College, Ballymena)
Jeremy Gardiner (Community relations development officer, Youthlink)
Fr. Paul Symonds (Kirkinriola parish, Ballymena)
Chaired by
Máirín Colleary (CEO, Glencree Centre for Reconciliation)
Contents:
Official welcome: Cllr. Andy Brennan, Deputy Mayor of Navan
Jackie Patton
Delia Close
Ronnie Hassard
Kate Magee
Jeremy Gardiner
Fr. Paul Symonds
Questions and comments
Biographical notes on speakers
©Meath Peace Group 2007
‘Towards a Shared Future: Ballymena’
Welcome and introductions:
Julitta Clancy, Meath Peace Group: “Good evening everyone and thank you. We are meeting in the summer and there is an election campaign so we do very much appreciate you coming at this time. We want to particularly welcome our friends from Ballymena who have come a long distance to be with us and Cllr. Andy Brennan, the Deputy Mayor of Navan for the official welcome. I also wish to thank Mairin Colleary, Chief Executive of the Glencree Centre for Reconciliation who very kindly agreed to chair this talk for us. …
Cllr. Andy Brennan, Deputy Mayor of Navan: “Thank you…. I am deeply honoured to be in such great company, especially our friends from across the border. Peace has always been my priority. I served 25 years in the Defence Forces and I have been a Councillor for 14 years and I think that if we can’t have peace in our time there is something terribly wrong. I am looking forward to tonight’s discussion. So I will just say thanks very much for coming and I am deeply honoured to be here.”
Máirín Colleary (Chief Executive, Glencree Centre for Reconciliation) – Guest chair:
“First of all, I am greatly honoured to have been asked by Julitta to come here this evening and to chair this very interesting talk by the Meath Peace Group. I think their talks have been remarkable and I know they have sparked enormous interest in many people. I’m also very keen that we all focus on a shared future because we in Ireland have long memories …. and I think looking towards the future is something that we all need to learn to do and to do with confidence. Now that the political vacuum has been healed and there is a proper government in charge of the affairs of Northern Ireland I think that it is really important that we all look to the future. As somebody said to me recently: ‘I hope it is a shared future and not a shared out future’. So I think it is very important that we focus on that and I am delighted to chair this panel of speakers. I would just like to introduce quickly our first speaker, Jackie Patton, who has been with Ballymena Borough Council since 1988. She is Community Relations Officer for the Council and manages the Council’s Good Relations functions …..
1. Jackie Patton (Community Relations Officer, Ballymena):
“First can I just start by thanking you for the opportunity to be here tonight. We certainly appreciate it. It is always very nice to be amongst friends and to deliver the message in terms of what we are trying to do in Ballymena borough. If I just first give you a wee bit in terms of my background: I was born and bred in Ballymena and very proud of it. I am into my 41st year of living in the borough. My parents’ marriage was actually a mixed marriage, so I come from that. I was brought up Church of Ireland. I went to Ballymena County Primary which would have been a predominantly Protestant school and then went on to Ballymena Academy.
Ballymena Borough Council: “Basically, in terms of the makeup of our Council, I am not sure. I don’t think local authorities down here maybe necessarily have the same services as we would have. We have about half a dozen departments within the Council. They range from the Chief Executive’s Department, from building control to leisure and cultural services, through to the personnel policy department – of which I am a member of staff – to finance and estates and on to district public health. So we have a wide range. We have roughly about 350 staff.
“Our council is made up of 24 members. [Up to recently] …we would have had about 14 DUP, 2 SDLP, 1 Sinn Fein, 5 Ulster Unionists and 4 Independents. 6 of the DUP defected after the recent events….
Community relations programme: “In terms of the history of the Community Relations Programme within the Council. I am the Community Relations Officer and have been in the post since October 1991. The job has totally evolved from one in the initial days where I was organising a whole host of community relations events in the town – from an arts festival to sports events, to switching on the Christmas lights – a whole range of those sorts of things, whereas in 1998 after the Good Friday Agreement our funders felt that councils should be much more proactive in terms of promoting good relations.
‘So from that we decided we would promote a good relations strategy whereby we had eight or nine key themes ranging from cultural traditions to single identity work, to work with ethnic minorities, to work with a range of sports groups and inter-church work. Then we had the much more focused areas in terms of intimidation and territory marking, working with the likes of flags that would have been erected in the borough, the likes of bonfires – all very difficult sensitive issues. So, certainly as a department, we have been very involved with the likes of that. We also have various training sessions with our elected members in terms of affording space to go away to discuss sensitive issues within the borough. That has all been behind closed doors and again that has been difficult work to try to manage and to evolve, but our members have been part of it and certainly I think they have learnt from those processes. We also then have a whole range of Good Relations training seminars for our own staff within the council. So that really gives you a wee bit of the background as a borough council of what we are trying to do.
“Our Good Relations strategy is currently being evaluated and reviewed. Some of the key findings at this stage are in terms of shared space and civic dialogue, those sorts of issues. I would say probably in terms of the next three months we should be ready to take that to council in terms of our new Good Relations strategy.
“Back in 2003 we produced this document here which was sent around all the households in Ballymena and we entitled it ‘A Shared Environment’. It was around the time whenever the ‘A Shared Future’ document was actually being negotiated and was being consulted upon widely. So this document here gave our residents an opportunity to see as a department what we were involved in. Basically it went through the whole range of services – I have some copies here for people at the end….. it went around a lot of people and gave them an opportunity to tell us what they thought were the good relations issues in the borough at that time. Quite a number of people came back and filled this in, just to make sure that we were actually on the right track.
“In terms of projects, we work externally and we work internally. We have a very small department within the council. There is myself. I have a line manager and I have an assistant and we have an administrative person, so it is a very small department basically to try and disable that whole wide range of sectarian incidents.
Sectarian incidents: “Around 2005 the borough was very much badly affected by a range of sectarian incidents from petrol bombings to sectarian assaults, a whole range of things. I think I am right in saying we had a figure of about 80 assaults, various incidents of intimidation and racism in the period of about 4 to 5 months. So from that the council were obviously very concerned in terms of what was happening within our borough and at that stage we very much worked along with the Mayor in terms of trying to develop some form of civic dialogue to try and move things forward. So we will give you some details of that as we go on.
Ethnic minorities: “In terms of external projects we have a wide range of different things that we are involved in. One of the most important things as a council is to make sure that our minority ethnic groups are addressed and they are appraised and that they know exactly what we are trying to do as a Council. We are very much involved in consulting with them. We work very closely with them.
“We got help to fund part of the salary cost of the staff through Ballymena Community Forum. We also work very closely with Ballymena Interagency group and that is a multi-agency group of a whole range of agencies. There would be 25 agencies that come together on a monthly basis to try and work positively for the minority ethnic community in the borough. So certainly I have tried where we can to help with those issues. We as a council helped to produce this leaflet here about 3 years ago and that was translated into the various minority languages that were prevalent in the borough at that stage and that again was basically just telling people where the information could be gleaned from. Then we addressed a group 18 months ago and produced this document here and it was translated into about 5/6 prevalent languages at that stage and at the minute it is being updated. That basically gives a whole range of different agencies that people can contact. So that is very useful.
Young people: “In terms of some of the other external things we have been involved in, youth obviously is one of our key issues within the borough. Now I should say, within the programme I work along with, the large funders don’t actually ‘allow’ me to work with young people because there are other agencies set up to do that.
‘But obviously as a council we realise that our young people are very much part of our future. So therefore we are keen to do what we can. We have been involved in a number of things – and I won’t steal Ronnie or Kate’s thunder in terms of a very exciting project that they were instrumental in setting up called Common Purpose and Ballymena Learning Together and basically that project was set up last year in the aftermath of a very tragic death in our borough, a very young man who lost his life [Michael McIlveen]. Certainly as a council we have tried where we can to be supportive of that … all of our post-primary schools are involved in the Common Purpose programme. But I know that the experts will be telling you all about that.
Cross-community funding: “We have an external community relations grant scheme whereby a number of community groups in the borough can apply to us if they want to do cross community events. There is a small amount of funding – up to about £300.We gave out recently about 30-40 of those in a year. ….. Depending on what the good relations issues would be, we would try to work with one of the community groups there and to intervene in some of the work that would be going on. For example one of our areas …has been subject to quite a range of various sectarian and racist incidents over the last 2 to 3 years. We have worked very closely with the community there to developa good relations strategy, whereby we got consultants to go around all of the households in the area basically to find out what the key issues were with those people, so that it wasn’t just ourselves as a Council saying: ‘well we see a,b,c and d as the issues’, because that certainly is not the way that we want to work. That has been very instrumental in terms of managing to get about £5million funding into the …area … So we are very pleased with that.
Inter-agency work: “We work closely along with a local strategic partnership who administer the peace funds and again we have been involved in a range of projects that they have adopted over the last number of years. As I said we have also worked very closely with the Mayor’s department in terms of the Mayor’s initiative and again that was basically organised after the sectarian attacks in 2005. We have been very fortunate, our last couple of mayors have been very supportive of our work. They have tried to show real true civic leadership in terms of trying to move things forward. Currently we are in the process of working with Mediation Northern Ireland … after the death [Michael McIlveen] mentioned earlier they came into the borough to see if there was anything that could be done basically in terms of improving good relations. As a Council we are hoping to work with them in the near future to develop that programme and … again that would be looking at the key good relations issues within the borough in terms of shared space, segregation, disaffected youth, anti-social behaviour, a whole range of issues within that. So we are certainly very hopeful that that will be a good way of moving forward in terms of an inter-agency approach.
Internal work: “Internally we also do quite a range of work and we have set up a Good Relations Working Group: about 10 key staff working from the DPP to community safety, local strategic partnership, the policy unit, the town centre manager, community services, a whole wide range of services, and that is to make sure that those staff are working together, that we are all co-ordinated, that we know what we are about and we are making sure that we are actually mainstreaming good relations within the Council. As I said earlier we have had a wide range of programmes with our elected members. We have used a variety of agencies to come in and to get them space to be able to move forward as civic leaders.
“We have worked through the University of Ulster, Future Ways, CounterAct, the trade union movement …to try and help our elected members. Whilst at times that really hasn’t necessarily been easy work, they have certainly been happy to have been involved in it. We have tried to move things forward. We have been very fortunate over the last two to three years when things have been very bad in the borough that our Mayor has been very, very keen to show true leadership in moving things forward and we have worked very closely with the Mayor’s department making sure that the speeches are giving out the correct message, that nobody is going into the public domain and basically saying things not necessarily conducive to good relations, shall we say. We also have a wide range of internal funding of council events- as I said in the first number of years I was a council officer and I was involved in organising events. That is not the case anymore because basically we don’t have time to do that and so we would try and fund internal events from our own staff. … Initially whenever this was due to be set up, I think it was just Delia herself…..
Hope for the future: “I have great hope for the future. With the calibre of the people around this table tonight I think I don’t have to say anything further. They are simply people just trying to do their bit in terms of moving the borough forward. I am certainly very hopeful. As a resident and also as a council employee we can achieve it. It won’t be easy but we’re in it for the long fight. Thank you.”
Chair: “Thank you very much indeed Jackie and we will have time for questions towards the end of the evening. Please save your questions for then. I would next like to invite Delia Close to speak. Delia is a retired secondary school teacher and also a former member of the Womens’ Coalition, and she is currently serving her second term as an independent member and Vice-Chair of Ballymena District Policing Partnership. Thank you Delia.”
2. Delia Close (Vice-Chair, Ballymena District Policing Partnership)
“Good evening everyone. Thank you for inviting us. Like Jackie I also come from a mixed background with Catholic/Protestant parents. Unlike Jackie I was brought up Catholic. I was reared in Derry but have spent all my time since I got married in 1969 living in Ballymena, so I consider myself really as much of one as the other and certainly committed to Ballymena which is why I am here this evening and why I am also a member of the DPP. I feel I have something to contribute now. I have been retired for the last ten years. I have time, so I was quite happy to spend some of that time doing what I could.
DPPs: “District Policing Partnerships [DPPs] came into being as a result of the recommendations of the Patton Report which changed policing in Northern Ireland totally. There are 29 DPPs – one for each council area and then 3 smaller ones for individual areas of Belfast. The DPP is a partnership between the local council and the community. Its membership is made up of political members who are councillors nominated to the DPP by their own parties, and independent members drawn from the local community and appointed after an interview process by the Policing Board.
Functions of DPP: The function of the DPP is a consultative monitoring and facilitative work whose purpose is:
-
to consult with the public, to establish what issues in relation to policing and crime or/are a concern for the local area,
-
to identify local policing priorities arising from those consultations and to encourage the district commander to include them in the Local Policing Plan.
-
to have input into the drawing up of the Local Policing Plan and – this is quite a big one – to monitor police performance against the objectives contained in the Local Policing Plan and in the Northern Ireland Policing Plan as it relates to the district,
-
to engage with the community, to obtain the cooperation of the public with the police in preventing crime, and
-
to act as a general forum for discussion and consultation on all matters relating to the policing of the district.
Composition of DPP: “In Ballymena there are 19 DPP members, 10 councillors, 9 independents. The intention is to have a group which is representative of the area so, among other prerequisites, there has to be a gender and religious balance. Because all 10 councillors are men, the Policing Board appointed 8 women and 1 man as independents. I have been a member of the DPP since the beginning and I have seen many changes both in personnel and in attitudes. Councillors sometimes think they are attending a council meeting and have to be reminded that different rules prevail at DPP meetings. They are councillors, yes, but they are DPP members first when they have the DPP meeting, so at our meetings everyone is addressed by their first names with no titles allowed. Sometimes they need reminding of that! The great difficulty at the minute actually is remembering not to say “he” when they are talking about the Chief Inspector because we have a new Chief Inspector called Wendy and she is very definitely “she”, but every now and again you will hear “he” and they have to be reminded! But anyway they will get used to that too. We are bringing them into the 21st century.
Chair and Vice-Chair: “The Chairman and Vice-Chair hold their posts for 12 months. The Chairman is always, as per the rules, a councillor. During the first term of the DPP the role of Vice-Chair is also allocated to a political member. However that role has changed to allow for an independent Vice-Chair and I hold that position this year. I was elected to the position by my fellow independents.
Meetings: “As DPP members we are expected to commit two days per month to the work of the DPP by preparing for meetings, attending meetings, relevant training events and engaging with the local community. We hold a number of public meetings or general forums for discussion each year to enable people to present their views on the policing of the district. Public meetings are advertised in the local press and they are held in different parts of the Council area to ensure that all residents have easy access to them. Meetings are also held at different times to allow for different working patterns and domestic commitments. In addition to the meetings held in public at which the DPP monitor police performance, we also have private meetings which allow us to plan our business.
Consulting with the public: “Important though the public meetings are, there are other aspects to our work which are quite often more useful and more interesting. One of our duties is to consult with the public. This can take many forms. We have spent afternoons in the two main shopping centres. We stood giving information leaflets, talking to passers by about the DPP. Saturday coming we will have a stand at the Ballymena Agricultural Show where all members will spend an hour or two engaging with the public. Most people still don’t know who we are. So there is still a lot to be done here.
Young people: “Personally, I have found that my most interesting times have been spent with teenagers. As an ex-teacher I spent almost thirty years teaching. It was secondary school teaching I did so I feel totally at ease with teenagers. So I continue that where I can with the DPP. I help with focus groups in several of the local schools and I found it very interesting, because we found that young people generally no matter what their background have the same often negative views on policing. I also attended a meeting with a small group of boys who were friends of Michael McIlveen who was murdered a year ago. You will notice the same name coming up – I am sure all of us at the table here would agree that had such a huge impact in the town that changed everything in a sense. So many things changed after that, but there others here who can talk about it better than I can. But anyway this was a small group of boys who were friends of Michael’s. They were very forthright in their views on drugs and sectarianism. A few weeks later I went at the request of Inspector Stephen White to a PSNI training base in Antrim and watched three of the same boys being shown various aspects of police training. They were particularly interested in the riot training complete with real petrol bombs, body armour and riot shields. One of them offered his services if at anytime they needed volunteer rioters! I should tell people at this point that he was one of Kate’s pupils – I would be quite sure that you know the very same character I am talking about! But it was interesting to see 15-16 year old Catholic boys and police officers so easy in each other’s company. One thought he might like to join the police but not necessarily the PSNI. That would be a step too far I think. The work being done with these boys is ongoing and involves the police, the council, community relations and the DPP. So there is a wee bit of a joined-up process starting to happen which is very good.
Parades: “Part of the theory of DPPs was to make policing more open to scrutiny. I have found this to be a particularly influencing aspect of our work. I have been interested in the issues around band parades and orange parades for some time. For the last two years I have attended as an observer at almost all the local parades. I have been invited on several occasions to be part of the planning meeting in the police station for an upcoming parade. My comments and contributions have always been graciously accepted and I have learned a lot about the difficulties associated with policing parades especially those presented by band followers and at times counter demonstrations. I occasionally have been critical of some aspects of the policing of particular parades and I have made my criticisms known to the police on the spot and to the district commander.
“Only last Saturday I attended the first of this years band parades…. At this point I will just very quickly tell you that there is a difference between what is a band parade and what is a parade organised by the Loyal Orders, totally different. A band parade is just a local band who organise their parade and the idea of it – apart from putting on a wee bit of a show – is to collect money for their band. The Orange Order, the Black Preceptory, none of those are involved in these, so they can be a wee bit more volatile and a wee bit more of a problem. Currently there are some very good marshals who come from, let’s say, paramilitary backgrounds, who have been trained as parade marshals and that is actually starting to work quite well helping to make sure that there is no trouble along the route and they go where they are intended to go. So Saturday’s parade turned off not too badly and I have been asked now to go and talk to the Parades Commission on Wednesday about another upcoming parade which seems to be a wee bit more controversial. But let’s see how that goes.
“But things are getting better. I agree with Jackie totally. We had some hairy situations over the years but I must say on the evidence of Saturday night’s parade, people are talking much more to other people. Some wee problem I think with getting Sinn Féin to talk to the police in Ballymena. They are a wee bit behind everybody else around Northern Ireland, I think, but hopefully they will get there.
Community policing: “In October 2006 there was a review of neighbourhood policing and they decided to adopt a neighbourhood policing model which would incorporate a deployment strategy across all sector areas, the development of sector plans and ‘micro beats’. These ‘micro beats’ are the ones that are considered to be extremely important, the idea being that there will be small areas within the town which will have their own designated police person. They must guarantee that they will stay there at least a year so people get to know them. They trust them. They bring their problems there. One other sentence on local policing. They are developing – they have already got three and another one in the oven called ‘police surgeries’ where police go at a designated time every month to a designated place. The local people know, they come along, discuss their problems and they are finding that these surgeries are actually helping quite a lot. So I will just leave it there and not take any more of your time. Thank you.”
Chair: “Thank you very much indeed, Delia, and we will have time to go back to the issue of community policing at the end of the evening if anybody wants to pursue it further. It is a wonderful move forward. I am now going to ask two people who together represent the Ballymena Learning Together Initiative, Ronnie Hassard who is the principal of the Ballymena Academy and Kate Magee who is the principal of St. Patrick’s College, Ballymena, to talk to us about their initiative and tell us how it is going, so first of all I would like to invite Ronnie to say a few words.”
3. Ronnie Hassard (Principal, Ballymena Academy):
“Thank you. Can I just say first of all that I applaud what happens in the Meath Peace Group. What has beenhappeningimpresses me mightily, the archive [on the website] which I looked at is an important historical document that is happening. I will not add anything of importance to this historical document, but there you are. I’m from a mixed marriage too, my mother was Presbyterian, my father Church of Ireland. Despite that I have turned out the way I have! I am going to start, as is my wont, with a poem if I might. It is one that will be familiar to many of you. It is Patrick Kavanagh’s ‘Epic’ and I hope the relevance is apparent.
Epic (Patrick Kavanagh, 1938)
I have lived in important places, times
When great events were decided: who owned
That half a rood of rock, a no-man’s land
Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims.
I heard the Duffys shouting “Damn your soul”
And old McCabe stripped to the waist, seen
Step the plot defying blue cast-steel –
“Here is the march along these iron stones.”
That was the year of the Munich bother. Which
Was most important ? I inclined
To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin
Till Homer’s ghost came whispering to my mind.
He said: I made the Iliad from such
A local row. Gods make their own importance.
“And I suppose it’s the God of small things that I want to talk about.
“Chair, earlier on you said that the political vacuum has been healed and we can look forward to the future with confidence. I believe that is the case. I’ve been an optimist and an educationalist and an idealist. I think that is important but it isn’t just going to happen. Maybe I began the poem as a kind of self defence. You might well find what I have to say is small-scale if not self indulgent and, if so, I apologise now.
‘I’m speaking to a peace group which has many years and 67 public meetings, I think, in the thinking about feuds and factions and communal self-destruction in the North and I am speaking to you just as peace apparently has broken out. I am also aware that you have addressed these issues many times and words for many people here such as ‘Northern Ireland’ and ‘Peace’ and ‘Progress’ will send them to sleep and they ignore them. I will try not to do that.
“Friday a week ago you heard about the events at the Boyne when the arms trade was reversed and the First Minister came down with a musket to the Taoiseach! I met a lady there, she was a teacher and we got talking about things. She didn’t get away quickly enough on me – that is what women usually do! But she said to me: ‘I haven’t followed the Troubles very carefully’ – as though it was racehorses or a football game, and yet it is true. She also told me that Drogheda was the furthest north she had ever been and I got the impression she was longitudinally challenged and that if she went any further north she would be contaminated and maybe violence would get in. It does seem that the river Boyne has assumed some symbolic importance in Irish history. Of course she is not alone. Many decent and good people north of the border are fed up …as well. Perhaps this will change, but young people increasingly don’t vote in our elections and they don’t feel part of the political process at all and they have accepted the status quo just as ordinary islanders accept the weather.”
Ballymena Learning Together: “And who am I to speak to you at this time? I am neither a politician nor a theologian nor a savant philosopher, psychologist, socialist, legal guru, lifestyle pundit or any of those contemporary know-it-alls who can fix everything. I am just an educationalist. I am a principal in a voluntary grammar school in Ballymena, one of nine schools involved in Ballymena Learning Together. I have been in Ballymena Academy for 3 years now and just at about that time, Kate [Magee] was appointed [to St. Patrick’s College]. There were a number of new principals in the town schools. We were meeting together, sharing ideas. It was a kind of a therapy group really, mutual self-help group for sad and lonely principals, but we had started to get to know each other and to feel a sense of mutual respect and trust when the events which both Jackie – a former pupil of my school – and Delia have outlined to you: when Michael McIlveen’s sectarian murder took place in the town. And whilst that didn’t make us meet – we were already meeting – it certainly gave us focus and impetus and did galvanise thinking. There is no doubt about that. The whole atmosphere of Ballymena … was changed by that.
“I wish that I could say as an educator that I had a magic cure for the ills of the community. I don’t. You have heard a speaker from the council. You have heard a speaker from the policing partnership. You will hear people from the churches. All of those people need to work together and it is interesting that we do know each other. We have met a number of times in different contexts. I am not sure if that is the case in every town. But there is a togetherness about the approach that is happening in Ballymena. I was an English teacher when I had a real job. Maybe that shapes how I look at things but I want to share a few perspectives, personal perspective stuff but I think they are shared by my fellow principals in the town. Their mistakes are never my fault, but the good ones we will share!
“Sustaining peace cannot be left to schools. If that is to be the case I think we should pack up now and get back to the fighting. Schools cannot do it on their own for a whole range of reasons….. I don’t know what you were like in school. I know what I was like in school and I didn’t always listen to what the teachers told me! In fact I was more inclined to disbelieve what the teachers said, possibly more than my father, but I don’t know. It would have been on a par. So that is one of the things I want to say. I want to say too that schools can and must take a strong and leading role and we have sought to do that in Ballymena.
“Other social institutions such as family, the politics, the churches, the police and justice system must also discharge their responsibilities. Indeed I would argue that the more effective those other institutions become, the less crucial is the schools role. That is probably counter-intuitive in a western democracy. Well, in Northern Ireland, the second biggest budget goes to schools – after health. So all of that investment suggests well, they must be important, they must do things, they must make things happen. I don’t believe that is the case. Research shows that schools are not nearly as important to young people as their families, their communities, and their peers and the messages they receive from the media. I don’t think that can come as a surprise to those with even a passing knowledge of contemporary teenagers. That applies to attitudes to sex and drugs no less than towards those who hold different religious or political beliefs.
Integrated schools: “Research carried out at Queen’s University for instance found out that it was not possible – at least not yet possible – to say whether young people who attended integrated schools tended to have less sectarian attitudes than their peers. That research is ongoing of course. That’s not to say anything critical of integrated schools. One member of our partnership is an integrated school and that is what makes it unique. We represent all sectors, different sizes of schools and different types of schools. Parents who wish to send their children to an integrated school should continue to have that option. They are good schools and I have no doubt their growth will continue and that should be encouraged. But a very small percentage of pupils are educated in integrated schools and even exponential growth won’t allow that in the short term to cater for all children. …Citizenship as an element in learning for life in work in their revised curriculum, a great openness to collaboration and a willingness to engage and join developed work with other schools. That would be more important I think as time passes.
Vision of Ballymena Learning Together: ‘Ballymena Learning Together’, involving all nine post-primary schools in the Ballymena area, is trying to establish open relationships and constructive partnerships between schools of all kinds. … If you know the Shared Future document well then the resonance is here. By working together we believe that schools can be more open, involving the community in which young people feel a sense of belonging, and where diversity and difference are seen as enriching and valuable. Our vision is of a society where young people from different traditions and cultural backgrounds can work together towards a shared future characterized by mutual understanding and respect. Which is all very well, easy to say, well relatively easy to say, but what does that actually mean on the ground? We have brought in an organisation called ‘Common Purpose’. This is a not-for-profit voluntary sector organisation which focuses on how young people can see themselves in their own communities as leaders and shapers of the future and that is for all children. It is a tall order I think. In Ballymena over the last few years we have managed to do this. We’ve also used ‘Spirit of Enniskillen’ an organisation founded in the wake of the Enniskillen bombing to help us. We think that it is possible to engage young people in controversial and sensitive matters but it is beyond normal classroom interaction. It is not just standard everyday give and take of the classroom. It is actually how you do it. It is how you engage with young people.
“I think the quality of parenting which young people have seen, the maintenance of civil relationships particularly over contentious issues which are going to be encountered, the successful conduct of the devolved Assembly, the wise investment of sizable amounts of funds in underprivileged communities, particularly the Protestant areas, an ongoing commitment to supporting schools’ efforts such as ours. We receive funding from Ballymena Council, from the Department of Education, from the Department of Foreign Affairs and from the Church of Ireland. We are open to other offers and … we have to do better, especially for the somewhere between 3% and 5% of young people who leave school at 16 without a level 2 qualification, and we have to find out ways in which schools can make a more telling contribution to wealth creation and greater prosperity for individuals on which better peace would be built. And yes that will happen through the curriculum and it will happen through collaborative activities but it will also have to be supported within the wider social infrastructure around us.
“Finally, a quotation from [Gerald Manley] Hopkins – it is the English teacher coming out again – who imagines peace arriving. He uses the dove- the biblical symbol for it’s arrival and he says:
‘And when peace here does house
He comes with work to do
He does not come to coo.’
“So there is much preparatory and enabling work to go on. There will be much more groups such as this to talk about. Thanks for listening again. …”
Chair: “Thank you very much indeed Ronnie. I would now like to invite Kate Magee to pick up on all the mistakes that Ronnie has made!”
4. Kate Magee (Principal, St Patrick’s College, Ballymena)
“Thank you very much. …. I’m really not going to say very much because Ronnie has very eloquently summed up what we are about in ‘Ballymena Learning Together’. Some of you I know and I have met before. It’s a great pleasure to see so many familiar faces and to be invited down here this evening. We feel very proud of the work we do in Ballymena but it gives us particular pleasure to know that you have such an interest in our work and that we can probably learn an awful lot from a group like yourselves. Despite setbacks and occasions in the past when you have been meeting and you have been downhearted or disillusioned about your work or your aims or aspirations, you have still continued to meet and you are a very strong and thriving group and I commend you for that. Hopefully we in Ballymena will be able to emulate that sort of commitment.
Death of Michael McIlveen: “The nine schools, as Ronnie has said, have worked very closely together and had been working very closely together prior to the very tragic death of Michael McIlveen who was a pupil in my school, St. Patrick’s college. I think the fact that we had been meeting and we had forged such strong relationships amongst the nine principals meant that when we were faced with that awful situation, we all pulled together. I know that, as principal facing the school community the day after Michael’s death, I was I suppose helped by the fact that prior to taking Assembly that morning I had phone calls from all other 8 principals in the Ballymena Learning community. ….
Support and strength from within the educational community: “There are situations that could divide us but we are rising above that. So, as I say, there is that strength that we gather from each other – and I know if I have an issue or a problem I lift the phone and I speak to Ronnie or one of my other colleagues and really it is that strength within the educational community in Ballymena, I think is very important. Just last week I was doing a staff audit. It is a very dangerous thing for a principal to do, to ask the opinion of staff, I am not terribly sure that I am wise asking! But, quite seriously, it is revealing…. I had my own ideas about where I wanted the school to go and what I want for the school and I asked the staff to give me their opinions in this audit. You have to make things quite easy for staff in terms of not asking them to write too much or to deliberate too much.
“So all I asked them to do is to try to pick three things that they feel that we are doing well at St. Patrick’s College and then to think of three things that really we could perhaps do better or develop or whatever. And I feel very encouraged by the fact that those who have already completed the audit, the one thing that they have highlighted as one of our successes has been the links with other schools within Ballymena …. it has only been in the last three to four years that those links have been developed and I think it is something that both the staff and the pupils are benefiting from.
Ballymena schools – offering young people the opportunity to respect each other’s traditions: “Ronnie has talked about the integrated education system and I know that many people – quite rightly from their perspective – feel that that is the answer, that that will provide the solution to Northern Ireland’s problems. But I am afraid I don’t think Northern Ireland’s problems are as simple as that, and I think those of us who have lived through the last thirty years realise that if they were that simple then we would have solved the problems a long time ago. The difficulty is if you put children altogether under one roof, both Protestant and Catholic, you are presuming that they will automatically get on well together and you are also presuming that when they go back into their communities that they are also integrated, and that isn’t the case. Really what we have in Ballymena is a more lifelike situation for our young people. They come from quite divided communities. We educate them. We ensure that we are providing them with a forum where they can very safely and very comfortably be proud of their own tradition but also learn to some extent to respect the opinions of others. We don’t throw them altogether and hope that everything will be alright. We do it in such a way that they have our support and they know that they are secure in hearing other people’s opinions and also voicing their own. I think that is important and I think that is unique about what we do in Ballymena. We are realists. Ballymena is a community that has suffered terribly over the last number of years. We won’t solve all their problems. But certainly we feel very much that what we have through our schools is offering young people the opportunity to respect one another’s traditions and realise that within each of their traditions they have a lot to be proud of but they also have a lot that they can learn from each other.”
Chair: “Thank you. Now I would like to invite Jeremy Gardiner to come and speak to us. He is Community Relations Development officer with Youthlink, an umbrella body representing the four churches. He has got some very interesting things to say to us.”
5. Jeremy Gardiner (Community Relations Development Officer, Youthlink)
“Hi, I feel like I am about to do Karaoke with a microphone standing up here! My name is Jeremy. I also come from a mixed marriage. My mum comes from the Falls Road and my dad comes from the Shankill Road. So I really do come from a mixed marriage. It was interesting growing up in that they chose to follow the Protestant faith but in doing so had to leave Belfast and live in Enniskillen, which is where I was born actually.
“My relationship with Ballymena started about three years ago when I came as a youth pastor to High Kirk Presbyterian Church. Primarily what I wanted to do was find out what was going on within the community at that stage so I spent time in the community trying to find out. Actually this is where I met all these people because I spent the first three months going around asking questions specifically of the principals and of the community relations worker trying to figure out what were the issues for young people in the town. The young people in the church that I represented, they lived in that town and they were the issues facing them. So I wanted to know what those issues were. There were a number of issues specifically at that time in regard to the bus station. There was abuse, bullying, that type of thing in the bus station. There was also an issue of suicide within the town. It was becoming very popular. There were a number of suicides. Drugs was an issue obviously. But one of the main elements of Ballymena was the sectarianism in Ballymena between the young people from Catholic and Protestant communities. So primarily what I started to do was build relationships with the Catholic Church and specifically Father Paul [Symonds] in just developing a friendship more than anything within the first year of being in Ballymena.
Harryville: “It was only a matter of months after our friendship began to grow that there was an attack at the Catholic Church in Harryville, a paint bomb attack by loyalists at the church there. In response to the paint bomb attack we decided to call Paul and just ask could we go down as a group of people from our church … and just clean up the church in the area. So we all got in a group and spent time clearing that up. When we arrived, unfortunately, let me say this, there were media there. We didn’t have any clue that was going to happen and also the PUP representative for the town. He was Billy McCaughey at that stage. He has now passed away. He was there to protect us more than anything, to be honest. We thought he was just there to show his support. So that was primarily my first introduction to Ballymena. It was really rough. I am not going to be polite about it. It was pretty tough at that stage. The first clean-up happened in July and another one happened in August in relation to a reaction from the first republican march that happened in Ballymena. We got another clean-up involving nine Protestant churches going down to Harryville and cleaning up the church. The reaction to that was pretty bad at that stage and eventually I had to leave home … I had to get out of the town for a period of time and just find out what was going on.
Paramilitaries: “But the relationship that really took off at that stage was the relationship that we started to build up with the paramilitaries within the area, the UDA and UVF. Paul and myself were keen on that in regard to building relationship with these people and trying to develop community relations within Northern Ireland. Throughout the next year we worked really hard with them and with Community Voice at that stage in building relationships to the point where they decided to clean up the front of Harryville Church and take away some of the murals that were there which was a real success story. However then the death of Michael McIlveen happened which wasn’t a success story.
Young people: “It wasinteresting at that stage watching the young people react. It is funny how young people just respond to what they are shown …That is specifically within the community. They just take on their characteristics and take on their way of doing things and we realised as a community, as a church leadership, as a school leadership and as a community leadership, that we needed to do something specifically for young people. I actually am really encouraged to say that what is happening in Ballymena over the last year and a half has been unbelievable actually, it has been amazing to see people coming together from all traditions, from all backgrounds and saying, “do you know what? We don’t want our town to be the way it has been known for in the past”. We are starting to see people work together which is great.
“I moved jobs from High Kirk to an organisation called Youthlink, which is an umbrella organisation for the four main churches in Northern Ireland which develops community relations specifically for youth. My target area is Ballymena so that is where I am based. …
‘I work with schools and I work with the churches and community groups within the area just to try and influence young people from all levels of the issues of community relations work. I have a few concerns ……… We have had a major reaction to the issues of young people in the area which is good in one part. But sometimes you know we can overreact and sort of like miss the quality for the quantity and I think there is an element where we need to start to evaluate what has been happening and the effect it is actually having with the young people. I am not sure if the strategy that we have in Ballymena is specific and focused on young people for their benefit. I think it is still something that we need to look at. We are not saying we are perfect. We are just saying, my concern is that we develop and continually look at it and evaluate it for a way forward and come up with the best practice possible for young people in the area and to bring other people and other agencies on board and to say look let’s work together. I think that is probably what my concerns are. As a church, organisation and as a Christian in regard to a shared future, I think it is the only way forward. I think diversity is something that we embrace andrelating to one another is something that we should welcome with open arms and walk together wholeheartedly.”
Chair: “Thank you very much indeed. That is very powerful and I’d now like to invite our final speaker Fr. Paul Symonds to come and talk to us. He had been a priest since 1976 and has worked in Belgium, Holland, Italy and France before coming to the diocese of Down and Connor in 1989. He is especially committed to reconciliation and unity of Christians. Fr. Paul:”
6. Fr. Paul Symonds (Kirkinriola parish, Ballymena)
“Thank you very much Máirín. My name is Paul Symonds and I come from a very mixed-up background. Symonds is a Jewish name. We were Jews from Eastern Europe and came, I don’t know how many generations ago, to London looking for work and at some stage my ancestors took baptism in the Church of England – I suspect for economic, rather than religious reasons, although I might be doing them an injustice there. My parents would have been non-practising Anglicans – Church of England they would say – and they sent me to a Catholic primary school. So that was my first encounter with the Church as church and it was a very, very positive encounter. But even then I was very friendly with the local Church of England curate and his family. So I always felt at home in more than one church and, during my years of primary school, one day one of the girls in the senior school said to me slightly aggressively, ‘are you a Catholic or a Protestant?’ To which I replied, ‘I don’t know’. She said, ‘in that case you must be a Protestant because if you were a Catholic you would know’! But I think people who know me very well would know that the answer to the question is that I still don’t know. A child of the Kingdom.
Vocation – call to Northern Ireland: “I came to Northern Ireland in 1989 and it was very much the fruit of or what I experienced as a real vocation, a sense of God calling me to Northern Ireland. It was as strong and intense as the original vocation to ordained ministry. I never doubted but that is exactly where God wanted me to be and I spent my first three years in North Belfast, and six wonderful years in South Belfast, and another four years in North Belfast, and then to my great surprise the bishop asked me to go to Ballymena which is not a place I would have chosen to go to. I expected to spend all my time in Belfast.
Ballymena – building bridges: “Once I arrived in Ballymena I knew that was where I was meant to be, and, because my whole life has been committed to building bridges between churches and establishing relationships, well that was the first thing I wanted to do. So I started with the Church of Ireland, met the Church of Ireland. I very quickly became friendly to one of the local curates… Neil is quite a character – he comes from Monaghan and has a quite a strong southern accent. He and I did a wedding together once and he related afterwards, ‘ah me and Paul did a wedding together and everybody thought that Paul was Church of Ireland and that I was a Catholic priest!’ But as a result of that, we organised a week of prayer for Christian unity service in St Patrick’s in the Church of Ireland with Neil and myself, the two of us preaching. Amazing at it seems some people told the rector that if a catholic, some people from All Saints came in with a pulpit from St. Patricks, then they would never darken the door of the church again. However I don’t think they did actually leave the congregation, thanks be to God. And then our nearest neighbour church is High Kirk Presbyterian. …I didn’t really reach out to the Presbytery of High Kirk, they reached out to me. Initially the then minister …invited me to coffee and then I began to make friends with some of the congregation and as a result of that was introduced to Jeremy. And Jeremy and I, when we first met, we just knew we were on the same wavelength, soulmates. We have enjoyed a rich and very fruitful friendship. So I am delighted that Jeremy is still working in Ballymena and especially in St Patrick’s College where I feel very privileged to be the chaplain.
Shared future – inter-church work: “Well what are the churches doing for a shared future and coming together in Ballymena? Well one way that I mentioned was through small starts. But a few years ago I was visiting the Benedictine monastery in Rostrevor. I don’t know if you know it – Holy Cross monastery founded from the monastery of Beck in Normandy in France – and it is the Benedictines in Rostrevor who are totally committed to inter-church work. So it very much a place where I feel spiritually refreshed and where I go regularly to be renewed in spirit. And whilst I was there once a Presbyterian minister called Dessie Maxwell from Belfast Bible college was giving a series of talks on the Torah, the first five books of the Bible called ‘Take Five’. I was just bowled over by the lectures and thought I must get him to Ballymena, initially I thought just to give a series of Lenten talks in my own church. But then talking to friends you began to think well why not open it up to other churches? So there were 5 churches on board, Roman Catholic, Church of Ireland, Methodist and two of the local Presbyterian churches – High Kirk and West Church. We decided to hire a room in a local hotel… and we booked a room that would accommodate 60 and on the very first night there were 120 there. So we had to ask for a bigger room which we got and I think on one night we were up to about 300. That was fantastic in bringing people together by no means not just from those five churches but from many, many different churches in Ballymena. Each evening the talk ended with a cup of tea and coffee. That enabled people to get together and friendships to be made. Two men came every five nights from Bally Baptist church and even in the Baptist world, Bally Baptist church would be regarded as super right- wing. Yet they came with long overcoats and great big Bibles under their arms. But they came every night and l made certain I had a little chat with them each night.
Inter-church Alpha course: “One of the fruits of those series of lectures from Dessie Maxwell was an inter-church Alpha course. I am not sure if you are familiar with the Alpha. The Alpha course was devised by an Anglican priest …in Holy Trinity Brompton in London and really originally with a view to explaining the essentials of the Christian faith to non-Christians, or the people who had no real church connection. But it has been welcomed by all churches including my own from the top down. Nicky Gumbel was received in audience by Pope John Paul II. Every mainline church has taken the Alpha course on board, but generally speaking for internal use. I think most of the churches, or many of the churches, have had Alpha courses including All Saints, including my own before I came to Ballymena. But this was the first time we had an inter-church Alpha course. And we were able to hold it in a local restaurant, a local café called Montgomerys because Stephen Montgomery who is the owner is a very committed Christian. He is a member of West Church and he is a very successful businessman who wants to use his business in the service of the Kingdom. So very much a man with whom I can relate very easily. He made his premises available and I think we had something like 60 names after the Dessie Maxwell talks. Once we had advertised, we had 110 people registered and during the 9 weeks, because it is a big commitment, the 9 weeks of the Alpha course we had an average weekly attendance of 95. The dynamic of the course is that it begins with a meal and Stephen provided us with a different meal every week for the 9 weeks … we very, very much enjoyed having a meal together … and that creates a nice atmosphere and trust and fellowship. After the meal there is a talk on some aspect of the Christian faith and then people are in groups and they discuss within groups. So it is a way of sharing things and building relationships and that went so well that we are going to do another one beginning this September. Last year we held talks on a Wednesday and this time on a Monday, hopefully to enable people who were not able to come on a Wednesday to come on a Monday. We are hoping to also have on board not only the five churches that I’ve already mentioned but also the Moravians. They are pretty committed, and the Church of Ireland in Aghohill, but also Hillside Community Church which was originally a Gospel Hall and they have an incredible outreach into Dunclough which is an estate that Jackie has already mentioned and we hope that at a future Alpha we will be able to focus on some of the difficult estates in Ballymena like Dunclough, like Ballykeel. So we channel it in that way.
Prayers for Ballymena: “As a result of the tragic death of Michael McIlveen, already alluded to, we started a series of prayers for Ballymena. The first one was held in West Church Presbyterian Church and I was the preacher. Well that was very significant. A Catholic priest was the preacher in one of the local Presbyterian churches! And then we moved to the Church of Ireland – St. Patrick’s – and we had a Presbyterian preacher and then we came to Harryville, to the Roman Catholic church in Harryville and that was very well attended. For the coffee after the service, I asked Harryville Presbyterian Church from the other side of the road if they would provide us with cups and saucers and all the rest of it which they did, which was a sign of solidarity. They did so without question.
‘Then I had a Church of Ireland lady priest as the preacher and that was probably one of the most successful of the prayers for Ballymena. Then we went to the Methodists and now we are waiting for High Kirk.
“I don’t want to go on too long. That’s just an idea of what’s going on amongst the churches to bring people together and to try and focus together on a shared future. One thing, with the joint Alpha course, in the evaluation sheet afterwards, I think everybody said that the reason that they signed up for that Alpha course was because it was an inter-church Alpha course and they realised there would be opportunities of meeting people from other churches. So thank you very much for your attention and hopefully there is some time for some questions.”
Chair: “Thank you very much indeed, Fr. Paul. I’d just like to remind you that the focus of tonight was community relations, the challenges in relation to Ballymena. I think there is no doubt that we would have heard a large amount of work being done taking very strong initiatives, taking risks, accepting the challenges to build a stronger and more integrated society. For that I think you all deserve huge congratulations. I could say lots but I am going to ask people in the audience if they would like to raise some issues, ask some questions and just to remind you: Jackie talked about the Council and the work they are doing and the outreach they are doing, Delia talked about the policing partnership, and there is a lot to be asked about community policing I think. Ronnie and Kate talked about the Ballymena Learning Together initiative and reminded us that schools can’t do it by themselves. A lot of people are taking that as an easy way out, saying, ‘oh well if there were integrated schools it would all be ok’. But I think that is clearly not the answer. It is going to take all of the community to make progress. Jeremy, you talked about the youth work and the challenges that you faced and overcame and the risks that you had to take, and being asked to leave your home – that is just a terrible thing to happen to anybody. Fr. Paul, you talked about working with the churches and the enthusiasm for bringing people together and creating opportunities which are safe… So I just wanted to remind you of the wonderful contributions of our panel members here this evening.
QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS (SUMMARY)
Q.1. Canon John Clarke: “Thank you very much, John Clarke from across the way, Church of Ireland rector. From the point of view of Ballymena, is it a growing town, are there new communities coming from other parts of Ireland, other parts of the world? Is it multicultural growth? If there is, what sort of effect is that having in terms of unification if I could put it that way?”
Jackie Patton: “Yes, certainly over the last two to three years there has been amazing growth. In terms of actual numbers we don’t actually know. … We have a Ballymena Community Forum. We have got an ethnic minorities project and the statistics would appear to show that there are over 3000 members of minority ethnic communities, predominantly from Eastern European communities. In terms of the effects that that is having, I mean obviously as a council we have been very aware of some of the issues that that is creating and we are trying to work very closely with them in the minorities programme. There is also a fear factor in terms of the business population certainly. There is this perception that these people are coming and taking their jobs. … There was a man called Billy McCaughey who was a PUP representative in Ballymena, and out of all the good work that Billy did, he organised one amazing conference about two to three years ago, before his death, young guys from the streets together ….and he got those guys together basically to look at the whole concept of racism. He managed to get David Ervine to that. He was amazing as well because he talked about his family and how he went to Australia and some of the things that had happened to them. … He also brought together a personnel manager from one of the local industries – the McCain chicken company – where again the perception was these guys were coming in and ‘taking our jobs’ and they were able to show statistics that they were spending thousands of pounds of money every year advertising for these jobs and basically people didn’t want the jobs. So yes there are issues, but on the more positive side we have managed to be able to integrate these people into the community I think very successfully in that we have made great friends with so many people. The multicultural aspect in Ballymena I think is quite amazing. You go down the town and it is just amazing, the plethora of languages you can hear, the colour of faces. Certainly I think that holds out great hope for the future. It is not to say there won’t obviously be issues but I think generally we have become more aware of what this is in trying to move forward.”
Ronnie Hassard: “I’m interested because one of the things that we as a school group wanted to do was try to define what we stood for. Everybody said they were against sectarianism. But we didn’t think it was a good idea to define yourself by what you are not. So we are about promoting good relationships, about openness to whoever that may be, and …. While I hope that immediate issues of sectarianism will recede, as they are expressed on the streets in Ballymena, I fear very much that the racism and a latent racism could well be unlocked. But I think the sort of work you have heard here would help to combat it and prevent it….”
Q. 2. Julitta Clancy: “Thank you very much all of you for your contribution. Just one comment in relation to the schools initiative. I was very interested when I heard you speak at the Department of Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Forum [April 2007] because, outside the immediate reasons why you have set up the [Ballymena Learning Together] initiative, I felt it could serve as a kind of a role model for a lot of rural towns all over the island where you have large secondary schools, different types of schools, and what you are doing – working with communities as well as the schools community. Ronnie did say that schools can’t do everything and we do often load too much on schools and on teachers. As parents we do that very much anyway. But we have to be able to work together. I think that is tremendous what you are doing, and it shows tremendous leadership. It can do nothing but good in terms of the parents and the students and the communities. I know there was some criticism of you at the forum – that you should all be integrated schools etc. This comes up all the time. We do a little bit of work in schools here with Transition Year students, trying to get them to think about the issues and stuff like that. When education comes up, they all say the schools [in NI] should all be integrated. But we are not integrated down here. Integrated education is good but, as you said, it is not always the answer. I would love to see schools here in the south taking on board what you are doing because of all the other issues we have here. Racism is one, but problems in communities, drugs, suicide, all of those pressures. Schools working together can do enormous amounts to help and to empower young people.”
Kate Magee: “I know that wasn’t a question but I would like on behalf of ‘Ballymena Learning Together’ to thank you for those kind words. Just to pick up on two points, one about the Eastern European community and also the fact that we as a school are very aware of our role in the community. I think that was the one thing following the death of Michael McIlveen …. The attack on Michael took place in the early hours of Sunday morning and he actually died on Monday. The next day I took the whole school assembly and I noticed that a lot of his school friends were not in that day and I became very anxious about where they were and the influences that they might be coming under. So after I had finished the assembly I got into the car and drove to the estate where Michael had lived and I felt very ashamed that in actual fact it was the first time that I had been in Michael’s estate. I have to say I was absolutely horrified at the condition of the housing for a lot of those young people that I teach in my school, it was the first time I had become aware of it. And I think that it proved to me that in a way a school can provide for young people a very safe, secure environment but as soon as you go out into the community we have to show them leadership within the community. They can do it in school and I think we do it very well in Ballymena, but we also need to show leadership within the community. Just to pick up on what has been said, as I say I was very conscious of the fact that those young people were vulnerable at that time. Their very dear, very close friend had died as a result of sectarian attack. I was very worried about the influences within their own community that they might come under and I think they got the shock of their lives. I pulled my car up on that morning and I went into the community centre and I sat amongst them. It is very important what we do in Ballymena. At school we are educators and that has to be our prime reason for being there. Friday evening we are going to A Shared Future concert at which both Dunclough college – one of the other schools – and my school are having a joint choir and again the council are working towards promoting that concert. The principal of the other college is going to be there. So these are the things that are important
“Just to finish on a note about our Polish students, we would have about 11 Polish students in the college at present. Most of them came to us perhaps with no English and their parents have little or no English either. But one particular lunchtime two of the boys had a fight. You will be pleased to know that Polish boys fight just the same as Irish boys fight and they were taken to my office. So here I was standing in my office with two young boys who had just fought and they had no English. I, as you can imagine, had very little Polish, but I did have a Polish dictionary so I was standing with the dictionary and I was opening at a certain page and pointing to certain words.
‘So we did mange to get the reason for the fight! It is something that I think has enriched our community – the presence of children from different backgrounds and to some extent I suppose it has made our young people more outward looking towards welcoming people from different countries and I think, as Jackie has said, it could do a lot of good to enrich our communities as long as they are providing the example of that to young people we meet in terms of welcoming others from different cultures.”
Q.3. Nuala McGuinness (Nobbber): “I would like to just follow up on what Kate was talking about. I would imagine that teachers have quite enough to do teaching children without having to visit their homes and what not. In view of the community problems in large towns not only in Northern Ireland but throughout the island and also with the influx of all the foreign young people coming in would there be a role for a social worker … attached to schools in problem areas? I think you have started something marvellous and I’d like to see it spread to other towns in the same way as I’d love to see something like the Meath Peace Group spreading in the south of Ireland. I know it is very difficult. I would also think that perhaps schools along the border – both sides of the border – could get together. Finally Fr. Paul I attended an Alpha course here in Navan a few years ago just for my own interest. I wasn’t a member of the parish or anything. But it was solely a Roman Catholic affair and I did feel it lost a lot by the fact that it wasn’t ecumenical. So I agree with you one hundred percent on your views on that. Thank you.”
Q.4. Paul Barr (Dunshaughlin): “Thank you very much. Tonight seems to be a night for outing things. Two points struck me in particular. One which said diversity is something which you embrace and I absolutely agree with it. But I think it needs to be qualified by saying you can only embrace it whenever you erase the fears and what it is that people are prejudiced against. The second thing was, as Jackie said, 6 DUP members [in the Council] have been become disaffected by what we all regard as progress and it helps to see them in a different light. I am just wondering is there any evidence in the work that you are doing and the people that you are working with that you can address the fears of these people, these disaffected unionists or is their alienation a potential threat to your collective efforts?”
Chair: “Thank you very much indeed. That is a very interesting question. Who would like to respond?”
Ronnie Hassard: “I will give a very brief response to that because I think again in the schools context, we are very open about what we do. All of the schools signed up to it. All of the board of governors were consulted with it. They signed up to it. Before a child goes out to anything, the parents know what will be happening, what is going on, what the purpose of it is. It is very well publicised. It is very well known within the community. I would have expected that within my own school, given the constituency, that I would hear voices against the initiative … I haven’t heard those voices. … Any child being prevented going out is yet to happen. If any parents are saying they disapprove or disagree with this it is yet to happen. One of the things about Ballymena people is that they are fairly forthright and if they don’t like it you know it. So being open and being honest about what we are doing is a very large part of that and in time I hope, as more of this happens and the benefits are seen, then that will be part of it.”
Fr Paul Symonds: “In the Alpha course we were surprised by those who signed up to it.”
Jeremy Gardiner: “To me it’s the element of leadership, what we are showing and what we are presenting. In the group that we had … for me it was modelling diversity. It’s up to us to continue to do that even when people are against us.”
Delia Close: “Referring to the point on dissident DUP members, one of the loudest voices in the breakaway DUP group … is disillusioned, he feels that he was lied to, this is palpable. If that is the price that Paisley pays, if it stays there it won’t be a problem. It’s felt that there are some problems for Paisley. He promised never to go into government with Sinn Féin. It’s understandable but I’m not sure that in the long term that it will make a difference.”
Chair: “How to break down fear? In th south we have difficulties. In our view the only way is by getting to know each other and creating dialogue. By seeing each other in that light. At Glencree we are very committed to being inclusive.”
Q. 5. Jim Owen (Kiltale): We hear your story…We hear about your communities. In the south there are some differences. What advice would you have for us? Help us to reflect on our communities, we have less Protestant communities, and a growing lapse in the Catholic faith. What advice can you give us?”
Jackie Patton: “I’ve worked for local government and really it’s about the power of the people. We don’t have talks like this. We are very much encouraged by your presence here. We need to have people there. With two or three people to organise. Civic leadership have been superb. Education can’t do it alone. Things have developed. Don’t talk yourselves down.”
Delia Close: “Talking about policing: one of the big successes of the Patton report has been the appointment of the Police Ombudsman. Just as the RUC needed modernising, I’m sure you would agree that the Garda need modernizing. The changing of policing has made a huge difference.”
Fr. Paul Symonds: “John Paul II said the church had to breathe through two lungs. It is to be regretted that there is a very small Protestant presence [in the south]….The way the church can go …It can bring about a more smaller and committed church. See itself as a server of the kingdom of God.”
Jeremy Gardiner: “The only way to change it is to get to know it. The bus station issue, the only way I knew about it was because I felt it. … The other thing I would say is to get to know the people of influence. Build relations with them, the people on the ground that can change things.”
Q.6. Arthur O’Connor (Trim): “Is there any danger of Christian unity breaking out? Practising churchgoers are getting less and less. I came to Trim in 1953. There were about 2000 in the town. Today there are about 8000, and there is about a quarter attending church. …”
Q.7. Vincent McDevitt (An Tobar, Ardbraccan): “I found it very helpful. Each of you brings a rich experience. We could make a gesture – bring two groups down to Meath. One group would be Catholic, and one would be Presbyterian. I would look forward to networking with you.”
Q.8. Fr Iggy O’Donovan (Drogheda): “As somebody who has dabbled a little in ecumenical matters, and as a priest, I’m looking at declining numbers. ….. We were damned and defined by mass-going and beneath the surface it was quite shallow. The recent events [Drogheda concelebration], it was a massive surgical operation. It was painful. A period of purgatory may be necessary. There are many people who are very alarmed and I do hope and pray that we can have a society that we are enriched.”
Ronnie Hassard: “I think the lessons of history would show that it would create more fear in seeking that.”
Fr Paul Symonds: “I would agree that there is a richness in the different traditions. We are going through a purgatory. I think it can only lead to a better result in the end. Unity through diversity.”
Jeremy Gardiner: “I think the church has a lot to answer for. In its silence it has actually condoned a lot. Young people don’t want to know. …. We can retrieve it and make it better. The church is still in the element of fear. We have to deal with what we’re at.”
Q.9. “I teach in a Catholic school. I would be worried if they only see it as going to mass on a Sunday. They should live out their Catholic faith. I feel very strongly that they may not attend church now but that they will come back as a result of the priests that they know now. It’s not something to despair over
Delia Close: “I will just digress. They make a very distinct difference between the young Protestant boys and their neighbours and those they don’t like – the Celtic/Rangers split. …. It’s their own age group that they have the problem with., the level of sectarianism is at their own peer level. When they are ready to talk about it it is helpful.”
Vote of Thanks: Jean Kenny (Navan)
ENDS
Biographical notes on speakers (in order of appearance)
Jackie Patton has worked for Ballymena Borough Council since 1988 and took up her current post as Community Relations Officer in October 1991. Her role involves managing Council’s Good Relations function throughout all Council business. The Good Relations Unit of Ballymena Borough Council has been involved in a range of projects including:
-
Contentious issues such as flag flying, kerbstone painting and bonfires.
-
Working in partnership with our local Community Forum to establish an
innovative initiative working with our local minority ethnic communities.
-
Cultural projects ranging from St. Patrick’s Day Celebrations to sports and
arts festivals throughout the Borough.
-
Delivery of a Good Relations Grant Scheme whereby local Groups apply for
funding to promote positive Good Relations in our community.
-
Creation of an internal Council Good Relations Working Group combining a range of officers from Community Safety, Community Development, District Policing Partnership, Local Strategy Partnership, Economic Development, Town Centre Management and Ballymena Community Forum, who mainstream Good Relations throughout Council business.
Delia Close is a retired secondary school teacher and a former member of the Women’s Coalition. She is currently serving a second term as an independent member and also vice-chair of Ballymena District Policing Partnership (DPP). Delia is also a member of the Ballymena group, ‘Community Voice’.
Ronnie Hassard and Kate Magee:
Ronnie Hassard is principal of Ballymena Academy and Kate Magee is principal of St Patrick’s College, Ballymena. Both principals are involved in the Ballymena Learning Together initiative which enables the 9 post-primary schools from all sectors of the Northern Ireland education system to ‘involve students in programmes where they are allowed to express their opinions in a safe and controlled environment, while listening to and learning from the sometimes very different opinions of others’.
Jeremy Gardiner is Community Relations Development Officer for Youthlink, an umbrella body representing and serving the four main churches (Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist and the Church of Ireland). He was formerly a Youth Pastor for High Kirk Presbyterian in Ballymena. Jeremy is also a committee member of Community Voice in Ballymena. ‘My work in Ballymena was focused on the young people within the church itself. However to effectively do this you had to understand the environment in which they grew up in. This lead to work in the local community and essentially stand up against issues such as sectarianism. My work now involves educating young people for youth work and community relations work.’ He previously addressed the Meath Peace Group talk ‘Towards a Shared Future’ (No. 63, 13 November 2006) and also addressed transition year students in Dunshaughlin Community College who took part in the Meath Peace Group peace education programme
Fr Paul Symonds was ordained in 1976 and has worked in Belgium, Holland, Italy and France before coming to the Diocese of Down and Connor in October 1989. He was appointed to the parish of Kirkinriola (Ballymena) in August 2003. He is especially committed to reconciliation and the unity of Christians and is a regular contributor to BBC Radio Ulster’s ‘Thought for the Day’.
Meath Peace Group report 67 (2007)
Taped by Julitta Clancy, Oliver Ward (Nobber) and Jim Kealy (Navan)
Transcribed by Catherine Clancy (Batterstown) and Judith Hamill (Tara)
Edited by Julitta Clancy
©Meath Peace Group
Meath Peace Group Talks
No. 66 – ‘Making Peace with the Past – Options for Truth Recovery’
Monday 23 April, 2007
St. Columban’s College, Dalgan Park, Navan, Co. Meath
Speakers:
Kate Turner (Coordinator, Healing Through Remembering)
Irwin Turbitt
Pat Conway
Alan Wardle
(Members of Truth Recovery and Acknowledgment Sub-group, Healing Through Remembering)
And
Dr Hazlett Lynch (West Tyrone Voice victims’ group)
Margaret Urwin (Justice for the Forgotten group)
Chaired by
Most Rev. Dr Richard Clarke (Bishop of Meath and Kildare)
Contents:
Opening words: John Clancy (Meath Peace Group)
Kate Turner
Irwin Turbitt
Pat Conway
Alan Wardle
Hazlett Lynch
Margaret Urwin
Responses from HTR group
Questions and comments
Closing words: Bishop Richard Clarke and Canon John Clarke
©Meath Peace Group
‘Making peace with the past – options for truth recovery’
Welcome and introduction: John Clancy (Meath Peace Group)
“Good evening. Before I hand you over to our guest chair tonight, Bishop Richard Clarke, may I first of all welcome you. This is our 66th public talk, we have been going for 14 years and I would like to thank the Columbans for the facility they have provided us over the years. Just to reflect, when we were looking at this talk, ‘Making Peace with the Past’, some thoughts came into my mind and if I may share them with you: I just wonder over the 30 years of the terrible violence and mayhem that we have had on this island whether I could have done more in relation to standing up and saying ‘no, this can’t go on.’ And I often think that if some of us had stood up 20 years ago – maybe some did but I certainly didn’t – maybe some of the people here who are victims might not be here tonight. I reflected on that and I reflect further in relation to a famous author, Bruno Bettelheim, in his book Survival where he talked about him growing up in Germany in the ‘20s and ‘30s, and how Nazism came and his people did not stand up and say ‘no’ in the beginning. And he often put down to himself and to his immediate family a blame that he felt he shared for not standing up to the violence because his view was that, if they had, maybe what happened to others would not have happened. And now I’ll hand you over to Bishop Clarke. Thank you.”
Chair: Dr. Richard Clarke (Bishop of Meath and Kildare):
“Well, first of all good evening everyone and you are very welcome. Our theme for tonight is how we try to – not make sense of the past – but how we somehow use the past in a way that will bring us forward into the future. The main plank of the first part is going to be presented to us by a group from Northern Ireland, Healing Through Remembering, and they are a group of quite different people coming from quite different backgrounds and quite different interests. We’re fairly well spread out here but I’ll try and introduce the panel in the order in which they are sitting rather than which group they belong to. Over to the left is Alan Wardle of the Healing Through Remembering group, next to him is Dr Hazlett Lynch of the West Tyrone Voice which is a way of helping those who have been the victims of terrorist violence in that part of Northern Ireland, right beside me is Margaret Urwin who is from a southern group the Justice for the Forgotten which began really in response to the bombings – we think always of the Monaghan and Dublin bombings of 1974 but of course there were bombings before that as well. On my right is Kate Turner of the Healing Through Remembering group, next are Irwin Turbitt and Pat Conway of the same group.
“We are going to divide this into two parts…. The theme of the whole evening is really how we make peace with the past to move into the future. Kate will introduce the work of Healing Through Remembering and in particular their report Making Peace with the Past. I will then ask for a response to what we have heard from Hazlett Lynch of West Tyrone Voice, and then a further response from Margaret Urwin of Justice for the Forgotten, and then we will open it to the floor.
“So, if we may begin with you Kate, thank you very much indeed.”
1. Kate Turner (Coordinator, Healing Through Remembering)
“Hello. Thank you very much for coming here tonight. We’re very glad to see you all. I’m Kate Turner, coordinator of Healing Through Remembering which is a non-governmental organisation, an independently funded organisation that consists of a membership that work together looking at issues dealing with the past. I am the coordinator because we are quite clear that the staff don’t direct the direction the organisation goes in, it is very much led by the members. And so when we have events, while I’ll come and talk, we do make try and make sure that we have some of the membership with us. As they’re going to present the report to you, I’m going to ask them now to introduce themselves …[see biographical notes at end of this report].
“This is one of a range of meetings we are holding. We are holding some public meetings and we are also holding some partnership meetings, where we are working in liaison with another organisation. So we are very glad that the Meath Peace Group has invited us to have this shared evening with them. We wanted to have an opportunity to share with people what is in this report and to hear their thoughts and questions on this issue.
Healing Through Remembering project: “Healing Through Remembering began with some ad hoc meetings back in 1999 and a report in 2000 that was looking at how do we deal with the past in order to build a better future. We discovered that people were very interested in this debate and a small group of us invited a range of individuals to form a board of people from very different backgrounds, people who have been affected by the conflict, involved in the conflict, from churches, from the community sector, academics, bringing them all together in a room. They spent some time discussing with each other how they would agree to actually work together and then implementing some work around this area. They carried out a public consultation and that led to a report in 2002. So the report is based on the public consultation and then on the views of that diverse range of people. And it identified five different areas that they felt were potential ways to deal with the past to build a better future. They are seen as a package, so no one of them is seen as the way to do it. They’re not all seen as ideas that need to be followed through but ideas that need to be examined as to possibilities, and if they are possible, how should they be carried out and by whom.
Areas of work: “So, in no particular order, they are: a collective storytelling process, a network of commemoration and remembering projects, a living memorial museum, a day of reflection and acknowledgement leading to the discussion on truth recovery. There was a 6th recommendation, and that was that this diverse range of people, who had begun by not wanting to stay in the same room, thought that not only should they continue to
work together but that they should invite more people to be part of it, and that there should be a Healing Through Remembering initiative, which should be a place, an organisation, where people from even more different backgrounds could come together to debate these five areas.
Sub-groups: “In 2003 we became a limited company and in 2004 we set up what we call sub-groups, so we have a group looking at each of those five recommendations that I mentioned. In forming these groups, we tried not just to bring together people who came from the different backgrounds I have already mentioned, but also people who felt that maybe the recommendation was or wasn’t a good idea. So for example it’s not just a collection of people who think there should be collective story-telling. There are people in the group who feel that collective story-telling will damage community story-telling. So the debates within the room can be quite robust in all sorts of different ways.
Truth recovery and acknowledgment: “This report ‘Making Peace with the Past’ – you’ve all had the executive summary, there are some full reports on the desk – comes from the Truth Recovery and Acknowledgment group. That group has a very diverse membership, they come from loyalist, republican, British Army and police backgrounds, as well as individuals from different faith backgrounds, victims groups, academics and community activists.
“They felt that there were two main issues at work that they needed to look at: one was acknowledgement and the other was truth recovery. They carried out some research and they have a discussion paper on ‘Acknowledgment and its role in preventing future violence’ which is one area they are looking at. The area of truth recovery in the original report was seen as something that should be debated after there had been a full discussion on acknowledgment.
Changing the debate and the question: “But in the time between that report and the group being founded, they felt that this issue was already something that was very much being publicly discussed. But they felt that the difficulty was that the discussion was: ‘should Northern Ireland have a South African style truth and reconciliation commission, yes or no?’ And that that’s not the right question. So they decided to find a way to change the debate from being about ‘should we have a South African type truth and reconciliation commission?’ to ‘what do we actually need to do about looking at truth and truth recovery?’ The views within the group are very diverse across the possibilities on that. They felt that what they needed to do was have a more informed debate and so they commissioned this report. They hope that it will facilitate an open, honest and inclusive debate on the issue of truth recovery, and they are now each going to present to you a section of the report.”
2. Irwin Turbitt (retired assistant chief constable with PSNI, member of Healing Through Remembering sub-group): “I am going to talk about the process by which the report came into existence. The one person who is very important with regard to that is Kieran McEvoy, Professor of Transitional Justice at Queen’s University in Belfast. He provided us with a great deal of research, knowledge and experience about various other wider issues with regard to this that, I have to say, I was not really in any way familiar with until we started this. The report that we are introducing to you – you have an executive summary – took us 18 months to produce. Over that 18 month period we met regularly in a variety of manners, sometimes like this for a couple of hours, sometimes in a hotel somewhere for a couple of days. And I think everybody learned quite a lot as they went through those series of meetings. They learned a lot about themselves and about each other as well as about truth recovery. Our aim was to try and shape a lot of the issues relating to truth recovery in a way that would enable some more structured discussion, and, as Kate has already said, we are trying desperately to get away from the ‘should we do a South Africa, yes or no?’ approach, which is something I believe we’re very good at in Northern Ireland, we’re very good at trying to make things very simple and very oppositional.
“And so we wanted to look at a whole range of issues with regard to truth recovery. We wanted to look at issues relating to victims, the right to a remedy in law and in fact, the right to truth, right to reparations and issues around amnesty.
International models: “We also wanted to look at other examples of truth recovery. Again one thing I think we are very good at in Northern Ireland is thinking that we are the only people who have this sort of problem and we spend a lot of time looking in at ourselves. So we looked at models that have been used in, for example, Chile, Guatemala, obviously South Africa, East Timor and Uganda amongst other places.
Local models: inquiries and legal cases: “And then we wanted to look at what was happening locally. There is a sort of a view that we shouldn’t do truth recovery in Northern Ireland, that’s put forward by some people. But that ignores the fact that we are doing it, the question is, is the way we are doing it the way that we are comfortable with, and are we happy for that to continue? And that is one of the options that Pat will discuss in a couple of minutes. So there are various public inquiries either ongoing or completed or nearing completion. There are issues around legal challenges to truth, the European Convention on Human Rights – a number of widely regarded cases of the European Court have been in regard to Northern Ireland issues. There are a number of policing issues: clearly the three Stevens’ inquiries, the Patten Commission into policing generally and now the Historical Inquiries Team which the current Chief Constable has set up as a way of putting a box around the outstanding murder investigations and to commit a significant amount of funding, but not an open-ended amount of funding, into the re-examination of a number of these murders. Then there was the on-the-run legislation which some people may remember, which was a very hasty attempt, in my view, to try and put through a piece of legislation that turned out not to be very well thought out and collapsed when it was subject to debate. And of course there’s a whole variety of victims’ initiatives and community initiatives.
Making Peace with the Past report: “So we were trying to look at a variety of things that are happening locally as well as a variety of the things that have happened internationally, and then work all that through our various thought processes and our collective, and not so collective, discussions, and produce a report that we were all prepared to put our names to. And for me that’s one of the most important things about the report. It’s easy to get hung up on discussing the five options and I’m sure we will do that a bit this evening. But I want to make sure that everybody takes time to look towards the back of the report, at the people who have produced the report, and then think about the value of a group of people like that being able to spend 18 months working through these difficult issues and producing a report. It’s not our intention to make the recommendations in the report as things we are prepared to lobby for, it’s about trying to demonstrate that people who would traditionally have been against each other, sometimes in a very violent way, are now in a position where they can discuss very difficult issues and come to a conclusion that we think will help move forward the debate around this. So I’ll just ask Pat now to outline the five options that we put forward in the report for discussion.”
3. Pat Conway (Director of Services, Northern Ireland Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, and member of Healing Through Remembering group):
“Hello, I’m Pat Conway… As Irwin says, we went into this and I think emerged with these five models, and we are not seeking to lobby on behalf of any one of them. What could emerge is either nothing, a synthesis of these five models as presented, one of the five models, or something totally new. And that is what we are hoping to do in these discussions, to generate that debate and discussion and I think we are open to – if there is anything out there that could be of assistance you will have a very willing audience to respond to.
Models for truth recovery examined in the report:
(1) Drawing a line under the past: “The first option – we call it ‘drawing a line under the past’, it is also known as the ‘do nothing else’ option. It is recognising the fact that there are a range of truth recovery processes that exist currently: there’s the Historical Enquiries Team, the Police Ombudsman, inquiries such as Bloody Sunday or Cory, the inquiry into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, victims’ initiatives, legal challenges, community initiatives, release of information, policing initiatives such as the Patten Commission and the Stevens’ inquiries and the on-the-runs legislation, which was referred to, The attempt to implement legislation regarding on-the-runs failed. So you have all these current methods of dealing with the past. That’s the first option.
(2) Internal organisation investigations. “The second option is around internal organisational investigations and that would apply to security forces, intelligence services, combatant organisations, republican and loyalist organisations, and it would also involve victims. And the idea there would be that those three sectors – security forces, combatant organisations and victims – would feed into a central body and that eventually a report would be produced.
Observations and comments on 1st option: “If we could just go back to the first option, I forgot to mention the issues that arose out of that. In the report, and it’s very clearly laid out, there are discussions about: ‘Is the conflict over?’ ‘Is the past too painful for further truth recovery?’ ‘Further truth recovery is unnecessary’ – there were a lot of people who felt that. ‘Truth recovery of itself could be politically destabilising.’ ‘Truth recovery is a republican Trojan horse’. ‘Truth recovery would contribute to the further criminalisation of loyalism’. And an observation that is held by a significant number of people that ‘genuine truth recovery will never happen.’
Observations on 2nd option: “In the internal organisational option, the strengths that people took note of were: ‘It could facilitate ex-combatants to contribute to the process of post-conflict healing and reconciliation’. Another strength that was highlighted was that ‘the process within this particular model could contribute to the healing and closure for the victims of political violence who wish to access truth concerning past events.’
Obstacles and weaknesses of 2nd option: “Weaknesses, of which there are more, this will come as no surprise: there is an issue of trust and public confidence as to whether the security forces and the republican and loyalist organisations could actually be trusted, and there’s an issue of public confidence. There’s also a point that was made several times as: ‘why would organisations participate?’ Really that was around what’s in it for the organisations to tell the truth? What was the capacity of organisations to deliver truth? It was noted that there was a lack of institutional and political accountability and there was an issue about – you know victims’ needs might be beyond the State and non-State organisations that were involved in the conflict. So there are all sorts of obstacles and there were more obstacles and weaknesses than there were pros.
(3) Community-based bottom up truth recovery process. “Option 3 was around the community-based bottom-up truth recovery process. There are examples of where this happens already. There are various truth recovery attempts to try and gather all the information together at a community level. Ardoyne and new Lodge are examples. Material has been generated that charts the experiences of the conflict as felt at a community level. Shankill was another one. Essentially this could involve security forces, former combatants, victims and witnesses. And there would be a range of localised community hearings.
“I suppose most people think of that as geographical in the way that I have described it but it might be themes as well. There would be produced a range of individual localised reports that would be fed into an oversight body and then synthesised so that one report would emerge from that process.
Strengths of 3rd option: ‘There is a broad notion of community out there. If this were done, the importance of ownership and legitimacy would be recognised, certainly at a local level.’ ‘It reinforces established local networks and relationships should assist with the quality of data and information that was obtained.’ ‘It would take advantage of existing skills base and would help towards community development and healing.’ Those were the advantages that were articulated as applied to this particular model.
Obstacles: ‘Bottom-up truth recovery may facilitate institutional and security force denial.’ ‘The process may be too single-identity focussed i.e. there would be dangers that particularly powerful narratives could dominate in this particular option.’ ‘There could be capacity differences between different communities leading to uneven quality of data collected.’ That feeds into the notion that nationalist/republican communities are better developed than loyalist communities, and I know that is not an argument that is held by everybody but it is certainly has had currency in the past number of years. The last one here is that ‘victims’ needs beyond truth recovery is again an issue, the victims’ needs could be lost in the security forces and former combatants’.
(4) Truth recovery commission. “Option four I suppose is the one where most attention is focused on, particularly in the press. Kate and Irwin talked about this: the struggle that we had as a group to try and counter the media, particularly the media-inspired notion that a truth recovery model would have to look like the South African model. And that was the one which certainly the BBC and UTV in particular – any time they ran a considerate and thoughtful programme really flagged up the South African model as the one to go for and apply in Northern Ireland. And we would make phone calls to say ‘well actually no, it has to be generated from the conflict and not imported from another situation’.
“Essentially the truth recovery process as proposed here would involve individual applicants – victims, former combatants, security forces, intelligence services, witnesses. They would feed into a staffed executive that would have lawyers, researchers, investigators, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, PR and information, all of that highly serviced body. There’s an argument about whether you should have lawyers about the place because they might just be in it to make money. There’s another argument that you actually need them. There could be some discussion around an amnesty, if amnesty were an issue.
“A Truth Commission would be established by legislation. It would be international or at least have international membership. You would have emerging themes from that – public hearings, reports, recommendations and an implementation body.
Strengths/pros of truth commission model: ‘A truth commission or a truth recovery body is a fairly potent and powerful tool that is recognised internationally.’ ‘It would signify a serious societal attempt to deal with the past’. ‘It would be a chance to set the record straight’. ‘It could be a vehicle for reconciliation’. There’s this notion that truth recovery commissions have to happen at the end of a conflict when there are clear winners and losers. The issue in the north is there isn’t a clear definition of who won and who lost. If you look at South Africa, there is, and people know or have an idea of how difficult that process was, but perhaps a truth recovery commission could act as a vehicle for reconciliation and be part of bringing people together. It doesn’t necessarily need to happen at the end of a conflict and ultimately it could contribute to a basis for a new political accommodation, and, if you look at the way that things have moved rapidly in the past few weeks, I don’t think that we should rule that possibility out.
Obstacles and weaknesses: “The difficulties have been around garnering public support and confidence, resourcing of such a model and the danger of legalism as referred to previously, the potential negative role of lawyers, but they can be positive as well. And lastly, ensuring the participation of victims, ex-combatants and relevant institutions. Again it goes back to the question: why would anybody actually participate in such a process? What’s in it for them either as individuals or as organisations?”
(5) A commission of historical clarification. “The final model is a commission of historical clarification. This basically involves the gathering together … this is the notion of an agreed account of what the conflict was all about. That’s what underpins this. So you have international or local experts in British/Irish and European history. It would be a small staff. It would involve communities, in terms of gathering that information, what their perception and their particular experience of the conflict was. There would be written and oral submissions from individuals, organisations and community groups, fed into the researching, there would be admin and technical support. This would go to an international body and two volumes of reports would be produced: one a narrative of the conflict causes and consequences and secondly a volume that actually collates individual cases. And I think that’s really around arriving at an agreed narrative, that’s the philosophy that underpins this
Strengths: ‘The need for definitive official historical account of the conflict.’ ‘Less likely to generate intense political opposition’, and ‘the capacity to generate a public debate concerning the past’.
Weaknesses: ‘Danger of a narrow process.’ ‘Insufficient focus on the needs of victims from a top-down process.’ ‘Lack of legal powers would hamper truth recovery.’ And then there’s also the issue of research fatigue where Northern Ireland is the most heavily researched conflict post Second World War – there’s thousands and thousands of books and pamphlets.
So really the 5 options are being proposed as an aid for discussion and debate as to how to deal with the issue of truth recovery in order to build a better future.
“As was said before, it’s not a definitive list of options, they could be subtracted or added to, or synthesised. Further details regarding the process, strengths, weaknesses and obstacles are all outlined in greater detail in the report which is available at the top desk. Thank you.”
4. Alan Wardle (Shankill Stress and Trauma group and member of HTR group):
“Good evening everybody, my name is Alan Wardle. I work for Shankill Stress and Trauma group which is a victims’ organisation representing an inclusive victims’ sector in north Belfast and we are involved in cross-community activity, sharing resources across both communities in north and west Belfast. And I’ve been part of this subgroup of Healing Through Remembering for approximately two years now.”
Lack of capacity within unionism/loyalism: “Before I begin my little section, I just want to touch back on community-based approaches. Within unionism or loyalism, there was an attempt to address issues of the past.- EPIC and Belfast Alternatives – but the document at the time followed a number of documents. One was from the Eolas group on the Falls Road – this came under the umbrella of Coiste which is a support agency for republican ex-prisoners. This is a very extensive report. And the report that was published in the unionist community wasn’t so extensive. The point I am trying to get to is about that level of capacity between the two communities. I think that within unionism and loyalism, at the minute especially, there is a lack of capacity to engage with these processes. The evidence for that is based on the amount of money being put into those areas to raise the capacity of community development agencies, individuals as well as organisations. So I think there is a lack of equality of capacity between the two communities and I think the communities themselves would support that in certain areas.
Political generosity: “What I want to discuss now is the debate we had around the need for political generosity in this process of looking at truth recovery. And when we were having the discussions in the sub-group about the many many factors involved in looking at the past, we realised we were looking at very practical issues. Pat has highlighted some strengths and weaknesses, and principles and values attached to this process. The international models that we looked at, as previously mentioned, we came across instances where political generosity amongst political parties in those arenas was increased because of the process of looking at the past. There was an understanding amongst political parties that this was a very important issue and that they had a key role to play in that, and through the discussions that they went through in those post-conflict arenas, they began to work more closely together because these issues are relevant to individuals and very tight-knit communities. So it’s a valuable part of those discussions. “
“And we were aware that during our discussions and debates that the role of our own political parties and governments in this process would be very very important, and very necessary as well, in pushing this process forward and allowing the process to take place. And what we hoped was that engaging in this process, which again – as I say it’s a very personal and very intimate issue for a lot of people who have lost or suffered as a result of the conflict – through engaging in that process they would generate a sense of ownership amongst individuals and also political parties, but also a stronger leadership value that could be demonstrated to the communities through addressing these very difficult issues.
Leadership: “There is obviously an immense amount of mistrust and a lack of trust between the political parties and also between the primary communities involved in the conflict in the North. What we have seen in the last few weeks and months is a shift in that. There is political generosity amongst the political parties in the north – it’s been evident over many years but it has just come to the fore in recent months with the negotiations around devolved government. With those two political parties showing this amount of leadership, it has informed the rest of our communities and the rest of our society in the possibilities for the future. So in a way, although some people may have been saying there was a lack of leadership towards the communities, I believe that the political parties have actually inadvertently shown great leadership in their generosity towards processes of government and establishing a new Assembly in Northern Ireland. So there is that amount of political generosity.
“I think that this time, with the upcoming re-establishment of the Assembly, is a perfect opportunity to interject thoughts around this process, from individuals and from organisations, to look at the past. There have been some musings recently by the Secretary of State, Peter Hain, about too much money being spent on investigations and looking at the past. And then they’re being contradicted by NIO officials who say ‘it’s a possibility, we might put something in place’. And indeed the two prime ministers in the past have said that they would welcome some exploration of the past conflict in Northern Ireland.
Diversity of group: “In producing this report and having these debates, and, as has been said, the sub-group that was involved in producing this report is extremely diverse. One of the main things that attracted me to the work is the extreme diversity sitting down around a table with mutual respect, understanding and tolerance, and producing a report that could inform a very very important part of our society’s progression. And we take this report as a sign of hope, and as a possible model for a way forward for political parties to engage in the debate as well for individuals to engage in that debate in the future. Thank you very much.”
Kate Turner: “To reiterate: ‘Making Peace with the Past’– it’s not designed to offer a definitive view on how or whether Northern Ireland should have some form of truth recovery process. It’s meant as a tool to aid and facilitate and open an honest debate on realistic options for the future. We hope that this will start to generate some real possibilities for dealing with the past, and that, whatever happens, any decision made should be done in order to build a better future for everyone. This is all subject to consultation and debate, and that’s what we are trying to promote with this report. So we’re doing, as I said, a range of public meetings and partnership meetings. We’re coming to the end of our public meetings – the last one is next Monday in Dublin in Liberty Hall at 7 o’clock – but we are continuing to do partnership ones with organisations who get in touch with us and say they want to do them. We’re doing this because we want to hear back what people think, and we’re particularly glad to see both Hazlett and Margaret here today. When we respond to questions … I will speak from Healing Through Remembering and the rest of the group will be able to speak either in terms of what the group in Healing Through Remembering thought or felt, or else as themselves as individuals holding very different views.”
Dr Richard Clarke. “Well, first of all, thank you very much indeed to our four speakers for putting together that introduction to our discussion. But before we open the discussion to the floor we are going to hear two immediate responses. The first is from Hazlett Lynch from West Tyrone Voice, and I will ask Hazlett perhaps to explain a little bit more both about himself and about the organisation. He’s involved very much in the care of those who have been the innocent victims of terrorist violence in that part of Northern Ireland. I hand you now to Hazlett for a response. Thank you.”
5. Dr Hazlett Lynch (Director, West Tyrone Voice victims’ group)
“Thank you very much, Chairman. … It’s a tremendous privilege for me to have been asked by the Meath Peace Group to come here tonight. It’s not my first time to speak at the Meath Peace Group meetings and I want to bring the warmest greetings from West Tyrone Voice to the people here. I have two of our members with us, two committee members with us and I suppose they are my personal security – they are armed, so beware, long arms and short arms so just be very very careful!
“West Tyrone Voice was founded in 1999. It was founded on the heels of the early release of terrorist killers back onto the streets of Northern Ireland coming from the Good Friday Agreement or the Belfast Agreement. The group started at that time and it provides support and help and care for people who have been severely traumatised and injured as a direct result of terrorist attacks. My two friends with us tonight: one was set up for murder and was attacked at his home. The other man was attacked, he got three serious injuries on his body. That’s only two of our members. We’re working with something like 2, 500 direct and indirect beneficiaries. While we do this welfare work on the ground, we also have a lobbying role where we try to bring the concerns of the innocent victims of terrorist violence to the attention of governments, politicians, funding bodies and indeed anybody who would give us an ear.
Making Peace with the Past report: “Reading through this report, I didn’t read it word for word, but I had a fairly good read through as much of it as I could. One thing that struck me was why is it assumed that we need a truth recovery process? I always thought that in our own country – and indeed in other democratic countries – each of them did have a truth recovery system and it’s known as the criminal justice system. Is there another agenda at work? Are we onto this old gravy-train way of thinking where we create jobs for the boys and we attract more people into an already fairly affluent reconciliation industry? I can’t see any reason for jettisoning the criminal justice system in preference to some other ‘touchy feely’ organisation that will actually discriminate against victims, and the concern has been raised several times tonight about victims maybe not getting a fair crack of the whip. I think that embedded deeply within this report is that very real possibility, and I’ll say something more about that in a moment or two.
Making peace with the present: “I think as well that, given recent developments, this report has become redundant, obsolete. You’ll be sorry to hear that Kate, but I think it has. From a victims’ perspective, the big concern today is not just about making peace with the past, it’s about making peace with the current situation, the present. And that is causing massive problems for some of our people in West Tyrone Voice.
Questions: “And making peace with the past is generally understood as a most desirable aspiration, not least for victims, but right at the outset the report raises some very important questions that it assumes are answered the same way by all stakeholders. The answers to these questions impact directly on how this may or may not be done:
1) First of all, the old chestnut, what or who is a victim?
2) What or who caused their victimhood?
3) How can the relationship between victims and terrorists be repaired – if it is even possible to be repaired?
4) Why was the definition of victim as drawn up by OFM/DFM used uncritically in the report?
That is a massive disappointment, so far as I was concerned.
5) How does the use of the internationally-recognised phrase ‘ex-combatant’ to refer to both State and non-State actors, avoid implied moral equivalence between terrorists and security force personnel?
-
Since the debate over the definition of victim is highlighted in the report, why was the debate over the definition of ‘terrorist’ not even mentioned in the report? Terms such as ‘perpetrator’ and ‘paramilitary’ were used instead. They’re nicer words and you certainly don’t want to offend lovely kindly nice family-men murderers.
Terrorist campaign airbrushed: “On this last point, there seems to be a concerted effort being made by the various establishment bodies in Northern Ireland to airbrush the fact that there was a terrorist campaign in the province at all, and that those who died or were murdered lost their lives by some other means than terrorism. From a recovery aspect this erects a massive barrier for the many victims who are made to feel that what was visited upon them was a figment of their over-active imaginations, or they brought it on themselves. This is a very disappointing trend throughout the sectors and it does nothing to promote healing. In any case what is it that victims are to remember? If terrorist violence was not the instrumental cause of their suffering, what was? Was it burglary? Are they victims of burglary? Are they victims of a road traffic collision? Are they victims of rape? Are they victims of a mugging or something like that? None of these. The quasi-statutory bodies and the multitudes who work in the reconciliation industry today are not prepared, for purely politically correctness reasons, to give the instrumental cause of our victimhood its proper name, terrorism.
“My brother was murdered by terrorists, not by nice men, not by gentlemen, not by, as one of the chief terrorists in the Assembly was described by a party leader, the ‘honourable member’. There is nothing honourable about the activities of organisations like the Provisional IRA, nothing, and I think that as I read through this report I felt insulted by the sentiments expressed in that report because it took no cognisance at all of where I and people like me are coming from.
“Victims are being encouraged not to remember the real cause of their pain but they are being encouraged to remember a sanitised cause, whatever that is. Medical professionals of various kinds are seeking to treat pain whose origins are being ignored. Let me give you an illustration of this. Imagine a doctor arguing with his patient who presents with a stab wound. He tells his doctor that he is walking along the street when a gang jumped him, assaulted him, drew a knife and stabbed him. But the doctor knows best, he is educated. He’s been to university. And he re-explains what caused it. He tells his patient: ‘you were injured when you passed too close to a sharp object, incurring this wound. That’s what happened to you.’ The patient remonstrates with the doctor and repeats his original story: ‘I was stabbed by a gang of youths while walking along the street.’ ‘No you weren’t’ says the doctor. He knows it all you see. ‘It happened as I explained to you. If you had not been as close to the sharp object this would not have happened to you. It was your own fault.’ You see, the doctor knows best.
“And today the professionals, the educated classes, know best. Who are we to pit our experience against their specialist knowledge? As victims we’re told we were not injured by terrorists because such do not exist today in Northern Ireland. You’ll near nobody outside the victims’ sector talking about terrorists. The government doesn’t talk about terrorists, the police certainly don’t talk about terrorists, the funding bodies don’t talk about terrorists, the civil service doesn’t talk about terrorists. They have got nicer names for them.
“We suffered because our own coping mechanisms were inadequate for the demands that were placed upon them. So today’s do-gooders say in effect: ‘you were partly to blame for what happened to you, for you supported a regime that discriminated against a section of the community’.
Victims: That’s why, men and women, baby Jack, five months old, was murdered in Strabane by the Provisional IRA on the 19th of July 1972 when they detonated a bomb, showering him with broken glass and debris crushing his pram. He was responsible for what happened to him because he was a member of a society that allegedly discriminated against another section of the community. In a sense, he deserved it and he brought it on himself, and his young mother was from Cork. Or the unborn twins who were murdered by republican terrorists in Omagh on the 15th August, 1998, or the 20-month old baby girl whose life was also stolen from her so violently on that dreadful day. According to the experts these civilians only got what was their due. Why? Because they belonged to a ‘rogue state’ that practised injustice, discrimination etc. Or the 15-year old boy who worked as a milkman’s assistant, and the 9 year old girl, both of whom who were murdered by the Provisional IRA … in the Omagh atrocity on the 31st of July, 1972…….
Police and UDR casualties: “Take the 302 civilian police officers, my youngest brother was one of them, and the many off-duty UDR soldiers who were murdered by terrorists. Of what were they guilty? Of trying to keep their country from plunging into outright civil war. These were all civilians, together with all the other civilians who died at the hands of terrorist murderers.
“Now tell me, what kind of logic is prepared to twist the facts so grossly that they end up by making the people who died the reason for their own murders? And that is precisely what this report is in danger of doing. Yes these people died as a result of an explosive device but what is concealed is that the bomb device was placed there by terrorists, it didn’t just appear there.
“There is a discernible trend today to rewrite the history of Northern Ireland, a history that denies the activity of terrorist murders in the current campaign of genocide. Not only has this report deliberately avoided all references to terrorists, so also has the report drawn up by the community victim support officer from Sperrin Lakeland Trust, in Co. Fermanagh. It was received by our office in December last.
“And the…report which was drawn up by Queen’s University Belfast and launched on the 9th March 2007, just very recently. Not one of these three reports folks, and this ties us in very very much to this report, not one of them speaks about terrorists except where respondents use this term. It appears that the authors of these reports all work to the same principle, namely the avoidance of the term ‘terrorist’ to describe organisations like the Provisional IRA, INLA, UVF, UDA etc. When asked why this was done in the QUB report, the author said she ‘wanted to be politically correct’. So that was the agenda behind that particular report. She did not want to offend anybody. I challenged this view on the ground that whilst she did not want to offend the terrorists, it mattered little if they offended their victims.
“I suppose these authors felt themselves under some obligation to deliver what their paymasters were paying for. After all, ‘he who pays the piper…’ You see victims just do not matter. Making peace with the past is clearly not about helping victims recover from the heinous crimes perpetrated against them, but it is about finding ways of enabling terrorists to live with their demonic past. It’s about finding ways of easing their consciences, extending to them a form of respectability and offering them a way of sanitising their evil deeds, deeds that they would repeat if necessary, and three leading republicans actually made that statement in the media.
What were the last 40 years all about? “Further, there is a sense in which this report is not totally redundant given the institutionalised destabilisation of Northern Ireland by appeasing the terrorists who have sought to totally destroy our country. And people are asking with some justification, what were the last 40 years all about? Why were so many good people allowed to die? If the current political arrangement had been secured during Captain Terence O’Neill’s prime ministership in the late 1960s, these lives would have been saved. How then can the many innocent victims of subsequent years be aided in making peace with the past? How can victims come to terms with what the leaders of unionism have now done to them? The issue is not merely about making peace with the past, it is now about making peace with the present, as I said earlier. The present has had a re-triggering of trauma and anger for many. But not all victims feel that. Some victims, or people at least who call themselves victims, supported parties that wanted Martin McGuinness as Deputy First Minister. Some victims feel betrayed by those they trusted and they cannot understand the complete u-turn by the DUP etc. These are profound obstacles to any healing for many victims of PIRA terrorism, and for groups like ours that are working on the ground with these angry sufferers. Again, the personally ambitious do-gooders in Northern Ireland have won the day, it appears to the detriment of those who still carry heavy burdens from the past.
Airbrushing of terrorists: “This process, while talking frequently about victims and ignoring terrorists, is about airbrushing terrorists out of the picture and providing them with a way of rationalising what they have done and making it respectable. As a result, it creates the wrong impression that what victims claim has happened to them was not done by terrorists, as the victims call them, but by actors in a protracted conflict whose concerns were as valid as anybody else’s.
Acknowledgement: “It is interesting to note that Victim Support Northern Ireland was one of the two founding bodies of Healing Through Remembering. Victim Support deals with the relatively minor effects of offences, and has nothing to contribute to the situation in which I find myself. The report, I feel, lays too much weight on the views of people who come from this background who have not experienced what terrorist victims have suffered. Until there is proper acknowledgement of what exactly was done, any moves toward reconciliation for victims are a non-starter.
Drawing a line under the past: “The report talks about ‘drawing a line under the past’. For me this is not an option, nor is it an option for those who have suffered innocently in the terrorist campaign, namely the victims. It is as easy for a mother to forget the child that she bore as it is for terrorist victims to forget what was done to them. This is also a non-starter. It is even questionable morally whether innocent people should be expected to forget the past, thus betraying the memory of their loved ones. Is it right or proper to ask victims to forego justice in the interests of the greater good?
Truth commission: “A truth commission, where every witness has to tell the truth, sounds plausible until one remembers that the chief, not the deputy, victim-maker, Martin McGuinness, who is soon to rule legally over our country jointly with Ian Paisley, refused to say anything to the Saville Inquiry, the so-called Bloody Sunday inquiry, that would implicate other Provos. Indeed he refused to break his republican oath. That was more important to McGuinness than discovering the truth. The loyalist provos are no different. It is very unlikely that terrorists may be regarded as men of integrity and truthfulness, therefore expecting truth to emerge from this quarter is naïve. Indeed the government and its agencies will not tell the truth, something that seems to evade government ministers in many countries. Many officials have signed the Official Secrets Act so are bound by its requirements. Providing victims with the truth about what happened to their loved ones is woefully inadequate and does not satisfy the needs of all victims. What they need for recovery is satisfaction and this does not provide it. On a personal note, I know enough about my brother’s murder. What I now want is for those responsible to be brought to justice. I know who did it, I know where they are. Your country, as I think I said here before, is protecting them, providing for them, allowing them free movement and will refuse, though of course our police I don’t think they have ever asked for these guys to be extradited to Northern Ireland but the Republic’s government has refused for technicalities to sign the extradition papers for known terrorists.
“Unless and until this is done, everything else is woefully inadequate. Let’s face it folks, having an organisation like PIRA carrying out an internal investigation of those who are covered by the republican oath is ludicrous. It is most demeaning of reconciliation activists to even suggest that victims ask the PIRA to investigate the murders of their loved ones. Spare us that. Give us some dignity and some respect. If that is all this report can come up with it has been at best a waste of money and at worst a profound insult to the memories of our dead family members.
No reconciliation without justice: “I was saying to somebody over dinner that I was speaking to the man who headed up the inquiry into Sarajevo in Bosnia. That organisation has to deal with human rights abuses. And that gentleman told me there can be no reconciliation without justice. None. I said earlier there can be no reconciliation without acknowledgment. This suggestion that there will be no prosecutions, be no naming of names, is repugnant to decency. Political leadership does not require such a process to transform it, this has already been done through the medium of seismic acts of massive betrayal by unionist leaders, possibly the greatest act of betrayal that this island, if not western Europe, has ever witnessed.
“How can a process that retraumatises victims help resolve past grievances? Given that the vast majority in Northern Ireland support this new move, I think that only 13,000 of those who voted on the 7th March voted for parties who were opposed to putting terrorists at the heart of government. The message that is being conveyed by our current situation is that victims are backwoodsmen who have nothing to offer Northern Ireland. We just don’t count, you see. And that is where terrorist victims are at this moment in time, left re-traumatised, re-victimised, devastated, betrayed, furious and very very angry. What has happened politically in Northern Ireland in recent days renders this report obsolete.
Community-based bottom-up truth recovery: “This I think is farcical in the extreme. How can those who have taken a republican oath ever disclose the truth of what happened? This is a wee bit like expecting King Herod to investigate the killings of the innocent children in Bethlehem long ago. That’s what we are doing, that’s what we have reduced ourselves to, if the suggestions in this report are taken on board. Recording untold stories is rather voyeuristic and ought to be avoided, but there again the reconciliation industry is full of voyeurs which probably explains why this has been suggested. Victims are not interested primarily with community development and the report gives the lie to HTR’s real agenda which has precious little to do with victims or with truth, or with justice or reconciliation.
Recommendations: “What ought to be put in place then for those who have suffered most in the tragic years of terrorist violence that has blighted not only our beautiful country but many of its people? Just four brief things:
-
First of all, a renewed focus on the use of the already existing criminal justice system to facilitate truth recovery.
-
The sincerity of ‘former’ terrorist activists is to be tested regarding their commitment to reconciliation by requiring them to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about their involvement in terrorist outrages.
-
The security forces are to reveal what they can with an eye to matters of national security about their involvement in illegal activities
-
And finally, when confession has been made in court, justice must take its course and the victims provided with all the support they need in financial, social and moral terms and for as long as it takes. Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen.”
Chair (Dr. Richard Clarke): “Thank you very much to Hazlett. And now as a second response, I am going to ask Margaret Urwin from the Justice for the Forgotten group.
6. Margaret Urwin (Justice for the Forgotten)
“Thank you. I’m delighted to be here tonight to have a chance to speak to you on behalf of Justice for the Forgotten. My name is Margaret Urwin and I’ve been with the organisation now since 1993. Justice for the Forgotten represents the victims of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of May, 1974. Now that was the day when we had the greatest loss of life in the whole of the Troubles. We had 33 people plus an unborn baby killed in those bombings. We also represent the victims of the Dublin bombings of ’72 and ’73, in which three other people were killed, and we also assist many other victims of violence in this jurisdiction.
Healing Through Remembering report: “Unlike Hazlett, I very much welcome this report. I think it is very timely that it is happening now. I think there is a window of opportunity now with the new dispensation in the North, that we can look at all of this in a calmer manner than we have been able to do in the past. I would like to just say that I noticed that some of the speakers from the Healing Through Remembering kept referring to ‘Northern Ireland’ and having a truth commission for Northern Ireland. I think that if there is to be a truth commission it should include the Irish government as well, it has to include the whole of the island because there is a community of victims south of the border as well and I think that is very often forgotten, both north and south of the border. I think that if we are to have a truth commission it would have to include the British and Irish governments as well as all paramilitary groups who have existed since 1969 up to today.
Justice for the Forgotten: “We in Justice for the Forgotten can identify with some of the observations of Healing Through Remembering. Drawing a line under the past has not been an option for the victims that we represent. They are very determined to get to the truth and they have been fighting for the truth now since 1993. Our members have been forced to resort to different strategies to compel reluctant institutions towards truth recovery. These are some of the findings or observations in your report and we can really identify with them. We have long campaigned for a public enquiry because we saw no other viable option. We have taken court cases before both domestic and international courts, that is the High Court and the Supreme Court in Dublin, and also the European Court of Human Rights, and we only had inquests into the killings of these people only in 2004 – 30 years after the bombings occurred! And we have been and are hampered by cross-border jurisdictional issues.
“I would just like to share with you the efforts we have made over the years in relation to truth recovery:
History of the campaign: “From 1974 up until the early ‘90s, there was no campaign, there was no coming together of families or survivors for at least 16 years after the bombings and the campaign was started really by a trade unionist who had witnessed the carnage on that terrible day and he single-handedly went about getting a memorial erected and he also began to have a commemorative mass said in the Pro-Cathedral on the anniversary. I suppose the catalyst for the campaign was the Yorkshire television programme of 1993 which dealt with suspects on the Garda file and their connection with the Northern Ireland security forces. The programme also dealt with the short-lived Garda investigation and suggested a cover-up. From then we began demands for a public inquiry into these bombings. The Irish government managed the fall-out from this programme by procrastination and delay. It took nearly 2 years for the Minister for Justice to issue a 4-page report refuting the claims made in the programme and indeed refuting claims that weren’t made.
European Court of Human Rights: “In January, 1996, our lawyers came on board and they are still with us today, and Justice for the Forgotten as an organisation was founded then, A case was taken to the European Court of Human Rights against the British government for its failure, or the failure of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, to initiate a murder inquiry in Northern Ireland even though the bombings were planned there, the plans were assembled there, the cars were procured there and the perpetrators escaped back there. To assist with our case we sought discovery of Garda investigation files. This resulted in a case to the High Court which was lost on a technicality, and it was appealed to the Supreme Court and rejected. Then the European Court of Human Rights rejected the complaint on the basis of the time limitation which they said was 6 months after the broadcasting of the Yorkshire television programme. And this was a very low point for the campaign.
“However, in 1998 the Good Friday Agreement was signed and the Good Friday Agreement included the important paragraph declaring that the needs of the victims of the conflict should be addressed. And this led to the establishment of victims’ commissions in both jurisdictions, in Northern Ireland under Ken Bloomfield, and here under the former Tánaiste, John Wilson. John Wilson reported in August, 1999, and made many recommendations to address the needs of victims in terms of counselling and financial assistance. He also recommended a private inquiry into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and this was rejected by our organisation.
Hamilton-Barron inquiry: “Things moved on rapidly after that and we were invited to present our case for a public inquiry before a Joint Oireachtas Committee in November 1999. And this led to negotiations with the Taoiseach’s Department which resulted in the establishment of the Hamilton-Barron inquiry which was referred to earlier on. This was established in January 2000 and, although it was a private inquiry, it had some unique aspects to it in which we were able to make submissions to it, we were also given information on the people that had been interviewed by Judge Barron and so on. We expected it would take about 9 months. Unfortunately, it took almost 4 years to complete, only published in December 2003. This was followed by public hearings in early 2004 and they published their final report in March. And they recommended that a public inquiry into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings should take place in Britain or Northern Ireland. In other words, they passed the buck. And they also recommended, under new legislation, a commission of investigation to take place into the Garda investigation and why it was wound up so quickly. As I said, the inquests were reopened and they went to full hearings in April and May and that encompassed the 30th anniversary of the bombings.
McEntee report: “The commission of investigation that had been recommended was set up in May 2005 under Patrick McEntee, Senior Counsel. This was an entirely private inquiry and his report, as you may be aware, was published only on the 4th of this month, almost 2 years after it was set up. This inquiry was something we never sought, it was something we never asked for, but we did cooperate with it because it was the only show in town. It was very unsatisfactory, we did not know what was happening in it, and indeed the report itself has been very disappointing. We have learned very little new information from this report.
“Also, just to say that as a result of our initiative, other cross-border attacks were investigated by Barron.] …It also lookedat murders carried out by this same gang which comprised loyalist paramilitaries, members of the RUC and members of the UDR. And this gang carried out many murders north of the border in this period of ’75, ’76, including the murders of members of the Miami Showband. These culminated in the report of the Joint Oireachtas Committee of November 2006. This is a cross-party committee and they concluded that collusion between British security forces and terrorists was behind many if not all of the atrocities considered in that report. And they referred to them as ‘acts of international terrorism’.
Oireachtas report: “The Joint Oireachtas Committee reported that the spectre of collusion was raised in their first report, that is the report on the Dublin-Monaghan bombings. And they now said they had enough information to be fully satisfied not only that it occurred, but that it was widespread. They said the seriousness of this warrants direction from the Oireachtas and they recommended that there should be a full debate in both Dáil and Seanad on the issue of collusion since it is necessary, and I quote, ‘for there to be greater political impetus to highlight the fact that it occurred and the facts of its scale, and to identify measures to bring closures to the victims’. Now the Taoiseach is committed to holding these debates and we are very hopeful that they will happen before the General Election is called.
“Now no public inquiry, needless to say, was established in Britain, nor is one likely to be. If it were it would anyway come under the new Inquiries Bill which has been rejected by the Finucane family in the case of the murder of Pat Finucane. And we believe that a formal apology is needed for the incredible failures of the gardaí to maintain proper records and for the loss of files from both the Garda Commissioner and the Minister for Justice. This is one of the main findings of the McEntee report – the absolute abysmal state of the Garda records in relation to the bombings.
“There has to be a formal acceptance by the Irish government that collusion was a factor in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, and to acknowledge that the State was wrong to deny and repudiate such allegations, which it had done over several years.
Healing Through Remembering report: “Just to move on very quickly to respond to the report, as I said I think it is an extremely important report and, on behalf of Justice for the Forgotten, I want to congratulate the people who have been involved with it and have produced such a thorough report. I have read through it fairly carefully. I need to go through it again but I think it’s a wonderful idea that you were able to come up with the several different options and to be able to look at them in such an open and non-judgmental way.
Search for the truth: “As I have just outlined to you, we have tried to get some way of finding truth, of recovering the truth, and, despite all our efforts – I mean we have had some successes, we have achieved a lot, but we still haven’t got to where we want to be. Now we are not looking for recrimination, even though nobody ever went to jail for these bombings, nobody was ever charged even for these bombings. But we are not at this stage looking for retribution. What we are looking for, and what the families have looked for since 1993, is the truth as to what happened. That’s all they’re really looking for. And I think it may well be that we have explored so many different options for truth recovery that really it seems at this stage as if there may be no other way other than to have a form of truth commission, and that that truth commission should have a very important input from all victims, all of the victims should be able to have an input into how that is established. And, as I said, it’s so important, it’s not just the paramilitaries that have to be involved, although of course they all have to be involved, but also that both governments have to be involved in it, because it’s not only the British Government that has questions to answer, it’s also the Irish Government. So, with that, I’ll say thank you very much.”
Chair: Dr Richard Clarke: “Thank you very much indeed to Margaret, as indeed to Hazlett. Now, at this stage we move the discussion open to the floor, but I wonder before we do would anyone from the Healing Through Remembering report group want to make any response to either or both indeed of the responses to them? Thank you.”
RESPONSES FROM ‘HEALING THROUGH REMEMBERING’:
Kate Turner: “Thank you very much, Hazlett, for your comments. As we’ve said the Healing Through Remembering organisation and that sub-group in particular are a very diverse range of people. And there were a lot of lively discussions in the group about all sort of issues but in the very beginning it was largely around terminology before they could even begin to agree what they were talking about. On page 3 of the report you will see how we’ve outlined … some of that discussion. So, just to clarify, in terms of the use of the word ‘ex-combatants’, this refers broadly to former loyalist and republican activists who were involved in hostilities. British Army members or members of the RUC who were also involved in hostilities are generally referred to as the ‘security forces’. And members of the various intelligence agencies are referred to as such or as the ‘security forces’. The terminology reflects no value judgments on the actions of individuals or organisations. And you can see that in the models we have stuck to those different categories as well.
Victims: “On the term ‘victims’, we did decide to go with the OFM/DFM definition and we have a small paragraph in the report that outlines that we had a discussion about that and it was felt that the group needed to decide to use that definition, and that was the working definition. But they did so recognising that it was one that was not universally accepted, and that’s acknowledged in the report.
“In terms of the report and what it’s looking at and saying that truth recovery is one of the issues to be addressed, the group looked at their own membership and identified the gaps and then tried to seek views and opinions of those that weren’t sitting around the table. So there were a number of groups invited to meet the group many of whom felt that they were not able to do so because of the diversity of our group but we did ask them to feed in through members of the staff, or members of the sub-group, their views and concerns. So some of the issues that Hazlett has raised were fed in and the issue of justice in particular. And the sub-group commissioned a legal paper which looks at the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) and analyses whether or not the legal professionals felt that there was likely to be prosecutions resulting from the HET because we were well aware that for a lot of people that was what they wanted. Unfortunately it was too late to go into this report but we have paper copies on the table there. It’s a legal paper so it’s written very legally. It basically weighs up the pros and cons and says there is some possibility but it highlights the difficulties that are very obvious like time and missing material, some of which we’ve heard from Margaret. And also that while there may be hope in some of the new advances in technology, the fact that that was not foreseen earlier on means that we are not likely to get much further in terms of prosecution. So we did look at that as one of the issues.
“I think the only thing to say is round truth recovery because truth recovery is not necessarily about saying what happened and who did it, but truth recovery is also about the story that is written. And that’s why the point that Hazlett raises about the re-writing of what happened and about how it is described… is something important that we do need to discuss, and we need to hear the range of views about that if we are going to go forward together.
Irwin Turbitt: “I just wanted to say something quite quickly, hopefully, which was to sort of express thanks to the group here for providing me with the opportunity to hear Dr Lynch because I found it very uncomfortable to listen to him, and that’s usually when you get the most insights and the most opportunity to learn. I’m disappointed that it took us to travel this far to hear him. I understand that he refused to come and speak to us when we were considering the preparation of the report and it’s a pity that that was the case but nonetheless I am glad that he found it possible to come here tonight.
Terrorism: “I don’t have a problem with the word ‘terrorist’ at all. I’m not a professional peace-maker in any sense, I don’t want anyone to think that I am. I haven’t made any money out of this at all, in fact it cost me money to be involved in this. So I don’t want anyone to think that I am in that category of people that Dr Lynch clearly doesn’t seem to be fond of. But this whole business makes us uncomfortable in lots of different ways, I mean one of the things that makes me very uncomfortable is having to recognise that, as an RUC officer, that there were terrorists in the RUC, that some members of the RUC engaged in terrorist activities. As someone who worked closely with the Ulster Defence Regiment, in fact worked with people who have been in jail for terrorist activities, I once had a supervising officer in the RUC who eventually served time in jail as a terrorist, I don’t feel comfortable recognising these people were terrorists.
“So there’s a lot of uncomfortableness around this whole issue but I think that if we are going to make progress we have got to get in a room together and we have got to discuss these things. And if all it takes is to use the word ‘terrorist’, then that’s not really a problem for me, but, equally, I think that using a particular word as a way of avoiding debates with people who you find it difficult to debate with I don’t think is helpful either.”
Pat Conway: “There’s a couple of points I would like to make. I actually agree in some respects with what Hazlett said, particularly with respect to the – he didn’t actually use the phrase, but I think what he meant was a sort of hierarchy of victims. And there was an impulse a few years ago that one shouldn’t talk about a hierarchy of victims and I personally believe that there was a hierarchy of victims. If I chose personally to engage in armed struggle, and I was making a conscious choice, a 9-month old child in a pram wasn’t making that choice, and I don’t believe that we have had that discussion in the public domain yet and I think it would be worth possibly revisiting that, and that may feed into a – if there ever was a truth commission and the issue of amnesty was on the table then I think that’s when the concept and reality will be re-introduced.
“I do think Hazlett’s contribution was marked by a huge feeling of betrayal all around him. And that’s what I picked up from that. Everybody around him seems to have sold out except for the 13,000 people who didn’t vote for the devolved Assembly being restored. And I don’t know what to do about that. If somebody feels that sense of betrayal so deeply, and has a view of history, and I wasn’t aware that he had the opportunity to make that history, to present that history, to Healing Through Remembering and I wish that he had. In terms of monopoly of hurt, I got that from Hazlett as well, and I was a bit disappointed at that, you know there isn’t a monopoly of hurt.
Why should we stop seeking truth? “I do take issue with the ‘touchy feely’ stuff. If the criminal justice system that Hazlett has so much faith in has failed to deliver truth then surely why would we stop seeking truth? Why would we stop doing that? And I don’t believe that that’s a sort of a touchy-feely aspiration. I think that’s fundamental. And if the existing processes could deliver and were delivering, we wouldn’t be sitting here now. And there’s a fact that there are people out there who are seeking, searching for truth, and they don’t feel they have it. You know Hazlett and many other people know who murdered their loved ones and they have a pretty good idea who it was, either publicly or privately. And they are probably fairly accurate, they are probably right. It was an intimate conflict, people knew who the ‘enemy’ were. Why wouldn’t you want the truth? If the truth isn’t accessible by existing mechanisms why wouldn’t you look for a mechanism, or a series of mechanisms, that is actually going to deliver that for you, if that is what you want? And there are many people who want to draw a line under the sand, and this report does recognise that there is a constituency of people out there and they don’t want to know any more, and that’s fine. I mean nobody is going to impose a solution on people.
“I think, in terms of what Margaret was saying, she made the point about it being a kind of Northern Ireland specific… and we did have a lot of discussion, early on in the document, we were very clear to talk about the conflict ‘in and about Northern Ireland’, it wasn’t just about the 6 counties if you like, it’s about what happened in England, in the States, in Europe, wherever the conflict actually touched people.
Normalisation of the conflict: “I think also there’s been a lot of discussion tonight about combatants and the British and Irish governments which Margaret introduced. We actually went further and talked about issues of acknowledgment and culpability by other organisations such as the churches, statutory organisations. I work for social services and during the height of the conflict social services ignored the fact that there was a conflict raging around it. It just wasn’t referenced. I remember, I came back from London, wrote a court report on behalf of some 14/15-year old kid up in court, from West Belfast. It was very apparent that the conflict had impinged on that kid’s life. I had written a paragraph in the court report and I was told by my boss ‘don’t put that in because the judge won’t acknowledge or recognise it, that’s happening everybody’. Now that kind of normalised the conflict and an awful lot of that stuff went on.
Industry: “And I would actually agree with Hazlett that there has been an industry, he called it a peace and reconciliation or a trauma industry and all the rest of it. When people needed services to address very traumatic events that happened in their lives quite simply those services did not exist.
“And it was only post-1994 you saw the growth in development of trauma groups, the victims’ groups mushroomed, I think there are something like 65 identifiable victims’ groups now. So I would actually agree with that, there has been a whole development of an industry there.
Acknowledgment: “And personally I would have preferred – there was a paper and it’s been referenced and I think there’s a copy of it over there, it’s about acknowledgment. And maybe you need acknowledgment before you actually address – whatever model it is you are going for, whatever synthesis or combination of models, it is out there. I think unless that acknowledgment, I suppose what I took from Hazlett’s contribution was, I mean I didn’t hear an acknowledgment that there are other organisations that had responsibilities and they were culpable to an extent, and I think that needs to be addressed. I think personally, if there was a truth commission established that you would need discussion around acknowledgment. And you certainly don’t get it from – I mean I was in London around the time when the Brazilian was killed and the head of the Met, the Commissioner, Ian Blair, came on within 24 hours of that guy being killed and said ‘we have a shoot to kill policy’. Now that was denied totally in and about the North, and yet within 24 hours of this guy being killed it’s ok to say that. And, as a consequence we are being contacted by Muslim communities in Britain who … are asking how did it work for you guys? So there are lessons to be learned. Rather than this being an introverted inward-looking exercise that was purely about dealing with the past and then that’s it. Personally I believe that there are lessons that can be transferred to other jurisdictions and for other futures.”
Alan Wardle: “Just briefly because I am very conscious that I think we really need to get your opinions and your own points on what we discussed here tonight. Just two things. Hazlett and I come from a victims’ sector but from two different points of view within that victims’ sector. I respect Hazlett’s points of view, I also acknowledge his anger about his personal pain in the past, and the pain of the people he represents. But what I would say is in coming to our discussions and drawing up these options – and that’s all they are, just options, not telling people what to do – we understood that and we respected the individual rights and the individual needs of those people who submitted information, in reports and in giving their stories and everything else. And what I would say is that if we are to move forward, and I think we need to move forward, we need to understand that individual rights are as important as our own. And we need to respect those rights and we need to understand other without denying our own pain, our own loss or our own support. So I would just like to say that.
Anger: “Hazlett made one interesting point as well which was he referred to the people that he represents as angry sufferers. Now from my own point of view in providing psychological services to traumatised individuals, anger leads to more conflict. That’s just a fact of life, it’s one of the fundamental driving forces of humanity. As I said before, I respect people’s loss and pain and grief. I have suffered as well on several occasions and I would like people to understand and respect my point of view as well. But, from a point of view of anger driving that point of view I think there are different ways forward. But I’m really keen to get the points of view of the audience, I’m sure we all are, and I would just like to mirror what the rest of my colleagues stated previously.”
QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS
Chair: “Thank you all. We probably only have 20-25 minutes left but what I would like is that people who would like to make comments to try and keep them fairly short rather than long statements, and when it comes to questions that need a response I will put it but I just want one response from a member of the team, please if we could just to try and keep it going.”
Q.1. Leslie Finlay (West Tyrone Voice): “….It was very interesting listening to what was going on there and talking about how we would forget the past. Hazlett brought up a good point there – how do you manage the future and the present? I don’t know of you people here know that there was 4 bombs left around Strabane and Sion Mills in the last week. It doesn’t reach international newspapers because somebody has an agenda to keep the lid over what is going on at the minute. Over the last year there has been 9 bombs left in the Strabane/Sion Mills area. They’re not broadcasting them, they might get a snip of two inches long in the paper. And this is what we’re up against. And we can see now the situation where we’re going back to what went on at the start of the troubles.
“Because around our area, way back at the start of the troubles, they painted letter boxes and telephone boxes green, a fairly innocuous sort of thing to do like. And we reckoned that was blooding in the young terrorists. Now they graduated from that to burning Orange halls and attacking Orange halls. They’re at that at the minute. There was an Orange hall burned last night in Belfast. Now is that blooding in to start another wave of terrorism? We’re talking about the past but we haven’t stopped it so forget about going back into the past until we get it stopped because it’s not stopped. We had a man who went into the Strabane Chronicle newspaper last week, Willie G…, one of the leading lights of the new either Continuity or Real IRA, they’re all the same to me, in Strabane. It seems there were some people put under threat in the nationalist end …. and he has written in the public street, a foot long in the Chronicle that he will personally deal, or his organisation will personally deal with somebody if there is anybody in their organisation touched. So where are we? We’re no different from where we were 20 years ago. It’s still there.
“You are talking about truth and reconciliation. I have never seen yet a terrorist who tells the truth. They got up and they lied through their teeth anytime they were caught.
Lost Lives: “Another thing that was never mentioned … was that the ‘black book’ – you all know what I am talking about when I mention the ‘black book, Lost Lives – now it was compiled by a lot of people including Fr Murray from Carrickmore so there were outputs from both sides of the community into it. And if you read the statistics in Lost Lives, the IRA, the army of the republicans, killed 7 times more of their own people than the security forces did. Now someone has took a notion that this doesn’t warrant talking about. I was in the UDR and we got them dumped along the border. They took them and they interrogated them in Donegal and then brought them back and dumped them on the border so we would have to deal with them. Now that has been going on. People said all this was coming from the one side.
Shoot to kill: “The ‘shoot to kill’ policy is another one that gets right up my nose. I carried cross rifles on my arms for years. That meant that it would hit fairly near what I was aiming at. I carried a rifle and I carried ammunition but on the ‘shoot to kill’ policy, where are the piles of bodies in West Tyrone if we had such a policy? Where are the piles of bodies? It was something to throw out there to blacken the security forces, that there was a ‘shoot to kill’ policy. But if there was a ‘shoot to kill’ policy where are they? Where did the bodies go? And I asked that question … and no one has come back to me on it. Because they don’t want to think of that subject, that the IRA was murdering their own more than the security forces were. And I think I’ll leave it at that.”
Chair: “Thank you. There’s no particular response presumably to that. Go ahead…Could people actually – for the tapes as well – give their names? It would help.”
Q. 2.Gerry Carolan (Belfast): “My name is Gerry Carolan. I had to resign from the RUC 25 years ago after being injured in 4 or 5 bombs, left in a heap. Alan alluded to political generosity. Political generosity is merely an attempt to make victims forfeit their rights to access the truth. We are getting .. apologies by men who poached our lives at night, and the lives of our loved ones. Those same men are now head hunted by both the British and Irish governments. We have to bend the knee to them now. And it’s a horrible thing to say but if you were in West Belfast and you heard the Catholic priest saying ‘no IRA funeral from this church’ and you see them coming in with Joe Cahill’s remains, the tricolour, and the guard of honour, 5 priests waiting for the arrival of this man… what did the church do about this? They stood back and let it happen. … We suffered it all for years and years. We talk about terrorists but we only talk about them in relation to the twin towers, 9/11, that was terrorism, over here it was paramilitaries who carried these things out. We are now left confused and misunderstood and forgotten about… Surrender came from sitting around a table. We call this political peace …. but at what cost to the victims? And don’t forget the victims are witnesses to the truth. What are the implications for the victims? We can have all these historical enquiries teams, inquiries, the lot. It will not bring the bodies out of the church yards. It will not bring fathers back to innocent children. I see all the memorials, the murals, the lot. There are none to the RUC, there are none to the UDR, that are not demolished. And if you want to go into this policy of ‘shoot to kill’, the last civilian who was shot was shot by a PSNI officer, in a stolen car. Today we see a terrorist appointed to the Policing Board, Martina Anderson, a convicted bomber, to our Policing Board. And, to conclude, I identify with all that Hazlett has said here tonight, you may not want to hear that, but I identify with it, from my heart and from my conscience. Thank you.”
Q. 3. James McGeever (Kingscourt): “Because of the possibility of the troubles re-occurring would Kate agree that there can be no real healing through remembering until the republican movement is persuaded that it is no longer patriotically legitimate to use their traditional means of armed struggle, terrorism, subversive conspiracy in the cause of freeing Ireland from British government control? If that were to happen it would prepare for a process of mutual sympathetic understanding, mutual forgiveness and reconciliation.”
Chair: “Do you want to make a quick response, Kate?”
Kate Turner: “As I said, I can only respond on behalf of Healing Through Remembering in terms of what they actually discussed and I think what we are here about today is about saying that we need to have a debate about what needs to be said in order to build proper peace. We are not here with any of the answers as to what that is. We are trying to raise the debate round that to ensure that we can engage in what it is that people need to hear and need to know about the past to that we can kind of learn from that to go forward. In saying that I would like to say that I understand what Leslie was saying, that there are issues around what is being said, and how things are being discussed, and this idea that we can just go forward without looking at the past and seeing what we can learn from it. But the debate needs to be about how can we look at the past, how can we see what was happening and who was involved in what in a way that builds a better future, rather than saying this is what we need to do? It needs to be quite a developed debate about that to see what it is that people need, what it is possible for people to deliver, and whether that is going to build a more stable society or whether it’s something that’s in danger of sending us back into violence.”
Pat Conway: “Just a couple of points. The process is driven by its being victim-centric, it’s for victims ultimately, that’s what this is all about. It’s not about a hidden agenda or some sort of government-sponsored process, because it’s not government-sponsored, its funded by Atlantic Philanthropies and we deliberately do not take money from government agencies or organisations precisely for that reason. Secondly, it’s not the intention, and it was never the intention, to forget. That’s not what this is about either, and I think two or three people said it was about forgetting. It’s about recording and remembering and making sure that it doesn’t happen again. That’s what it’s about.”
Q. 4. Anne Gallagher: “I just want to say that I think it’s a wonderful report that you have put together. When I look around and see every facet of the people of Ireland represented in those little boxes, I think you have done a great job. I also want to say that I had four brothers involved in the IRA who I also see as victims, and as part of a project called Seeds of Hope that has addressed people from the paramilitaries and the victims, EPIC and Alternative to Violence are two of the groups I have worked with, and Marty Snoddon, who I think is part of your organisation, once wrote a poem called ‘Who are the victims, dare I ask?’ And I really reflected on that. And as a nurse at the height of the troubles in Belfast, I saw what the bombs and the guns do. I am a total pacifist. I think that we are part of an extraordinary conflict. For healing to take place, every voice, every individual needs to be heard, for healing to take place.
“And Hazlett, I sensed your anger and frustration, and I appreciate deeply where you are coming from. And my mother used to say that it is easy to listen to the people who speak your language, it’s nice to sit in those kind of groups, but for me it was so good to listen to your pain, and that sounds like rhetoric, but until we are prepared to listen and address where you are coming from I don’t think we have any future. You have to be part of the healing process. So I am just so pleased that I am here.”
Q. 5. Paddy Martin. “… I come from Co. Louth near the border with Crossmaglen. It takes for you to have a member of your family murdered to know what it is like. Bertie Ahern, Dermot Ahern, Mary Harney, Michael McDowell, they haven’t a bull’s notion of what the impact that a murder has on the family, otherwise they wouldn’t be treating Margaret Urwin and the Justice for the Forgotten group the way they are. And they wouldn’t be talking about building a monument to the victims up at the border for 5 million pounds, and they didn’t offer 5million cents to the victims! I think the woman who summed it up more concisely than anyone was a French woman who visited Co Cork on the anniversary of her daughter’s death, about a month ago. She said, ‘the people who murdered my daughter Sophie didn’t murder my daughter, they murdered all the rest of the family as well’. Now if I could relate my story to you, a small section of it, and I would ask for this not to be reported as I have the gun at my head still…..” [section omitted as requested]
“… What I am saying is that you can’t put the clock back. Britain’s foreign policy and domestic policy is based on the maxim ‘we have no permanent friends or enemies’… Now, with the domestic upheaval there is in Britain at the moment, they have lost control of whole cities there, if Britain wanted peace in Ireland as we all do, and there’s only one way to get peace in Ireland, it’s to get Protestant and Catholic together, and this is the best thing that ever happened. But putting up a monument along the border to the victims, that disturbs me because it suggests to me that this is all the victims are going to get…..”
Q. 6. Mick McCarthy: “Thank you very much. The gentleman at the end of the table [Alan] said that anger leads to more conflict, and this gentleman here who suffered greatly said that this was the best thing that ever happened. I was a bartender in New York as a student. I had the folk memories of famine, rebellion, hurt. It turned into violence and created a lot of trouble. Once this was an island of saints and scholars. We are told, and Bishop you are a man of the cloth, you are aware of what Jesus suffered at Easter, but ‘blessed are the peace makers’. The peace makers are all here tonight. I think there’s global conflict, with environmental dislocation, the anger those people in Iraq and Islam are feeling at the moment is going to erupt all over the place. We have the potential to create a haven of hope … and make no mistake, only God can heal, in my humble opinion, because people have suffered horrifically. I went down to a church this evening, a Catholic devotion, it just happened to be people coming together for prayer and guidance and I don’t want to go into Catholic theology about Fatima or Medjugore or all these areas that are talking about quite traumatic times coming, but what is here is hope and people are making a fantastic effort, and I want to thank all the people … that organise endless number of prayer vigils, masses, people coming together, because if we can pull something together out of this, we could create something that would be a beacon of light in the world. When we go out of here, we all talk to each other, we might talk to God a bit more and see how the higher power can come into it. Thank you very much indeed.”
Dr Clarke: “Just before we draw things to a close, Hazlett wants to respond…”
Hazlett Lynch: “Thank you Richard. Just two things: First of all, it was said that I was invited to be part of this project. That’s correct, I was. Why did I refuse? I refused primarily because on the 2nd of June, 1977, the Provos murdered my youngest brother. I was expected to go and sit with and discuss things with Provos, with terrorists, in this particular Board. That I refused to do. Secondly, I did refer to a reconciliation industry. That reconciliation industry is not within the victims’ groups. It has been built up around civil servants, politicians, do-gooders, people who are not victims, people who have never been victims, and people who saw this as a tremendous career opportunity. I’ve known civil servants climb the ladder in Northern Ireland, wanting to become head of the Victims Unit. Why? It’s a sexy position, it gets you up, it’s good on your CV. So the industry is not within the victims’ sector, it’s those who have jumped on the backs of victims in order to progress their own careers. Thank you.”
Concluding words: Bishop Richard Clarke: “Just before we draw things to a close, first of all may I on behalf of all of us thank the different groups represented here, the Healing Through Remembering group obviously, West Tyrone Voice and Justice for the Forgotten. I want to make a couple of points, if I may, at this stage. One a small point about the five options suggested and then a couple of other things. But before I do I would like to thank all of those who have taken part, including those from the floor, and of course to thank the Meath Peace Group for facilitating this. And I do hope that those involved in the Healing Through Remembering have found material here that is of help to you.
“Just to add a couple of things in my concluding remarks. The first is: of the options, the one that probably caused me the greatest difficulty is the idea of the ‘commission for historical clarification’. [tape break…] I think one is in great danger of very superficial conclusions if you actually think you are going to get historical objectivity in a very short time. That’s just a comment.
Terrorism: “Moving to the second thing, and I very much agree with Irwin on this. I don’t think have to use politically correct language. Anyone who has studied modern warfare and modern politics knows that terrorism is actually a specific mode of political method..It is heartless, it is inhumane, but what it is doing is trying to do three things: first of all, at the most gut level, trying to wreak vengeance whether on the right target or not. Whether it’s a month old child doesn’t greatly matter, you have managed to wreak vengeance.
“But then two other very serious things which we have to be aware of, even in our response, and even though I am a southerner, I grew up in the Republic of Ireland, I have cousins who have been in both the UDR and the RUC so I know roughly what you are talking about in terms of that constant fear of murder. But we have to think of terrorism as doing two other things. The first is the cold bloodless – and yet it is bloody at the same time – intention to terrorise another group into surrendering their own legitimate aspirations. They will become so fearful that they will do anything in order to try and stop the hurt and stop the death, and so they might even surrender what are their own aspirations. And it doesn’t matter whatever side it comes from, that is the cold intention and so often it works. And the other thing of course, and this is what we see again and again, is to provoke over-reaction so that with the over-reaction you gain support for your cause because people have been murdered by the other side whom you deliberately tried to provoke into over-reaction. Now what we have seen in Northern Ireland is being replicated today in Iraq, precisely the same cold, inhumane logic of terrorism can be applied anywhere. And I don’t think we do anyone any favours by refusing to use the word. It is a political method that was used long before it was used in Northern Ireland and it is a political method that is still being used in other parts of the globe today. It is a political method without heart, it is cold and it is effective. And that is why it is used and it will go on being used, not just in Northern Ireland perhaps at the moment, but in other parts of the globe. So I would agree, from that point of view, with Irwin, and I would agree with you too Hazlett: let’s not use nice language because we don’t like to know what reality means.
Moving beyond the horrors of where we have been: “The last thing that I want to say is that although in many ways I hate the idea and the term ‘moving on’, so often it is just a shallow superficiality, but for everybody – and that includes those, and I was, like others, very moved by West Tyrone Voice, the fact the hurt is still there that you were able to express and legitimately express – somehow we all have to move beyond the place we are. Whether it is through retribution which is what some people want, whether it is through, if you like, just drawing a line under things which other people temperamentally are able to do sometimes remarkably, whether it is by getting truth, exposing truth, and then just by truth itself being exposed, being able to move beyond it, but for everyone, whatever we are looking for – retribution, the peace that we find ourselves, or just simply peace that comes from finding the truth – we really have no choice but to move beyond the horrors of where we have been, the horrors of pain, the horrors of witnessing, suffering the death of those around us. But somehow in our own way, and this I think is really what Healing Through Remembering is trying to do is to find a method for everyone to get beyond where they are, if I have understood what you are doing.
“My thanks for what to me was a very valuable, very stimulating evening. I thank all of you who contributed, and again, as always, the Meath Peace Group for facilitating something so useful. Thank you all very much indeed.”
Vote of Thanks: Canon John Clarke, Rector of Navan: “On behalf of the Meath Peace Group I would like to thank everyone for coming along here this evening, I would like to thank the Columbans for their hospitality, and no matter what way we look at our process, we are certainly at a very historical point, potentially a very historical point on this island, and I think as a result our meeting tonight has been most timely. I think that to have this presentation from the panellists this evening has been very valuable … it’s come up at other meetings in the past but I certainly think it has been very well worthwhile having one concentrated meeting, if you like, on this particular subject tonight. So I really do appreciate all that the panellists provided and likewise the two responses, Margaret and Hazlett, two very moving accounts, very living presentations, to us and we appreciate that as well. The bishop has thanked us and it is now my duty to thank the Bishop of Meath and Kildare, thank you very much. And indeed it’s more difficult to do when in fact he is ministering within his own diocese but thank you very much indeed for chairing the meeting so well. I’d like to thank Julitta and John as well, I know other members have been very involved in preparing for tonight, but I do know Julitta and John have done an enormous amount of work in bringing our speakers together, and the chairman, all of them here tonight, so Julitta and John, thank you so much for what you do.” ENDS
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
1. Healing through Remembering group:
Alan Wardle is Project Development Manager for Shankill Stress and Trauma Group in Belfast. He has participated in international training delivery programmes, in both Kosovo and Croatia, delivering conflict management theories as well as mediation models.
Irwin Turbitt retired as an Assistant Chief Constable from the PSNI in 2006 having served almost 30 years in the RUC and the PSNI. HE has been involved in voluntary peace-building work for a number of years, and plans now to be more so along with academic and consulting work in the areas of leadership, innovation and governance at Warwick Business School.
Pat Conway is currently Director of Services with the Northern Ireland Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (NIACRO). He is primarily responsible for adult services for ex-offenders, prisoners and ex-prisoners as well as policy development and communications. Pat has worked in London and Belfast as a social worker and has been involved in the Healing Through Remembering Project for the past six years.
Kate Turner has been the Project co-ordinator with Healing Through Remembering since December 2000. She has twenty years experience in the voluntary sector.
Note: Copies of the Making the Peace with the Past report available from Healing Through Remembering, Alexander House, 17a Ormeau Avenue, Belfast BT2 8HD info@healingthroughremembering.org; www.healingthroughremembering.org
2. Justice for the Forgotten: Margaret Urwin is manager of the Justice for the Forgotten Family Support Centre in Gardiner Street, Dublin and also acts as researcher and secretary to the campaign. She has been involved in assisting the bereaved families of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings since 1993 and saw the inception of Justice for the Forgotten in January 1996. She has been full-time with the organisation since May 1999. As Manager of the Family Support Centre she assists all victims of the conflict resident in this jurisdiction who seek help in such matters as counselling, holistic therapies, applications to the Remembrance Commission for personal awards and memorials, assistance with planning and arranging commemorations. Don Mullan spoke on behalf of the Justice for the Forgotten Group at a previous Meath Peace Group talk “Victims are part of the Peace Process’ held on 24th March 1999 (talk no. 32: report available on MPG website; some copies in hall tonight). Website: dublinmonaghanbombings.org
3. West Tyrone Voice: Dr Hazlett Lynch is Director of the West Tyrone Voice victims group which was established in 1999 to provide support for the innocent victims of terrorist violence during the protracted terrorist campaign in Northern Ireland. WTV works with members and families of the security forces, the bereaved and the injured, both physically and emotionally. Hazlett and three other members of the group addressed the Meath Peace Group talk ‘Who can we trust?’ on 14th November 2005 (talk no. 58: report available on MPG website; some copies in hall tonight). Hazlett recently gained his M.Phil. in Reconciliation Studies from Trinity College, Dublin.
Guest chair: Dr. Richard Clarke, Church of Ireland Bishop of Meath and Kildare, has an academic background in modern Irish history and the relationship between literature and theology. Dr Clarke has a particular interest in both the history and the poetry of the Great War. In a book published a few years ago, And Is it true?, he related some of the poetry of the First World War to questions of God’s existence, and present-day religious faith. Dr. Clarke has addressed previous Meath Peace Group talks: nos. 43 (May 20, 2002):“Diversity of Ethos – Challenges for a “Mono-Ethnic, Mono-Cultural” Society?” and 62 (June 12, 2006): “Irish involvement in the Great War” (reports available on website)
——————————————————-
Meath Peace Group Report 66 (2007)
Taped by Judith Hamill (Tara), Jim Kealy (Navan) and Dave Kenneally (Columbans, Dalgan Park)
Transcribed by Catherine Clancy and Julitta Clancy
Edited by Julitta Clancy
Acknowledgments: Meath Peace Group would like to thank the speakers and guest chair for coming to address this public talk and for giving so generously of their time. A special thanks to all who came to the talk (some from long distances), those who took part in the discussion afterwards and all those who have given their continued support, encouragement and participation through the years. Thanks also to those who assisted in the planning, organisation, publicity and recording of the talk, to the Columban Fathers at Dalgan Park for facilitating the majority of our public talks and to the Dept. of Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund for financial assistance towards the running costs of the talks and school programmes, and to the staff and students of secondary schools who have taken part in our peace studies programmes
Meath Peace Group Committee 2007: Julitta and John Clancy, Parsonstown, Batterstown; Anne Nolan, Gernonstown, Slane (Treasurer); Canon John Clarke, Rector of Navan; Philomena Boylan-Stewart, Longwood; Vincent McDevitt, An Tobar, Ardbraccan; Judith Hamill, Ross, Dunsany; Leona Rennicks, Ardbraccan; Olive Kelly, Lismullin.
©Meath Peace Group
Meath Peace Group Talks
No. 65 – ‘A Shared Future: Challenges and Realities in Interface Areas’
Monday, 12th February 2007
St. Columban’s College, Dalgan Park,
Navan, Co. Meath
Speakers:
Chris O’Halloran (Director, Belfast Interface Project)
Dr Neil Jarman (Director, Institute for Conflict Research)
Frankie Gallagher (Ulster Political Research Group)
Seán Brennan (North Belfast Developing Leadership Initiative CEP)
Chaired by
Michael Reade (LMFM)
Contents:
Introduction: Julitta Clancy
Chris O’Halloran
Neil Jarman
Frankie Gallagher
Seán Brennan
Questions and comments
Concluding words: Anne Nolan
Appendix 1: Extract from ‘A Shared Future’
Appendix 2: Biographical notes
photos
©Meath Peace Group 2007
65 – ‘A shared future: realities and challenges in interface areas’
Monday 12th February, 2007
“Reducing tensions at interface areas must go beyond the ‘band-aid’ approach. It requires a combined short, medium and long-term approach that is earthed in encouraging local dialogue and communication, the sharing of resources, which is set in a wider context of social and economic renewal.” (A Shared Future:Policy and strategic framework for good relations in Northern Ireland, OFM/DFM, March 2005. para. 2.3)
Introduction, Julitta Clancy: “On behalf of the Meath Peace Group I would like to thank the speakers and guest chair and all of you for coming to tonight’s talk which is the second in our series on the ‘Shared Future’ document. The first talk in the series [MPG talk no. 63] was held on November 13th, and a full transcript is available on our website. We hope to have a third talk on this theme on 21st May. Tonight we focus on interface areas of Belfast (touched on briefly in the November talk).So I will hand over now to our guest chair, Mike Reade, presenter of the ‘Loosetalk’ current affairs programme on LMFM radio….”
Chair: Michael Reade (LMFM)
“Thank you for having me, it’s always nice to be here and I regret not having been able to attend the last couple of meetings. I was particularly anxious to come to the meeting tonight – ‘Shared Future – realities and challenges in interface areas’ which for me translates as ‘living with the enemy’… We have four speakers here, you can read more about them in the handout. Each speaker will have 10 to 15 minutes which will give us around an hour for questions and discussion. Our first speaker tonight is Chris O’Halloran.”
1. Chris O’Halloran (Director, Belfast Interface Project)
“Thank you all very much and thanks again for inviting me along. My name is Chris O’Halloran and I am the Director of a project called the Belfast Interface Project. I have a slide show here – what I am aiming to do over the next 15 minutes or so is to give you a quick outline of four different things: 1) who we are: who the Belfast Interface Project is, 2) what is it that we do – I am going to deal with those two quite quickly. 3) Then I am going to give you some information about interface areas, what they are and some common features about interface communities, and 4) I am going to finish with a conference we had last year where quite a number of interface community activists came along and gave us a clear picture of some of the things that they think need to change…
Slide presentation of interface areas…..
“We commissioned the Institute for Conflict Research – Neil here beside me – to draw up a list of all of the NIO [Northern Ireland Office] identified interface structures in Belfast, and then we commissioned another photographer to go and take photographs of each one, from each side. ICR estimate that there are 41 distinct stretches of NIO-built interface walls and barriers in Belfast. Actually when you look at those in more detail, it comes to a total of 48 separate stretches, separate sections of NIO-built interfaces….
Belfast Interface Project: “The Belfast Interface Project is a membership organisation. We aim to promote the social and economic regeneration of interface communities in Belfast. We have a membership of just over 40 interface community groups from both nationalist and unionist areas, and we’ve got about a dozen or so associate members and a smaller number again of individual members.
“You can find out some information about us in the information packs we have left on the tables over there. There are four quite distinct things which we aim to do:
-
Our first aim is to enhance the knowledge base about interface areas. There’s all sorts of mythology about interface areas and our aim is to increase the knowledge base from a simple way of just letting people see what they look like and a number of other means.
-
Our second aim is to lobby for change to benefit interface communities
-
Our third aim is to consult, develop and support our membership. We work to a management committee that’s elected from among our membership. We have three full-time and two part-time staff, and our management committee is elected from within our membership and they tell us what they would like us to be doing.
-
Our fourth aim is to assist interface communities in addressing issues relating to conflict.
“Ok, so that’s what we do, and I’ll tell you a little bit more about that later.”
Definitions: “What is an interface? We define an interface as ‘the boundary between two residentially segregated communities’. In Belfast that tends to mean a Catholic/nationalist/republican community and a Protestant/unionist/loyalist community, and an interface community is the community that lives alongside one of those boundaries.
Types of interfaces: “There are different kinds of interfaces:
-
“An enclave community is an island community within a sea of the other community. So in Belfast there are enclave communities such as Suffolk, which is a Protestant/unionist community within Catholic west Belfast, and Short Strand, which is a Catholic/nationalist community within Protestant east Belfast. There are a number of enclave communities in Belfast.
-
“There are also what we simply define as a ‘split’. The Shankill/Springfield is a pretty good example of that where one community lives on one side of a very long wall and the other community lives on the other side.
-
“We have a final kind of interface which we call a ‘buffer zone’, which is where a mixed community acts as a buffer between the two other communities, and one of the features of that kind of buffer zone is that it can move up a road, and in Belfast many of those buffer zones are proceeding up roads with a growing mostly Catholic/nationalist community behind the buffer zone.
“So there are different kinds of interface communities and there are many of them. Although the slide show shows 48 separate interfaces, those are just the walls and fences: there are many more interfaces between communities where there is no wall or fence. You can cross an interface by turning a corner, by passing a landmark, by just crossing a street, and for many people who don’t know those areas in Belfast, they might not even recognise that they are passing an interface but local people know exactly where they are and exactly where it is safe and exactly where it isn’t.
Common disadvantages: “So there are different kinds of interface communities that can change over time but they tend to share three common attributes, and this was shown by some researchers – Brendan Murtagh and later Dr Peter Shirlow, both of them are academics, Brendan Murtagh is at Queen’s, Peter Shirlow is at the University of Ulster – and basically what they showed was that most interface communities are characterised by three kinds of disadvantage:
-
1) “High levels of inter-community tension, intimidation and violence, and the trauma that is associated with those over many years. Thankfully, the levels of violence are reducing and have been reducing very significantly in recent years but for many interface communities people still live with intermittent violence, and in almost all interface communities people live with the trauma of years of extreme violence. So that’s the first attribute which interface communities tend to share.
-
2) “High levels of social and economic disadvantage coupled with environmental blight. Neil, I think, is going to talk about how things have changed and are changing in recent years in terms of new and emerging interfaces, but many interface areas are characterised by low levels of educational achievement, low levels of car ownership, high levels of unemployment, all the standard indicators of socio-economic disadvantage, and if you look at those pictures behind me you will probably appreciate that many of those areas aren’t very visually attractive.
-
3) “A common problem in terms of difficulties in accessing facilities and services where those services are on the other side of an interface, so that in many interface communities people have a difficulty crossing the interface, travelling from their nationalist area – if that’s where they are from – into or through the unionist area on the other side of the interface in order to go to a shop or go to college, or go to their place of employment or go to the pub or get a bus, whatever it might be. And that’s a particular difficulty for people who live in enclave communities, those island communities, because, for people who live in that kind of community, virtually everything that they might want to access would be perceived as difficult and at times of tension it would be perceived as dangerous, positively dangerous, for them to access.
Patterns of violence: “The next thing I want to talk about is patterns of violence. There is often a perception outside of interface communities, and sometimes even within interface communities, that it is the interface communities who are at war with each other – ‘if only they would stop fighting with each other we would all get on fine’. And what people who live in interface communities commonly report is that when there is violence in their area – which historically would have happened particularly over things like Drumcree or times of political tension – what people report is that when violence erupts at their interface, typically people travel from quite far afield to their interface. In other words the interface is the site of violence rather than the sole source of violence. And it’s important to understand that, understanding that is a big part of the key to unlocking the problem in terms of how to address interface violence.
Youth-led violence: “In recent years, particularly since the ceasefires – this was put to me best by a fellow on the Cliftonville Road, he described the situation in Cliftonpark Avenue, he was saying: ‘it used to be the kids would come out and they would riot, then the bigger kids would come out and they would riot, then the men would come out of the pubs and they would riot, and then the gunmen would come out and the streets would clear, and now the gunmen don’t come out’. Against that backdrop of the gunmen not coming out, we have had an ongoing problem for some years where there is a huge problem of youth-led violence, where young people have been socialised into sectarian clashes, I suppose that’s the best way of putting it. For many of those young people it is a sport, what we would call ‘recreational rioting’, for some of them it is a way of showing their loyalty to their community and their actions in their eyes of defending their community. And it is a problem, not simply in terms of the actions of those young people. When we interviewed interface communities a few years ago, their number one concern was about the future for their young people, that’s against the backdrop of social and economic disadvantage, restricted access and high levels of violence. That was their number one concern, and their concern wasn’t just about the role of young people in violence, their concern was about their young people as victims of violence. So there’s been an ongoing issue in terms of addressing the issue of youth-led violence.
“In recent years, thankfully, there has been a growing capacity to address violence in interface areas, a growth in mechanisms like mobile phone networks, conflict transformation mechanisms and forums, but it is important to recognise that some of those difficulties that interface communities have, they aren’t all within their gift to address.
“For example, that issue of mobility and access. The interface community on the other side of an interface can only do so much to help that interface community to access employment that might be quite far away, that is within the gift of other people beyond the local, and it’s important to understand that.
Interface conference – identifying what needs to change: “We had a conference last year, Interface Communities. The people who attended were pretty clear in terms of what they think needs to change. There’s a lot of fragmentation across interfaces and they feel there is a need for a more shared vision, interface communities to be working together jointly. They feel there is a need for standardised mechanisms in terms of addressing violence. There’s a common recognition of this issue about young people and the need for much more focused work with young people. There’s a lack of partnership work and they don’t see any champion of interface communities on the horizon, certainly in terms of government and the statutory agencies. They are recognising the change in terms of paramilitary attitudes to interface regeneration, they’re acknowledging the need for more effective policing, they are virtually as one, united, on the need for much more effective means to increase people’s educational achievement right across Belfast.
Shared Future: “And if there is one thing that I think they are all pretty much keen on promoting, it’s this one document, and that’s where I’ll finish. This document was produced by government last year, it’s called the ‘Shared Future’ – it’s probably one of the most significant new policies to emerge from government in Northern Ireland in many many years. And what this says for the very first time is that every Government department, every single Government department in Northern Ireland, whenever it’s planning what it is going to do over the next three years, everything that it says it is going to do it has to say how doing that thing will promote a shared future – that is something that no government department ever had to do, and that’s something that we are all placing a great deal of hope in. Thank you.”
Chair (Mike Reade): “Thanks Chris. I think we are going to have another power point presentation next so that will take a couple of minutes to prepare…. I suppose the final part of what Chris had to stay will be interesting in terms of questions and the future. The background that he gave is particularly interesting for me as I am from a working-class area. If often think that the problems which people endure in working-class areas are always the same, and how they respond can be different and unique in Northern Ireland. We will hear more of that later. Now our next speaker is Neil Jarman…
2. Dr Neil Jarman (Director, Institute for Conflict Research):
“Thank you and good evening everybody….. It is very nice to be here again. It was I think probably about 1996 the first time I was down here [MPG talk no. 22: ‘Parading Disputes’, 1 Oct. 1996]…I remember some of the people here and it is certainly very nice to be welcomed back here.
“I am going to try and complement what Chris said – we tried to synchronise what we would say over the phone the last couple of days, I’m not sure if we have, but I am going to cover some of the same ground but I am going to make slightly different points of emphasis.
Broader definition of an interface: “I have a slightly broader remit of the notion of interfaces than Chris does. The definition of an interface as ‘a conjunction or intersection of two or more territories or social spaces, which are dominated, contested or claimed by members of different ethno-national groups’ is something I came up with in a paper I did for the Community Relations Council a couple of years ago. And the difference, I suppose, from what Chris said is that I am not limiting it purely to residential communities, that interfaces occur – in terms of spaces that are contested and fought over – in other types of environments in Northern Ireland. There are shopping centres which get used by one community rather than the other community, there are leisure centres, there are different types of spaces that people use which are not necessarily linked purely to their residence. So interfaces are mainly found in residential communities but not exclusively so. And part of that is a factor of the segregation which has underpinned life in Northern Ireland since urbanisation, since the early 19th century, two hundred years in Belfast in particular. So they are mainly a factor of the residential areas of Northern Ireland, and they are mainly a factor of the urban areas, though not exclusively an urban phenomenon. Interfaces occur in many of the communities in Northern Ireland.
Segregation: “Segregation is a prominent theme in residential and social life in Northern Ireland, it’s not an exclusive theme. There is a selection of our reports and publications on the shelf over there and one of the recent reports has started looking at mixed residential communities and areas which are not segregated in Northern Ireland, and trying to open up a debate, so that they’re not all about interfaces, it’s not the only thing in Northern Ireland.
Number of interfaces: “So, having said that they are not only residential, or that they are not only in urban areas, we can move on to the point that Chris made about counting the number of peace lines and so forth. We can count the number of NIO-built peace lines in Belfast and acknowledge also that they exist in Derry/Londonderry, in Lurgan and Portadown as well. But we don’t actually know how many interfaces there are because they are very vague and they are very general. Some of them have got fences and barriers that mark them out and make them very obvious, but many aren’t [obvious]. Some of them are marked by other forms of buildings. For example, my own office is on an interface, and putting a commercial development on a contested space is a way of regenerating that environment but also trying to provide the sort of buffer zone that Chris talked about as well.
Open spaces: “Some of them are marked by open spaces. A lot of the parks in Belfast you walk along won’t look like an interface because there will be trees, there will be vegetation, there will be open space, but that in itself is a buffer, it’s a way of keeping the communities apart.”
Flags: “Flags can also demarcate interfaces at certain times of year. At other times of the year they may be perfectly normal looking areas but at times – in the marching season and the like – flags go up and they clearly start to claim that territory, to contest that territory for one community over and above other people.”
Barriers in people’s heads: “The barriers that exist are also sometimes in people’s heads … you can cross the interfaces, some people do ignore them, and they tend to affect some sections of the community more than others. It’s not only a class thing, I would say it also affect males more than females and younger people more than older people, insofar as older women are more able to cross interfaces and access resources on the other side and feel unthreatened by it than a young male is. Because the same sort of patterns of contest and challenge and access and linkages to territory and gang association occur in Northern Ireland as they do everywhere else, they just have another dimension which is the sectarian divide between Protestants and Catholics which is mapped on top of that. So they exist in people’s heads, it’s what tells you at times that you can’t cross over this road, or you’ve got to walk up that side of the street, or it’s not safe to walk down one particular area.
Violence: “The violence is, or has been, a persistent and recurring problem and it is one of the things that has marked out interfaces as, I suppose, a theme which is attractive to the Meath Peace Group to want to talk about in Navan. The violence has often been associated with things like parades, but there are lots of other things that have provoked violence around interfaces:
-
“football matches have increasingly come to the fore, not actually football matches that take place in Belfast or in Ireland but Rangers versus Celtic matches that take place in Scotland have provoked violence in interfaces in Belfast.
-
“flags – I mentioned earlier that putting up flags can provoke tensions and lead to disorder.
-
“The night-time economy – people coming back having had a few beers, walking past an interface, deciding to sing a few songs or throw a few bottles over a wall – whereas it becomes a nuisance and is anti-social behaviour in other towns and cities, in parts of Belfast it can provoke sectarian tensions and it generates a response because it is ‘them’ doing it to ‘us’ and they are doing it to us because they don’t like us rather than because someone is drunk.
-
“And a lot of it is associated with the presence of young people and the boredom of young people, and the fact that throwing stones and starting a fight around the interfaces can be exciting at certain times of year.
Violence – statistics for North Belfast region: “There are very few statistics as to how much violence occurs in interfaces. One of the few sets of statistics that I have got is from the North Belfast region – this is from 7 interfaces out of the 41 that Chris has mentioned which have got barriers marked:
April 1996 – April 2004 (North Belfast):
Riots: 376
Disturbances: 1, 021
Assaults: 1, 343
Criminal damage: 3, 883
Rioting: “Just look at that figure. When you think about how often rioting occurs in Ireland, when the riots occurred in Dublin last year they were headline news. Belfast has come to accept or to come to normatise rioting at times and the amount of disorder that occurs. Those statistics give you an indication that it is a persistent and recurring problem over a long period of time in which people have come to accept it as a problem, and to some extent have had to put up with it, and to some extent it has been the motivation for work to try and reduce it. And a lot of that work – and I will talk about it in a minute – has come from work on the ground, some of the people who are here tonight. A lot of the responses to that violence and disorder have come from grass-roots activism rather than from the State.”
Contrasts in the peace process: “Where are we in relation to interfaces within the peace process? Since 1994 we are into thirteen years since the ceasefires. Over that period, none of the interface barriers in Belfast or the other towns in Northern Ireland has been removed. That’s a fairly depressing fact. The Border crossings all opened up very quickly, but the border crossings, the closures in Belfast, haven’t started to come down. In fact, of those 41 barriers, that fact that 20 of them are either completely new or have been extended or enlarged or strengthened in some way during the peace process gives you an indication of some of the contrasts that are going on in the peace process – that violence carries on at a low level at the same time as the peace is carrying on.
Permanent barriers: “The barriers have also, to some extent, been made more permanent. The earliest barriers, in the late 1960s or early 1970s were barbed wire or sheet steel. They have now become aestheticised, you won’t notice them very much so obviously because they are designed – they’re brick, they’re steel, they are colours, they have been harmonised into the environment. And that conveys a sense that they are really part of a permanent structure here, they are not just thrown up on a temporary basis and going to be pulled down again.
Sense of security: “And they are there, in some senses, because they do offer a sense of security for people, they provide a sense of safety and security from the threat or the reality of violence. Although it doesn’t necessarily stop it, it provides some sense of safety about it, and they also provide a sense of security against social change, that people’s territories, the environment in which they live and in which they identify, is to an extent fixed and permanent and it’s not going to change.”
Change: “Having said that, interfaces are not static areas, they do move, they do change. There are a variety of forms in which interfaces have emerged, new interfaces have come into being, maybe not with barriers and so forth but they are changing. There is a sense in many communities that what is happening in the working-class communities, there’s a ‘greening process’ – places that had been predominantly Protestant working-class communities are becoming steadily Catholic working-class communities. The process doesn’t seem to operate so much in the reverse – Catholic communities becoming Protestant communities – it tends to build up a pattern, or has built up a pattern, in Belfast and elsewhere that there is a greening process.
“And you can see that in the overall demographics of Belfast, that it has become a majority Catholic city over the course of the ‘Troubles’.
Immigration: “We also see the current wave of increasing diversity with migrants coming in and new communities establishing themselves in Belfast and other parts of Northern Ireland. Sometimes those people go into interface areas, or move into interface areas because the housing is cheap, the housing is available, and they get caught up into the tensions and the changing dynamics of those communities.
Suburbanisation: “There has also been a pattern of suburbanisation going on as people move out from the inner city areas to the satellite towns and the Greater Belfast Area. That brings with it some of the patterns of Belfast, and some of the contests that were in the inner city areas have now started to be reproduced in some of the satellite towns, particularly through the activities of young people accessing resources and facilities and gathering on street corners and engaging in rivalries.
Redevelopment: “Building redevelopment, regeneration – a factor that has come through the peace process – can often lead to the creation of new interfaces by building up on brown field sites which have been almost deliberately left as brown field because they were too dangerous to build on and redevelop. And you start to create new houses and new properties, and the conjunction of the new properties with the old properties can create interfaces as well.
Displacement of violence: “And also sometimes the work that has been done in trying to control and limit the violence can actually in turn end up in displacing the violence, as the people who want to engage in some form of rioting, or some forms of disorder, can’t do it in point ‘A’ so they move up the area to point ‘B’. An area which wasn’t particularly contentious in one period of time starts to become more fought over and contentious.
“So there are a whole number of factors – some of the interfaces have been there for 20/30 years, some of them haven’t, and there are processes of change going on, so it’s a very real and a very live issue.
Responses: “The responses to the interfaces which I would emphasise as being the most significant over the last ten years have really come from the communities on the ground and the people working in those communities as conflict intervenors, forms of conflict management. Chris mentioned the work involving people linking up through mobile phone networks to provide communication and coordinate responses. A lot of the early work was really about fire-fighting, reactive responses to violence and disorder. It has steadily moved on to being more predictive, of knowing that the problems are likely to occur in certain places and at certain times and having people out on the ground to manage that disorder and prevent it happening rather than to respond to it happening. You then see the increasing process of intra-community dialogue and inter-community dialogue: debates within single-identity communities of the need to address the problems and debates between groups within the two communities coming together to coordinate how they are going to respond to the disorder and how they are going to manage it. And now in most of the community interface networks certainly in Belfast, you have got quite a wide range of cross-community networks, of groups coming together to manage their interface and the problems in their communities, but from that building on to work on other issues. And that has also served as a means of building communication, building dialogue, building trust, building relationships which can then convince people to engage in other issues that affect those communities, not just the hard edge of conflict.”
Sharing resources: “And then, moving on from that, is where we are starting to go now, where we are just starting beginning to engage now – the point that Chris was talking about – we start to think about how you plan and how you develop strategies for sharing resources. Because for a lot of the communities the interfaces cut through resources, so that a barrier goes up, access to a shop is no longer so ready, access to a bus stop, access to a doctor’s surgery, any kind of facilities that people want can become more problematic. So people are beginning to think more constructively now over the last few years, about how you can start to plan and to share resources, to share the facilities.
Positive phase: “I think realistically the interface barriers are going to be there for some time yet, a lot of them are very solid structures, a lot of them have only just been built, and there’s no real indication yet that people have got to the stage where the barriers are coming down because they do provide that sense of security. But I think people are increasingly talking around the problem of the barriers, and around building relationships to start to continue the work where the violence is not so much of a problem, and the relationships can continue and the spaces can start to be shared and utilised together, and the violence won’t keep interrupting that dialogue and setting things back. So I think we are looking at a fairly positive phase over the last two or three years in terms of the management of violence, and we are beginning to move into a phase of constructive engagement with documents like what Chris talked about – the Shared Future. Thank you”
Chair (Mike Reade): “Thanks Neil. Can I just ask you – do you think in the future if it will make a difference to the unionist community if they are looking to nationalists who serve as police officers for assistance, at times such as when they need a crime investigated?”
Neil Jarman: “I don’t think people necessarily look to see what community background that police officer is from at the moment, increasing numbers – I am not sure of the figures ….”
Mike: “No, but in time, when people find themselves not just interfacing but when they actually realise that they are looking to a nationalist for assistance in a crime that has been committed against them, surely that would break down some of the barriers?”
Neil Jarman: “I think people would say, I think probably the police would say that they are not a nationalist police officer or a unionist police officer, they are a police officer. That police officer has to stand outside that role, and I think historically, certainly people in unionist community haven’t tended to see police officers as nationalist or unionist.
“Probably the Catholic community tended to see them all as unionist, pro-unionist, whereas the unionist community hasn’t tended to characterise. There’s been a resistance on behalf of the police in trying to go down that line, and there were certainly discussions when the police reform process was up about recruiting police from a locality to police that locality and therefore having a more cantonised form of policing. I don’t think it’s going to go down that road, quite honestly.”
Mike Reade: “You don’t think people will notice, or be bothered to notice?”
Neil Jarman: “I don’t think they will want to notice. The issues might come up occasionally if things go wrong. I don’t think it will have an effect. I don’t think people will look at the police officer in terms of their community background at all. One of the interesting things I suppose at the moment is that at the last police recruitment I think 12% of the applicants were Polish so that creates another dynamic for policing in Northern Ireland…”
Mike Reade: “Yes, plenty of Catholic police officers because of that! We’ll move on [tape break] … Our next speaker is Frankie Gallagher:
3. Frankie Gallagher (Ulster Political Research Group):
“I want to thank Julitta and the Meath Peace Group for bringing me down again. 1998 was the last time I was here, with some ex-prisoners and their families [at the MPG talk no. 29: ‘The Good Friday Agreement’, 5 May 1998] and I think we broke down some barriers that night, not just here in Navan but also when I went back to east Belfast, went back to Belfast and within the constituency of the UDA. Because we had seen how difficult it was to break out of the stereotyping, the demonisation, the criminalisation which my community and my people have been put into which is a large part of the problem, of trying to get out of the trouble we are in at the moment.
“I’m not here as any expert. I have two of my comrades here with me – Ronnie Black and Isaac Andrews. Ronnie is from north Belfast and Isaac is from west Belfast, probably two of the areas with the most interfaces and contentious parades in the whole of Belfast, probably in the whole of Northern Ireland. I brought them along tonight so that when we are talking after this, they can answer questions as well. And it’s another opportunity for us, and I’m thanking the Meath Peace Group for giving our people an opportunity to break out of our enclaves and come and speak and test our own theories, so I want to thank you for all of that.
Class discrimination within unionist community: “We are talking about interfaces and nobody one has mentioned ‘class’ yet, not one person has mentioned class. Ronnie and Isaac live in north and west Belfast, and I live in east Belfast. East Belfast has got one interface or so they say. But I can tell you, I live in east Belfast and there are as many social and economic interfaces where the middle classes and the unionist ascendancy, the unionist hierarchy etc, discriminated against me as well. And that had a profound impact on a lot of the people, certainly within the Protestant community that would be in the Ulster Defence Association right across Northern Ireland.
“I come from a place called Ballymacarrett. Ballymacarrett in the Great Famine of 1845 was not part of Belfast City Council, it was in County Antrim across the Lagan. There was a book brought out, I don’t know if anybody here has read it, called The Hidden Famine, and it was about the Ulster-Scots, the Scotch-Irish people who were over with the absentee Scottish mill owners, and they just left their workers to rot in Ballymacarrett. And the people in Ballymacarrett at the time, in 1845, walked to a farm called Tullycarnet, and I happen to live in Tullycarnet now, but it used to be a farm. And they used to go out to the farm and they used to collect the rotten turnips, take them back down to Ballymacarrett, boil them up with pigmeal and that’s what they survived on. And they were all Protestant, Presbyterian dissenters. And that is a legacy which we have not forgot, but which we failed to get across or people failed to talk about whenever they talk about a unionist family. The legacy for us was that we were discriminated against as well, between the established churches and certainly within unionism.
Anti-social behaviour: “So when you are talking about interfaces, I believe there is a class issue and that class issue has to be addressed as well, many of the issues that we are seeing at the interfaces at the moment that everyone has spoke about so far. There is the fact that there is recreational rioting going on, there is rioting being arranged now through the Internet, through texts on mobile phones. And we think it is anti-social behaviour, we think it is recreational and it is nothing actually to do with sectarianism. And that is one of the thinkings we have within our approach, trying to deal with these issues. So, how much of it ever was about sectarianism and how much of it was about class, how much of it was about the social ills of deprivation within our areas? Because, if there is still rioting, they’re still at it, and we’ve all come to terms politically and all the rest of it – as I hope we do when they go to the polls on the 7th March – then why are the kids still doing it? Why are people still doing it? So we have to look way beyond the normal, and it says it in the Shared Future document, you have to go beyond, into the wider context of social and economic issues, around neighbourhood renewal etc. So that’s very much where we are.”
UDA contribution to creating stability: “But what we are also saying is that we have been a part of the problem and we want to be part of the solution. And I would say that certainly in the last four years, with the removal of Johnny Adair, with the removal of Jim Gray, with the removal of the Shoukris, the McClanes, who were all drug dealers – they were criminals, they were opportunists who had worked their way in whether by stealth or whether they were put there by our governments. They managed and controlled our communities. It was them who sent kids out, for example one young lad in north Belfast who was sent out with a fuse on a pipe bomb that was already tried and tested, it went out – that same lad blew his arm off and died. He was only about 19. So these are the people who wanted to keep our communities locked in this sectarian, or so-called ‘sectarian’ situation. But then who was running them, who put them there, who managed them? And you can see what is being played out in Northern Ireland with that.
“So my community within the UDA, within east Belfast and across Northern Ireland and the areas where my comrades come from, we have been exploited by those same forces and we want to move on. But what we are trying to do now is we’re trying to create stability. I think we have done that to a degree.
“I don’t hear anybody, and I haven’t heard any of the two speakers mentioning the UDA once, yet I believe it was UDA that stopped the pipe bombs being thrown in north Belfast. I think out of all the changes, the UDA has been accredited with the most dynamic change and the most impact on the ground, but that is not to take away from the work that the lads have been talking about earlier because we need everybody to work at it.
New environment: “And the other thing I believe I think we have done is we have created a whole new environment. One of the main things, as I said earlier, is we got rid of criminals, criminals who were being run either by themselves as opportunists or people within the State, to control those communities. One of the most important impacts so far we have created is we have created a stable political environment. Now you may not think at the moment it is stable with the two of them shouting at each other and all the rest of it, but I think what we have done, we created the environment where … politicians, if they were in a corner or couldn’t get out of an impasse they were in, went around to the local criminal, the local drug dealer, whoever, and said ‘listen, bit of interface trouble here, get it going, we need off the hook’ – and I can tell you, I would accuse Sinn Féin straight to their face of doing the same. We stopped that. Now it’s up to the politicians in Northern Ireland. Outside of blaming the bully boys, the paramilitaries and all the rest of it, it’s down to them now, and what we are seeing played out now is politicians who have no longer anybody to blame, they can’t get off the hook and they are wriggling all over the place! And it’s brilliant to see it, and I hope they continue to wriggle, and that they wriggle their way into government because it’s the only place we are going to get continued stability.
Hypocrisy: “I think the UDA has to be accredited with that. Nobody has accredited them with it and that’s one of the problems of the peace process – they are demonised, they are criminalised, they’re ‘no good’, they’re ‘bad people’, yet they have brought about more change than anybody else. And this is the hypocrisy that you get in Northern Ireland. We get more recognition when we come down to Meath, when we come down to Glencree, when we go to Brussels, when we go everywhere, people recognise us – bar the people certainly within our own community, and certainly unionist so-called leaders. Maybe they’re scared of us, maybe they don’t want us because of the underlying class issues, they don’t want us addressing those types of issues.
“But what we have tried to do in all this five or six years’ development, at great risk – and it was only two years ago that they tried to murder me, they put me in the boot of a car. Thank God, the people that were told to put me in the boot of the car were sitting beside me and they said ‘Frankie what will we do?’ And I said ‘well, don’t put me in the boot of the car… ’
Confidence needed:“So, it went on from strength to strength there, but we have got to start giving credit where credit is due, whether they are the perceived monsters and all the rest of it. Sinn Féin could not do what they are doing – and this is one of the ironies of the peace process which I think is very healthy, it’s a political process that is very healthy in Northern Ireland – you could not have got Sinn Féin and the IRA to move unless they were strong, they were confident and they could make decisions, and competently make decisions to go away, because only they could make themselves go away. My people need to do that as well.
Interface trouble: “…. You may ask ‘what’s this to do with interface trouble?’ It’s everything to do with interface trouble because that’s where it was played out, that’s where the charades were played out, that’s where the shenanigans went on with everybody to get off the hook of not finding political stability. And if all it took was one of the republicans to do with the Provisional IRA to come out with 1 pipe bomb, as soon as they threw 1 pipe bomb the UDA came out and threw 20 pipe bombs. But when they were getting the 20 pipe bombs, the IRA would phone up the press and the TVs so, by the time they were throwing the 20 pipe bombs, the press was coming down and the only pogroms and the only morons that they could see on TV were the Protestants attacking the Catholic community. It totally distorted the whole picture. I believe that’s true because in the short space of about 4 years, we are here in relative stability, we are talking about things and issues that people actually don’t want to do these things, it’s the normal things, the social ills, about football, about low education, about no jobs, low self esteem – that’s where we are going with all this.
“That existed then but somebody else was playing games with it. We have changed that environment. We don’t get no credit for it but we are going to go on. ….
Conflict Transformation Initiative: “And I wanted to come here and not whinge about the interface areas and all the rest, and how downtrodden we are. We are doing something about it, we’re doing something about it through an initiative called the Conflict Transformation Initiative. And it’s to bring that stability. It was based on the question ‘is the war over?’ And if it’s not, then what will we do next? And if it is over, where do we go next? So we went through these last 4 months, into those areas that we are talking about, where the interface fighting went on, and we asked over 4,000 people from December, 4,000 men, all in the Ulster Defence Association, those questions. And everyone of them said: ‘the war is not over but it has changed, it is about the real enemies in our community, social issues, deprivation, the lack of jobs, the lack education, the lack of confidence.’
British identity: “They also believe it’s not over because the IRA have not given over their aspiration for a united Ireland. Well, why should we give up our aspiration to remain British, as part of our British identity? Not an English identity but a British identity which is much broader than an English identity, which I think people get mixed up with. So, everyone to a man has decided they want to move on, they can no longer sustain the status quo. They have all got confidence through the actions we have taken. So we are trying, and one of the admissions was that we, through the interface violence, where those people who came out, the gunmen who came out, the pipe bombers and all the rest that Chris talked about, was that they wanted to move from a position of defending and to end it… because first and foremost they admitted that they had harmed and hurt their own community, and it had to stop. So they wanted to help mend their own community and move on and maybe mend the whole bigger picture , within the nationalist/republican community, Roman Catholic community, and any other communities that may well have been hurt.
Managing change: “But to do that they have also said that they had to face up to the challenge to manage change, and that’s where we are at the minute. And I think the interface trouble and the interface issues have totally changed now, they’ve changed because of what the UDA has done. Now they didn’t do it on their own, they can’t do it on their own, but I think they were certainly one of the last pieces of a big jigsaw that fell into place to create that stability.
Dialogue: “So I am hoping that continues. I think that what we are also doing now is that we are giving confidence to people within our own community to respect the dead, to respect other people’s dead, to try and create dialogue. And one of the things in the Shared Future document was that dialogue had to be sort of ‘earthed’ in local dialogue etc. Well we are doing that, and hopefully if we can do it within our own community we intend moving out quickly into other communities to talk and try and do it. And the important thing is that we bring people with us to do that.
Post-traumatic stress – time bomb waiting to explode: “So we are trying to do this, we have worked hard and we are going to continue to do it but one of the problems we have, and I suppose that everybody has, is that people who have demonised people within my community for so long think they can just go away, they think they can stop it overnight, they think all you have to do is down tools and go home. It doesn’t happen like that. We just buried a comrade in west Belfast on Saturday morning. That guy was at the front of the fighting, he took the war to the IRA, for all the right reasons that he believed in, whether the violence was wrong, we are coming to terms with it. And I definitely hope that another Irish republican never dies for Ireland, I hope they live for Ireland and their united Ireland, but I also don’t want to see another loyalist die for Ulster. I want them to live for Ulster. And one of the problems we are having now, and the demonisation and criminalisation process is heavy on our hearts, that that person is suffering from what we call ‘post-conflict traumatic stress syndrome’. And nobody actually recognises that back home. And if you go into a loyalist community, because of the lack of loyalist leadership, because of the lack of recognition within our unionist community and our unionist leaders, it’s a time bomb waiting to explode – there are hundreds and hundreds of people within the loyalist community who have went and have murdered, who have killed their enemy as they see it, and have been killed by their enemy. And it’s ready to explode. And they are all living on the interface areas.
New phase: “So we are moving to a new phase we believe. We think we have stabilised in large the interface areas. We believe people think this is the end game, you know this would make a good documentary, the end game in Ireland. What a load of nonsense! We believe this is just the end of the beginning. They have put in the physical structures, they have done some economic stuff, though not enough, all the physical stuff has been done. What we are saying now is it’s about people, it’s up to my community interfaces to get the capacity, to get the training, to get the support and the confidence to be able to walk across that divide and go and speak to people in Ardoyne, to go and speak to people on the Falls Road, and bring them over to us and do the same. So it is all about people now.
Time bomb within loyalism: “But nobody is listening, nobody is listening to the time bomb that is happening within loyalism. Because we believe there are hundreds and hundreds of our volunteers who are ready to explode, and they are killing themselves at a terrible rate, and they’re not even recognised.
Conclusion: “So I hope that what comes out of the Meath Peace Group and the talk tonight is that this is not the end game, this is only the end of the beginning. There’s other issues, there’s social ills that we have to address. But let’s not fall into the trap of sectarianism. Let’s fall into the position of recognising there are class issues. Yes there are political issues and religious issues but there are other issues being hidden. And let’s try and stop demonising each other within Northern Ireland. And maybe if we can get the understanding of the people in the Republic – you know I think we have far more friends down here now who are arguing our case and the arguments are coming back up into Northern Ireland. And it’s ironic that we are coming down here for to try and get a voice, but we are going to continue to do it. The Meath peace Group has given us the opportunity again. What I hope is that we continue our progress, I don’t want the credit for it or anything else but I hope that the volunteers who were ex-combatants, who fought the war, who are now trying to establish peace in Northern Ireland, get the credit, because they need the confidence, they need the help, they do need a pat on the back at times. And I think this is where it starts. So I am hoping that we come out of this with something positive because there is a time-bomb just waiting to explode on the interface areas and I think we have to address it. Thank you very much for listening.”
Mike Reade: “Thank you. There’s plenty to react to there, I’m sure we will have plenty of questions. Our final speaker is Seán Brennan.”
4. Seán Brennan (North Belfast Developing Leadership Initiative):
“Good evening and thank you for inviting me here. I’m supposed to be Conor Maskey [of Intercomm Belfast] but unfortunately Conor wasn’t able to make it so I’ve been sent down in his place.
Community empowerment programmes: “I am going to endorse everything the other three speakers said. I think they’ve all hit on the main points. I’ll start off by just explaining who I am and what I do. I work for the North Belfast Developing Leadership Initiative Community Empowerment Programme – a bit of a mouthful. The Community Empowerment Programmes grew out of the consequences of the Holy Cross dispute. And just to follow on from what Frankie was saying, following the Good Friday Agreement, or the Belfast Agreement, whatever you want to call it, in 1998, a lot of people decided that that was it, it was over, and a lot of the communities in interface areas were just ignored and forgotten about, primarily for the reasons that Frankie has outlined, they didn’t need them to go and kill anyone anymore so they were just left to their own devices. This created a series of problems within north Belfast and community people have tried their best to move that on, especially within the Protestant community, but they just got nowhere, and, unsurprisingly, interface violence erupted and we had the Holy Cross dispute and the consequences of that. In a way it was a good thing because it forced government to address the needs of interface communities. … Quite often people point fingers at interface communities and say, ‘it’s your fault and if only you’se would all get on with each other, why don’t ye and … everything will be grand?’
Dunlop Report: “So the community organisations had tried and tried for years and nothing had come of it but because of the Holy Cross dispute the government commissioned the Dunlop Report. And the Dunlop Report looked at interface violence, especially in north Belfast, and it came up with this strategy to address it. Now you have to remember that North Belfast is a patchwork quilt of interface communities, and not only, as has been mentioned here earlier, the physical interface communities but also what I call the intellectual interfaces, between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’- who think they’re doing ok and they don’t want the ‘have nots’ to get anything. And that’s of course in contrast to north Down where you have the ‘haves’ and the ‘have yachts’! So there are people who did extremely well out of the conflict in Northern Ireland, let’s not forget about that.
Murder triangle: “But in north Belfast you have to start to imagine what it was like. North Belfast was known as the ‘murder triangle’, proportionately it had more people killed than any other part of Northern Ireland. Last year Pete Shirlow did a piece of research which discovered that the majority of people who were killed in north Belfast were killed within 9 feet of their front door! So that means that trying to get anyone to move out of an interface community is virtually impossible – people were living with their doors blocked up, their windows had grills on them, their lights were turned out, their back gardens – instead of having plastic oil tanks, they have metal oil tanks. So they were basically living in cages, and they would come out during the hours of daylight and they would be back before it would get dark and then they didn’t answer the door.
Health and social problems: “You had a range of social and economic problems there. Not surprisingly, people were taking drugs, and that’s not even without going to the illegal drug dealers. People were going to the doctors, the children were on all types of medication and the parents were on all types of medications. And if anybody knows the kind of cycle you’ll understand what happens. And it usually happens to women because they are under more pressure than anyone else. So the mother goes to the doctor, she gets all these tranquillisers, then she finds it hard to get up in the morning, she doesn’t get the kids out to school. The kids don’t go out to school, the kids hang about the streets all day long, they get a bit of a bad name.
“Other parents come to the mother complaining about the kids, the mother goes back to the doctor and the doctor gives her stronger medication. The kids stay out late, stay up drinking, start taking drugs, start creating anti-social behaviour. Then the paramilitary guys come around and say ‘you’ve got to start looking after your kids’, the mother goes back to the doctor for more medication and the cycle goes on and on and on. And not surprisingly people drink a lot and smoke a lot in those interface areas, so there are huge health implications as well. Now that’s without even going into the political situation.
“You can imagine the difficulties that people have even trying to organise to address those kinds of issues. It’s difficult to come out your door and try and form a group and try and campaign against a specific issue if there’s nobody in the street or you’re terrified of going out or if you think that something’s going to happen to you.
North Belfast Community Action Unit: “So, as a consequence of all that, the government formed this group called the North Belfast Community Action Unit, an organisation within government, set up within OFM/DFM [Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister] so it has direct ministerial support. And it’s made up of representatives of different departments who come together to address specific issues within an interface because government has now recognised that it needs a multi-agency approach but it also needs the community. And because of the difficulties in north Belfast, community organisations had to be empowered to facilitate the change. So what was encouraged was a series of empowerment partnerships where you had small little groups dotted about areas. They were brought together in this large umbrella organisation of an empowerment partnership. Then government would ask the local people to identify what specific issues were affecting their area, and identify strategies, and they would provide small pieces of money to address that. And from that we now have 14 community empowerment partnerships in north Belfast, and north Belfast being what it is, it stretches right across from Carlisle Circus right out to Newtownabbey. Because government thought as this stretches across two local district council boundaries that there was no point stopping it in Belfast and then the kids in Rathcoole rioting against the kids in Belfast. So it had to stretch right out. So not only does the interface issue cover Belfast and the different areas in it, it also covers Newtownabbey, so you have two local district council areas. And that is known as the parliamentary constituency of North Belfast.
Difficulties in Protestant interface communities: “So, as Neil has said, within that range of interface communities, sometimes it’s better not to look at it as Catholic against Protestant. They are the buts where both sides fall out and hit each other. Within either side of those interfaces there are stresses and strains. Frankie has made a point towards that, talking about some of the politicians within the Protestant community. In actual fact, it is probably better to be in a Catholic community than it is to be in a Protestant community, especially if you are at working-class level because the political struggle is still going on, and the DUP are still arguing out issues and that sort of reflects within Protestant areas where it is difficult to get grassroots regeneration going because some local councillors don’t want to be seen within the company of [some people].
Common social and economic issues: “So there are a range of issues ongoing. Within the interface communities, through the empowerment partnerships, people started to come together to look at the issues that affected them most. And, as Frankie has already said, when people sat down and started talking about the things that affected them – not what affected the people on the other side, but what affected them – they were near enough all the same things: lack of education, lack of health, lack of social amenities, lack of employment. If you come from one of those interface communities the chances are that once you put your postcode down, you are not going to get that job. And that’s what we call ‘postcode discrimination’. But I am trying to change that to ‘post-conflict development’, to try and sort of put a positive spin on it.
Developing leadership: “So, through these community empowerment partnerships, we have started to work to address specific issues. One of the things that our community empowerment partnership does is develop leadership. That sounds a bit vague I know, but, as Frankie has already said, especially within the Protestant community, people have found it difficult to get community representatives to come out and then when they do come out and somebody says ‘oh he’s a loyalist’, or ‘he’s a paramilitary’ and then they don’t want to know you. And that whole demonisation process goes on. So it is extremely difficult to get people to step forward and step into the spotlight. But it has progressed and the work is going on. In the Developing Leadership Initiative we work across a range of issues with all the other community empowerment partnerships. One of the things we do is around developing leadership skills, and I’ll touch on that in a minute.
Regeneration process: “The other thing that we do, and hence me being the Edward De Bono person, is that the Edward De Bono Foundation has a plan to take over part of Crumlin Road Prison. Crumlin Road Prison is an old 19th century jail, some of you may have heard of it, some of you may have even stayed in it. It’s now derelict and it’s up for regeneration, and it’s on the Crumlin Road. And the idea is that the Crumlin Road regeneration process will kick-start a wider regeneration process in the whole of north Belfast. North Belfast has got some of the most beautiful scenery, some of the most beautiful houses, but it’s also got some of the worst. So the government plan is to use this regeneration process to kick-start and lift the whole of north Belfast, bring in further infrastructural developments and grants and turn north Belfast into a vibrant community.
Demands on land and new immigrants: “One of the difficulties with that is – and again it has been mentioned – the spatial demands on land. Within nationalist north Belfast, it’s overcrowded, it’s got a very young population, they’re trying to look for houses, they’re trying to stay in the area. On the Protestant/unionist/loyalist side, they’ve got an older population, people don’t want to live there, the housing stock is degenerating, and – I don’t want to say too much about the South – but a lot of southern investors have come up and bought houses in Protestant/unionist/loyalist areas, and they’re renting them out to new citizens. So on top of the traditional sectarian divide, we now have new immigrants coming in – Filipinos, Pakistanis, Lithuanians, Poles etc etc. So these are putting further demands onto the local community because a lot of these communities don’t have a tradition of going to the police, they have a tradition of sorting it out within their own area. And if you’ve got 8 Polish guys on a Saturday night unwinding after a week’s work, they don’t really understand what’s going on sometimes, the language may not be good, so there are tensions that arise from that there. And these are things that we talk about through our work.
Centre for Constructive Thinking and Citizenship: “So the prison project hopefully will help to address that. However, being north Belfast it is never easy. Girdwood Army Barracks then became available, and government decided they would use this – it backs on to the back of Crumlin Road jail. So you now have 27 acres of land for development in an inner city area. If you’re a developer you’ll be rubbing your hands. The local community is hoping that they are going to get something into that but because they’re divided, it’s a patchwork quilt of communities, it’s difficult to get consensus on what’s going to go on that multi-purpose site. So we are hoping that we are going to get part of that site and create an international Centre for Constructive Thinking and Citizenship which will become a global centre and attract people into Northern Ireland to look at the whole concept of conflict resolution, problem solving and new thinking.
Conflict resolution skills training: “So that’s one element of what I do. And, at grassroots level, I then sort of take those training skills out to the interface communities and to the emerging leaders, to enable them to start articulating what they already know and to start developing ways to engage with the intellectual interfaces, engage with the statutory organisations, engage with elected councillors and use the conflict skills that we are all picking up in our everyday work to try and resolve those kind of issues. It’s no good being able to get on with your Catholic or Protestant neighbour and then go back to your local politician and have a blazing row. You’re not really using your conflict resolution skills there. So, within north Belfast, we’re trying to address those kind of issues.
“Now I’ll give you an idea of some of the practical things that we do. As I say, the Developing Leadership Initiative enables other groups to realise their full potential. So, people will come and work with us, or we will work with them, to develop training, to develop networks, or to enable networks that already exist to move forward.
Mobile phone network: “One of the things talked about earlier on is the mobile phone network. The mobile phone network developed through interface workers who thought this would be a good way of trying to reduce conflict. Because what would happen was that a rumour spreads: ‘they’ – whoever you want them to be – ‘are coming down to attack us’. And the rumour goes through the area and before you know it you have three or four hundred people on the street, for nothing. And then one side sees three or four hundred people on the other side, so how do you resolve that? Through the mobile phone networks interface monitors can then phone each other and say ‘listen, I hear there’s an issue happening, I hear there’s a dispute happening, is this true?’ And then you can tell that person ‘no, that’s a lie’, or ‘yes, we’re trying to resolve this, don’t worry things aren’t getting out of hand’. And that kind of starts to act as a basis of trust. And what we say is, ‘I can only lie to you once, after that you are never going to believe me again, so if I tell you that something’s happening and it’s not happening, you’re not going to believe me, but if I tell you it’s happening and it is happening and I can resolve it, then you are going to believe me.’ This is where the mobile phone network has started to grow because people started to develop trust.
North Belfast Conflict Transformation Forum: “What we also have in north Belfast is a bank of experienced conflict transformation practitioners, people who have been doing this for years and years. We decided that, rather than go outside and bring someone in from San Francisco or Australia or London or Helsinki to tell us how to resolve our conflict, we decided ‘we are the experts, let’s start using our expertise, let’s start valuing that’. And from that an organisation has developed called the North Belfast Conflict Transformation Forum. And this forum is an open space for conflict transformation practitioners to come and discuss issues and discuss solutions, and also to build up trust. Because if we start working with each other on everyday issues, as Frankie said, then we start to realise ‘well, it’s not because you are a Catholic, or you are a Protestant, or because you are a nationalist or you are a unionist, or you’re a republican or you’re a loyalist, it’s because your family doesn’t have any work and you’re trying to identify potential employment opportunities, your family doesn’t have good housing and you’re trying to address those kinds of issues.’ So on the basis that two heads are better than one, we start to work on those issues. And that also cuts out the middle man, and again going back to the intellectual interfaces where a lot of statutory agencies will tell you ‘oh, we’d love to help you, we’d love to do this but we can’t because the other side …’ So they play one off against the other. And to get round that, the Conflict Transformation Forum then shares experience and shares practice.
Training: “Now one of the other things that we kind of realised from that was that, given the level of expertise within the wider group, it would be better for us to start identifying our own training needs. We all have different training providers, we have training budgets etc. But we started to look at the things such as: ‘what would make you as an interface monitor, an interface worker, a better practitioner?’ So we’ve all had those kind of Harvard law classes and courses, we’ve had people flying in from Harvard, huge amounts of money, flying in to deliver this course and then they disappear again. And we started to use that expertise and we started to apply it in an everyday setting. And what we formed out of the Conflict Transformation Forum was an educational sub-group, and what that identified was that interface monitors needed specific training in specific issues.
Youth violence: “Again this is where it comes into this ‘post-conflict development’ phase where what we are saying now is that we have moved beyond a process of inter-community violence to a process of interpersonal violence, so a lot of the time it’s kids, as Frankie said, get on Beebo, arrange to meet and hey presto you have a riot. Although some positive things have come out of that. A few months ago, at the interface up in Rathcoole, the two sets of kids had arranged to meet and the Protestant side came up and there was no Catholic kids so they got onto the mobile phones and started texting them saying ‘where are you, I thought we were meeting for a riot?’ And the Catholic kids texted back and said ‘we are in the youth club, we’ll be down after the youth club closes!’ So then the Protestant kids went back to their people and said ‘why can’t we have a youth club?’ So then that starts putting pressure on their local politicians and their local community representatives. So it’s not always looking at the bad things that come out of the conflict, we have to look to the positive things and try and sort of work with that there.
Interface monitors: “Through the interface monitors we are able to meet and discuss those kinds of issues. Ronnie [Black] is here and Ronnie is one of the interface monitors. He would look after a particular area in north Belfast and his nationalist counterpart would phone him up and say ‘Ronnie listen, we’ve heard that there’s…..’, and Ronnie would go down and have a look at that and assess the situation, find out whether it’s true or not and try and resolve it. Likewise, if there was an issue on the other side of the interface, Ronnie would phone and say ‘listen, we’re hearing that there’s a group of guys gathering’, so the nationalist interface monitors would go round and look at that. Nine times out of ten, the police contact the interface monitors before they contact the politicians. And you have this strange bizarre scenario at times where the police are sitting in their jeeps, drinking coke and eating Mars bars, and the interface monitors are down telling their sides to ‘get back and stop this messing about’. And that’s resolved so much easier. …
Prevention: “We now can calculate that if you arrest a young man, and they are predominantly young men, if you arrest a young man on the interface and process him through the criminal justice system, it costs an average of £89,000 a year. What we are saying is that we can do that at a far cheaper rate – not put that young man into a criminal justice system and ruin his career. One of the things that the Conflict Transformation Forum did last year was to develop a poster campaign – to go around the schools to try and highlight to young men: ‘this is what is going to happen to you if you get arrested; you’re going to be prosecuted, you’re going to have a criminal record, you’re not going to be able to get a job.’ So we’re trying to get through to the young people on that level. We’re not giving them all this fancy community relations stuff, we’re putting it to them exactly how it is: ‘if you get caught rioting this is what is going to happen to you, and your life will be extremely difficult from here on in.’ And this is grassroots community activists who are doing this, these are not fancy ideas thought up anywhere else, these are people in their own communities who recognise what’s needed and try and develop the solutions that can resolve them ….
Building trust: “The level of trust that has grown has enabled the growth of a trust bank. So, if I say to you that this is going to happen, I have to deliver, and if you say to me that this is going to happen, you have to deliver. Or you have to come and say to me ‘I can’t do this’ and that’s ok too because we know that we can’t do it all, but as long as that trust starts building then we start forming relationships.
Learning Consortium: “And from that Conflict Transformation Forum we developed the North Belfast Learning Consortium. That is now designing training programmes that the interface workers can use for themselves to develop and enhance their own practice.
“We have developed a relationship with Queen’s University Belfast to accredit the people who are going through that course. And just to give you a flavour of the things we are talking about:
-
“first of all we are looking at understanding conflict in a divided society, so we all realise what the issues are, why we get involved in conflict,
-
“the next thing we are looking at is understanding grassroots peacebuilding because what we now see ourselves as is peacebuilders, local peacebuilders,
-
“then we are looking at – ok, so we know how to build the peace, how do we sustain that? So we have to identify leadership skills required to sustain new activity.
-
“And then the other thing is we have to learn processes of governance so that we know who to go to, which statutory organisation, which MP, which MLA, which councillor, and get them on board. And it may be that that councillor does not really like me, or like my politics, or I don’t like that councillor or his or her politics, but we recognise that we have to work together.
Support from politicians: “And increasingly we have support from all politicians. We designed this programme last year, Rebuilding Civic Society, where we took long-term unemployed people from interface communities and gave them a job for one year and we told them ‘you’re just like me, I’m on a two-year funding contract, my contract is up on the 31st March and then I am unemployed. I have to sustain my employment by identifying funding, you have to do the same thing, you have to identify the training you need, you have to identify the qualifications you need to sustain your employability’. We had Nigel Dodds [DUP] support us in that. This was a cross-community venture, Nigel Dodds took us to Stormont. Then all the other councillors starting coming on board because Nigel Dodds supported us. Then we were hosted by Belfast City Council, they all loved it. Then we were hosted in Westminster, they loved it even more …. and then they took us to Brussels. So that was a cross- community programme that took long-term unemployed people from all sides of the divide and brought them together and gave them an opportunity. And out of those 14 people who went on that scheme, there are 13 of them still working.”
QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS
Q.1. Chair (Mike Reade): “Seán, I am conscious of the clock but can I ask you, it is great obviously that people from different sides of the community come together and are working together on a daily basis but I presume that in the evening after work they are going home to their houses on the traditional sides of the divide? And I presume that despite the knowledge we have of recreational rioting and situations being exploited for the benefit of others, that it is not necessarily safe to say that it would be safe to cross the divide and to venture out into the other community late at night?”
Seán Brennan: “It comes down to local tensions. Some interfaces you just wouldn’t want to be seen out after dark but increasingly other interfaces now, people are moving across, people are starting to make contacts and communications. The younger generation is a different generation to me. Places that I would have gone to or not gone to, the younger generation, they don’t understand it, they just go wherever they want. So, there’s an age thing here as well, and, no disrespect to my colleagues but we are all a certain age, the younger people, they will just move about willy nilly, they will go wherever they want. One of the other things we have done is we brought representatives from both sides to the Somme last October and we are going to be bringing them to Dublin in March to have a look at where we both come from historically. And one of the conversations that came out of that was that all the people’s children, their kids move about, Catholic areas, Protestant areas, that kind of dynamic is starting to change. That’s not to minimise the potential for conflict at interfaces but there is a widespread change going on and sometimes it can be extremely fraught with danger but also it can be an extreme area of opportunity.”
Chair (Mike Reade): “I wonder if there is anyone in the audience who would be conscious of where they would park in Northern Ireland or would you give it a second thought, a registration from the Republic? I suppose the point I am trying to make is that we are a long way from normalisation – would anyone disagree with that? And Frankie, if I could go back to you, and I am going to then start taking questions… you were talking about an attitude amongst loyalist paramilitaries that the war has changed. Who are they fighting if the republicans at least have given up on the war?”
Frankie Gallagher: “We sort of try to create stability and take a step back instead of taking a step forward. We have always been a very reactionary people, and it didn’t take much to get us to react to do that. We have tried to reverse that. We told most of the people we worked with in the beginning that ‘the IRA, Provisional IRA, Sinn Fein are still getting away with murder and they haven’t even fired a shot’. And that’s maybe not necessarily true but it was trying to get it in our people’s heads that there’s another way to fight this argument, this struggle, and people are entitled to their struggle but we are equally entitled to ours. And we said to them, ‘look, let’s go and get the IRA’, the way the Ulster Freedom Fighters might have done years ago which I hope never happens again, we said ‘we’ll go and we’ll face the IRA, we’ll face Sinn Fein etc’. And I can tell you through six years we still haven’t seen the eyes of the IRA or Sinn Fein because we are still struggling against unionists who are what we see as barriers to peace. There’s a middle-class or working upper middle-class – people from working-class areas who think they are middle class – working in the civil service etc in Northern Ireland, and I’m sure this is the same the world over, but they seem to be gatekeepers rather than providing us with opportunities etc. Unionist Protestants and middle class Catholics are the barriers at the minute, we haven’t even seen the face of the enemy yet.”
Chair (Mike Reade): “You need two sides to have a war. I know I am being very simplistic, and purposely so, but what is the need for weapons and military structures or forms of policing if there isn’t a visible enemy?”
Frankie Gallagher: “Well, what we are saying is that there is so little infrastructure within our community. People want paramilitaries to go away, everybody within our community has said ‘ok, that’s reasonable, let’s make that happen’, and we have had the good will of everybody so far saying ‘let’s move forward, let’s move to the day when there are no paramilitary activities, no paramilitary organisations and no criminality associated with that’. One of the things we are saying to other people is look, say for example you go an estate like Tullycarnet, where I come from, where 99% of the people through 35 years of conflict have been associated with the Ulster Defence Association at some stage of that period of time, ‘you tell them to go away, where are they going to go? Are you going to send them all to England?’ The truth is you cannot send them away, they’re part of this community, part of this country, part of this island, and what we are saying is that we have to transform. So if we transform, and make sure any structures that were there, that were pertaining to military tactics, military strategies, military options, violent options, that that option has to go…..
Mike Reade: “…. gangsters who give up their trade, and the drug money, will they need to be compensated?”
Frankie: “No no, I’m asking the government to give up their criminals in their structures … what we are saying is that there is nothing wrong with the structure that is there, if it’s transformed, working for the good of the community, fighting the social ills of unemployment, lack of education, lack of confidence. There can be no gun in the equation in any future settlement.”
Mike Reade: “So why have they not disarmed?”
Frankie: “Because they are unable to, they’re not strong enough to. They haven’t got the cohesion, they haven’t got the confidence and their community hasn’t got the confidence. One of the things that Sean was saying earlier, about the mothers, and the paramilitaries came round to the door – and this is a cycle that happens in our communities – and they said ‘keep your children in check because they’re wrecking the place’.
“They’re doing that because there’s no effective police service, or they’re unable to do it. And one of the problems we’re having at the minute, of trying to make the UDA go away, transform into something that is positive for our communities, that our communities turn around and say ‘but if the paramilitaries go away now, just like that, the drug dealers are going to come back in, the criminals are going to come back in, the kids are going to run riot and we are going to be left in ghettoes where most people are not registered to vote, where the people will then disenfranchise themselves daily and where the politicians won’t care anyway. They will ring-fence that area, and as long as the people don’t come out of that area and affect the middle-class, or affect the Cherry Valleys, or the Belmonts and all the rest of it in Belfast, then they are ok. But if they come out of that ghetto, we will put them back.”
Mike: “But didn’t the Provisionals decommission in a policing void?”
Frankie: “Gerry Adams says he had to decommission people’s minds before he got to the point where he is at now, and I think, whether you like them or loathe them, they have moved one hell of a position from where they were, to now. I still don’t see them as friends, but they had to decommission their people’s minds who were well educated, who were well motivated, were articulate, were innovative. Our people have been decommissioned years ago through what we call the unionist legacy, through 80 years of lack of leadership within unionism, they have had no education, so instead of decommissioning minds we are going to have to recommission minds – giving people confidence, and we are going to have to make sure that people have the skills to be able to move on and forever take guns out of politics, but I think Isaac wants to say something there….”
Isaac Andrews (west Belfast): “On the question you were asking, you know about why the UDA do not give up their arms, there is still the perception in the UDA and certainly in our communities that there are republican organisations out there, dissident republican organisations still hold weapons to this day. There are 3 or 4 we could mention. In one of our main interface areas I would say there are more dissidents in it than there is Provisionals. The dissidents seem to be taking over certain areas now. One of the reasons I would say why people are still holding on to these weapons there is still a threat there against them, and until that threat is totally away, I can’t see the weapons being took out of loyalist areas. Everybody thinks this is it, we are on our way now but in my eyes I see that we could have maybe a worse summer coming up with dissidents. What are the dissidents going to do coming up to the parading? Are they going to try and get at Sinn Fein to do something about the parades, creating more riots, creating more tensions? So I think there is a lot to work on before the summer.”
Chair: “Ok, now I want to open it up for questions from the audience….If you wouldn’t mind I will come down to you with the microphone, if you could just identify yourselves…”
Q. 2. Paddy Martin (Crosmaglen): “I would like to just endorse what Frankie said there, that the danger here is from the fellows who are traumatised by the trouble. I recognise that on both sides of the border there, at Crosmaglen. And it can be very dangerous and very explosive. I don’t’ know whether the victim of the killing or the perpetrator of the killing is the worse off because it takes a really hard man eventually that it doesn’t come back to haunt him. And one of the problems you touched upon there was that during the troubles both governments recruited very unsavoury characters to work as agents for them, and those fellows – the damage they did and some of the things they did have never come to light. And the reason it hasn’t come to light is that it is not in the governments’ interest. And both governments should be held accountable for what their agents did. It’s been blamed mainly on the loyalists or on the IRA, but it was a government agent that often killed and that is why we have the situation now when they are having inquiries into inquiries, they don’t want the truth about the Dublin/Monaghan bombings to come out. And the obscenity on top of it all is that barristers, solicitors who are appointed to inquire into this, are getting €300 or €400 euro or pounds an hour. That’s an obscenity…. Those are huge amounts of money. And who are the victims? Ordinary Protestants and Catholics….”
Chair (Mike Reade): “Perhaps we could put that into a question. Would anybody like to see the collusion that Paddy speaks of on either side investigated independently, perhaps at a European court?”
Frankie Gallagher: “The problem with collusion is that it will be the ordinary man who went out and perpetrated the act who will be the patsy here. He will be the one who will take the fall whereas the people who we should be really moving at is the people in power who managed it, and they managed both sides. And you could ask yourselves after the hunger strikes in 1981, that if the republicans died on hunger strike and they knew it was over then then why did it go on for so long after? We all have our theories about that. But what we are saying is that yes, these inquiries are fine, these are good because it’s all going to come out but at the minute it is just looking for the scapegoats at the bottom rung of the ladder, the person who pulled the trigger, when it’s the ones at the very top of the tree and in between that we should be looking for …”
Mike Reade: “You have all spoken about two communities which are pretty much mirror versions of the other yet when they look each other in the eye they see a monster. You spoke about the work you are trying to do to change what people see when they look at somebody from the other side of the divide, but is there something additional to what you are doing needed to be done? A truth commission or investigation of some sort or should it just be a question of chipping away at it, trying to bring people together through employment or some of the other projects now that are ongoing?”
Seán Brennan: “That’s a difficult one for me especially. In an ideal world I would love to see a truth commission and we would all find out what happened, but in reality, as Frankie said, they are just going to go and get the people at the bottom rung of the ladder and they are going to blame them. And increasingly whenever you look at it, and certainly I would sit and read the Internet and read comments and that, and you start to wonder who actually ran this? Which governments? And not just the British Government, I think there’s a number of governments that were involved. And increasingly you’re starting to hear ‘oh he was a British agent’, or ‘he was an agent’. And then you start to find out that the people who were doing all the killing were agents. And …last year when we were talking about the Disappeared, up around the border and stuff like that, a friend said to me ‘you shouldn’t be going to the loyalist or republican paramilitaries, you should be going to the British Government and asking them because it was their agent that killed them.’ And when people say that to me I find it difficult to say no to that. All right before that there was this whole kind of thing that this was a conspiracy theory, but now I’m starting to say, hold on a minute was this a conspiracy, and if it was what kind of a conspiracy was it?”
Frankie Gallagher: “Two top loyalists were talking …. one a colleague that works on the interface etc…. He was on a panel along with a top Provisional IRA man who had another hat on as a community worker, and they were asked ‘what do you think of a truth commission?’ And the loyalist turned round and said ‘I don’t think it will work because it is too fresh, it’s too hurtful, our community has still got a long way to move out of this. Because if you try to tell about things that happened somebody is going to go around and get a knife and they are going to say ‘that’s the one who killed my father’ and they will stab them, they will kill them.’ And the republican said: ‘how can we have a truth commission when we can’t even tell our own people the truth now?’ And that pretty much sums it up for me.”
Chris O’Halloran: “I must say I am just reminded every now and again just how old our conflict is. It didn’t start in 1969, it didn’t start in 1869, 1769, probably not even 1669. Our conflict is something not far off 400 years old, some people might say it’s older even than that!
Frankie: “700!”
Chris O’Halloran: “Ok, it’s a very old conflict. So there’s a few things that follow from that. One of them is that the emotions that we have about the conflict are very very deep-seated, they are generations old. And there’s another thing … like Seán, I would hear stories about young people from interface communities here mixing with people from the other interface community often in the city centre, and they are throwing away a lot of the baggage, or doing their best to. Although I would hear lots of stories like that that would sound very heartening, sometimes I hear from people who have been profoundly damaged through the conflict.
“Maybe they have lost people or they have been injured or something extremely bad happened to them or people around them, for some of those people I hear them saying things to me along the lines of – and I am not trying to blame Tony Blair wanting to get his legacy, there’s nothing wrong with that – but whether it is for reasons like that or it is political expediency, whatever it is for some people out there…. there’s almost an unseemly haste to put the troubles behind us and to tie it all up with a neat little ribbon and say ‘that’s that over now, now we can forget about Northern Ireland’. And I think for a lot of people in Northern Ireland, and perhaps in the South of Ireland too and elsewhere, it just isn’t that easy and it’s not going to be that quick. Some things just take time, quite a lot of time, and we can try to rush them and we might rush some of them but we won’t be able to rush all of them.”
Neil Jarman: “I would join the general sense of scepticism about a truth commission. We have often held up the example of South Africa as the model and looked to that, and Northern Ireland and the peace process is very different, the process is very different and the outcome is very different from South Africa. And I for one don’t think the British Government would enter into it with any degree of honesty, I don’t think the republican structures would enter into it with any degree of honesty, and I don’t think the loyalist structures would enter into it with any degree of honesty. It might be a PR exercise. And we can look at what’s been done with Bloody Sunday: you’ve got a bit more of the truth than you had beforehand but you haven’t got anything like a sense of the truth and a sense of closure… I think that’s where it would go and I think it probably does need time, I think it needs a bit of time to settle. We are still in a process of conflict here.
“Also, on another point, like Frankie said earlier on, any inquiries into collusion, as we saw with the Police Ombudsman’s report a few weeks ago, it points the finger at a few names, a few people get named in the media and a lot of people are not going to be held to account for their actions, particularly within the State services and the State forces and so on. And I think that’s a problem when you start to uncover these things: it’s easy targets that are picked on, and the people, the puppet masters if you like, who controlled the situation will walk away from it. Having said that, there may be agents out there, and there undoubtedly are agents out there, but the conflict wouldn’t have carried on for that length of time and to the degree it did if there wasn’t a lot of hostility, antipathy, anger, fear, violence between the two communities. It wasn’t all manufactured and manipulated. We need to accept that as well, that people fought for the reasons they fought for and not just because they were being manoeuvered into it, although those things happened as well.”
Q. 3 Arthur O’Connor (Trim): “… I would like to ask the panel what do you think of the outcome of the elections? Do you think they will go off peacefully or will matters be worse at the end of it? Shouldn’t it be proportional representation, you’s have a better result?”
Frankie Gallagher: “I think they will go off peacefully because I think they have all agreed it, and done and dusted it and they are acting it out at the moment. We predicted that certainly in the literature we’ve put out in the last few months to try and stabilise our community because one of the things they traditionally do is play the Green card and the Orange card, and they’re both good at it. So we tried to predict about 4 or 5 months ago that this would happen, and it’s all happening as we predicted and it’s in black and white in a magazine that was produced. And that was to try and help our community. And we went on TV and different media to let people know that ‘look, it is done and dusted, it is all about politics now, don’t fall into the trap of these people turning around and saying it’s about them Fenians over there, or them Prods over there and all the rest of it.’ They’re both pro-State, they’re both pro-establishment, and they’re going into a government.
“I also think the English-dominated government in Westminster has achieved its goal of creating a mechanism in Northern Ireland by which they can vote themselves out into a united Ireland. Their consent – that never existed before because there was never a written constitution, there was nothing in black and white from the Act of Union in 1800 all the way through. If they wanted to vote themselves out of Northern Ireland they couldn’t have done it because there was no mechanism. Now it’s there because of the Good Friday Agreement and the St Andrew’s Agreement tweaked it a wee bit here, so there’s stability as well as I think the English-dominated government has got its goal as well, their interest is back there as well. There will be no trouble, touch wood.”
Mike Reade: “Whatever about trouble is it possible that some of the rejectionist candidates will be mandated and the mainstream parties may lose out, or will it all be Sinn Féin, SDLP, DUP and UUP?”
Frankie Gallagher: “No, I think it will be Sinn Fein and the DUP, but let’s be honest that’s who should be in the chair. It’s about time they were in the chair because they’ve had the pleasure of opposition for 35 years or whatever and it’s about time they were there to deliver. I think the SDLP will struggle, I don’t think they will go down much more, I don’t think the Ulster Unionists will go down much more. I think, by and large, they’re going to end up – there’s a figure of 22% being bandied about … but you put that into RPA which is Reorganisation of the Public Administration, they’re going to shave off 22% of their councillors and different things anyway, so you know it’s all mathematically worked out!”
Mike Reade: “What about these ex-prisoners, or Republican Sinn Fein candidates, or others who would be opposed to St Andrew’s?”
Frankie: “A refreshing thing for me, my people don’t believe it yet. The refreshing thing for me is that I believe genuinely in my heart that Irish republicans in Northern Ireland now believe that violence to achieve a united Ireland is absolutely futile. And I took that phrase I said earlier from Irish republicans who said, ‘I never want to see an Irish republican ever lose his life again for a united Ireland’. I think they are right.
“And that’s why I argue that we have to go beyond consent now, we have to go beyond consent because we are going to make the same mistake as we did when we formed the State of Northern Ireland. Because there was a sizeable population within Northern Ireland who felt alienated, didn’t feel a part of it, and that’s going to happen again no matter what happens if we just leave it to consent. We have to go beyond consent, we have to give each other national recognition, national self-determination, and that’s where I said nine years ago [MPG talk 29, 5 May 1998] ‘we have to be guardians of each other’s rights’. And I think we are on the way to do that. That’s why I think the conflict now is about people, it’s only the end of the beginning. But I’m frightened the British Government is going to try and get off cheap, the Irish Government is going to try and get off cheap, and they are going to do, as Chris said, try and get it done and dusted in a nice little bow and move on. We cannot let them do that because the hurt and the pain we’ve inflicted on each other has to be addressed. We are up for doing it within the Ulster Defence Association, the UPRG and all the other elements to it, that’s what they want to do. I trust and hope and believe there will be no trouble over these elections.”
Mike Reade: “Neil, if you could just comment on that. You said we are still in a conflict situation. It remains a conflict situation at the interfaces now. If that’s true and Frankie what you said about people voting for peace, it would appear to me to be a chicken and egg situation, and I’m not sure which comes first – the politics or the change on the ground?”
Neil Jarman: “I think the thing about the peace process is that you can’t really talk about it in the singular over the last ten years. I mean there has been at least two very distinct parallel peace processes one of which is operated at the level of political parties, and one of which is operated at the level of grass-roots activists. I think probably for the last four or five years the peace is being embedded in Northern Ireland from the grass-roots upwards rather than from the top downwards. And that’s why I don’t have a sense of the people with guns really having a sense of disrupting anything. Elections very rarely cause trouble in Northern Ireland. We probably have more of them than anywhere else… I lose track of them. When you have had European, Assembly, Westminster, council elections and you had a referendum, we have had fairly regular elections and they are never about changing the house, they are just about changing the wallpaper or changing the curtains, minor details…
“I think the one thing that is interesting in this election for me is the candidacy in South Belfast of Anna Lo from the Chinese Welfare Association standing for the Alliance Party who stands a chance, I think, of getting elected because South Belfast does have a liberal vote within it, we had a Women’s Coalition candidate elected a few years ago.
“If Anna got elected – and I have a lot of time for Anna, she has done a lot of good work in the Chinese community – she would be the first Chinese politician, Chinese national background politician in Britain at that level of politics which I think would be a nice sign from Northern Ireland to have done that and to have got that position first. And for me that makes it one of the interesting things to look forward to in this election, of something starting to break the mould and starting to chip away at it. Otherwise it’s shades of wallpaper and different curtains really.” [Editor’s note: Anna Lo was elected to the Assembly on 7 March]
Q.4. Judith Hamill (Dunsany): “I would just like to thank the speakers very much… it really made a lot of sense to me. But in relation to what you were talking about, Frankie, post-traumatic stress, what is being done or what needs to be done for ex-paramilitaries? …. You talked about an ‘explosion’ – are you talking about more outward violence or are you talking about suicide? What exactly are you talking about there?”
Frankie Gallagher: “It is being effected now by suicide but these things have a way of developing and they could explode outwards, especially with weaponry still out there. And even if people decommission there’s still going to be weaponry out there, I don’t care what anybody says there is not a person in the republican movement, the Provisional republican movement, who doesn’t have a personal piece hid somewhere for their protection maybe if they need it in the future. But by and large what I am saying, it has not even got to the point of being recognised. Loyalists are not recognised. And it happens in the republican community as well. They went away to deal with it and they have been good and skilful at gaining the necessary skills around them as a safety net. Once you open that Pandora’s Box, you open somebody’s head like that there it is a Pandora’s Box, and unless you have somebody round there to catch the person, it’s dangerous.
“We don’t even get to the point of being recognised as human beings who may have this. We are still demonised as criminals, as gangsters, and that’s the problem, lack of recognition.
Judith: “Is that from your own community?”
Frankie: “Well no, not in our own community, but certainly within unionist politicians. The DUP can’t recognise the efforts of the Ulster Defence Association or the Ulster Freedom Fighters because it wouldn’t be politically correct because that would mean they would have to recognise the IRA, and the republican struggle and movement, or so they think. So even though many of them are probably members of the UDA … they have turned round and will not recognise people with those types of difficulties. It is a dangerous situation. We are demonised, we’re not even human beings. I know you all talked about different things here but I know for a fact – and Chris may want to comment on it – that what the UDA done 4 years ago in closing down the interface violence perpetrated by those criminals, had, I would say, the most massive impact on interface violence and it has allowed the lads here to develop more ways of moving out of it. So we are not even recognised for that. And that is a major major difficulty.”
Chris O’Halloran: “Just to add to what Frankie said. This is a very crude way of putting it but, generally speaking, apart from violence coming from interface communities, as far as politicians are concerned, or as far as the British Government is concerned, maybe even the Irish Government, the only way that they are really interested in interface communities is in terms of violence there. If violence stops there, they move on, that is the end of their interest. The issues that Frankie has raised in terms of post-conflict stress syndrome, the legacy of trauma, difficulties in accessing employment and facilities and the ongoing low level violence and the difficulties that creates for young people which we discussed earlier – those are largely by the by. So part of the issue, I would guess probably the four of us may have in common is a concern that with the ending of interface violence it doesn’t mean an end to the attention that needs to be focused upon interface communities. Because otherwise we are just leaving problems hidden there that just haven’t been addressed.”
Judith Hamill: “…. What is the next step?”
Seán Brennan: “I suppose a process of normality, that’s next. If you look at these elections you have to remember that any election in Northern Ireland is not about Catholic v Protestant or nationalist v unionist, it’s nationalist v nationalist and unionist v unionist. The struggle that Frankie is talking about – the problem within the Protestant/unionist/loyalist communities is that that struggle is going on and if the DUP will use its political process to sustain its control over the Protestant/unionist/loyalist right, then that’s their democratic right to do that. People do vote for them, and vote for them in large numbers. Whether I agree or disagree is irrelevant. But for Frankie, Ronnie and Isaac, people like that, the struggle that they have trying to get basic resources in those interface communities is huge because everybody recognises that there’s a problem there but, for political expediency, one political party is not going to let Frankie take the credit for bringing employment into east Belfast. That’s politics. And we have to get round that. And I think he’s right what he says about the kind of – I don’t think you’ll see a major change in the kind of ups and downs of the DUP and the Ulster Unionist Party. You’ll see a few people leave in the DUP but I think by and large, given our traditional sectarian voting systems, the vast majority will vote for the main political party – whatever that is. So if you are in a particular constituency that it is the SDLP, the SDLP will get the vote, if it’s Sinn Féin, Sinn Féin will get the vote. It will be interesting to see how some of those dissident republican candidates fare out but, ultimately, when you hear them talking, they are going to accept the political process, they are recognising Northern Ireland, they may not go to the Stormont Assembly but in theory they are recognising the Northern Ireland State by taking part in the elections. So there’s a whole lot of things that are going to happen there.
Mike Reade: “Just go back to the interface and facilities, what is the difference between these communities on the interface and working-class communities anywhere, other than a few traumatised gunmen? Realistically, I mean politically there is the lack of awareness and urgency and so on that you all point out in every working-class estate across this island anyway.”
Seán Brennan: “Yes, but that’s the problem, that you can’t allow that to go back, because as Frankie said, there are people there who know how to do things…”
Mike: “But does it justify everybody holding guns? I mean they don’t hold them in the working-class estates of Navan, or Drogheda or Dundalk….”
Seán: “Well they do, they have the drug gangs….The same thing happens right across the western world, it’s just that in Northern Ireland we have a wee bit more attention. Things are changing. One of the things that I have picked up from most people is that nobody wants that violence anymore, nobody wants to live like that.”
Mike Reade: “And obviously everybody is right they do but they don’t claim to be political organisations…”
Frankie Gallagher: “You are definitely going on the decommissioning act now, but I can’t remember Craig giving in the UVF guns after 1912, and I can’t remember De Valera giving in any guns either and certainly Michael Collins didn’t before he was murdered. So the issue of guns is a red herring but what I would say is, that you’re right to a degree, what’s the difference between an interface area where all those social ills and the deprivation is going on and those areas that don’t have interfaces where it’s the same? The difference is that, certainly in the murder triangle of North Belfast for example, there was something like 700 people murdered in something like a 3 mile square. That means there’s an awful lot of traumatised people. The people on the interfaces are traumatised because people from the hinterlands … they travel down from Tullycarnet and everywhere else down to the interface, they wreck and ruin, traumatise the people who live there, and then go home and get a good night’s sleep and leave the people there. So they are traumatised. Plus it’s also another fact that they are and have been a political gauge whenever there has been political difficulties, an impasse that these so-called leaders have been unable to fix and they have manipulated those areas for to hide their difficulties. There are all the reasons why we have to address them, and address them specifically so working-class people can’t be exploited no more in those areas.”
Mike: “Chris, I can see you want to come in but I think we will take another question first and join the two…”
Q. 5. Ronnie Owens (North Meath Communities Development Association): “I would like to compliment all the speakers for the wonderful presentations they made. To me you are kind of heroes to be working at the coal faces in these ways because it indicates the very hard thankless kind of work that has to be done with individual local people to make them aware that they themselves can manufacture their own destiny by asserting themselves to a more enlightened understanding of what it is that is going on around them. The question I would just like to ask all the speakers is: do they think that Sinn Féin finally accepting their responsibilities in the police force will be a major aspect of the solution, as opposed to the kind of work you are doing – which is from the bottom up with each individual? Do you think that that top-down recognition of everybody’s responsibilities within the community – how important do you think that is in the process coming up?”
Chris O’Halloran: “I think it’s absolutely crucial. I’m answering first because I’ve got a wee bit of an answer that I wanted to get to on the last question, about why interface communities are so important and then I’ll answer your question. Part of the reason why interface communities are so important, quite apart from the different kinds of disadvantage that characterise them, is that they are where the communities meet. They have a huge symbolic importance: they are the only places where the communities meet. So that’s the answer to that question.
Re Sinn Féin and policing: “If Sinn Féin sign up to policing which obviously they have, it is hugely, massively important. I’ve met republicans who have said to me in the past: ‘I can’t wait till we’re on that Board, telling those bastards how to police our area.’ I am speaking about people who have hated the police with a passion but in the midst of that they have recognised that if the police were better administered, managed, organised, then their areas would benefit from that. So I am pleased to look forward to the future where some of those people, or the people who they would support, are going to be in those positions.
“And they will be telling the police how to police their areas and hopefully their areas will be policed really effectively. And that’s important, not least because there’s been a huge issue in many nationalist areas in terms of the vacuum caused by the absence of effective policing – in terms of anti-social behaviour, crime, youth-led violence, vandalism, hooliganism. All the standard stuff but it’s been happening within a vacuum because it’s very difficult to have the police address it, or for those communities to feel that they can go to the police about it. And so a changed situation where people feel quite happy to go to the police about it, and their communities are represented within the police, I think that’s a hugely positive change.”
Neil Jarman: “I agree, I think it’s an important step.I think though that it’s a shame it was not done six years ago when the PSNI was set up. The police reform process has been a train in motion for six years, it’s not in the station any more. They have lost a lot of opportunity. ….And the points about wanting to shape policing. Policing is not in the same place it was. It’s more confident now than it was six years ago, it’s more assured about where it’s going and it’s going to be harder for Sinn Féin to shape it in the way that it wanted to do than it would have been if it had been involved earlier. It’s important though that they are there but I think they have missed an opportunity by not getting in there sooner. I would also say that I think there’s still a lot of room for people outside the police to continue the work that they have been doing on the ground over the last ten years. And there needs to be a way of integrating some of that work with the formal policing structures in the same way that the restorative justice programmes that have been developed at grassroots level over the years have been recognised as being valuable and they’re looking at ways of integrating them within the formal criminal justice system. I think the same sort of thing has to happen, or could beneficially happen, with some of the grassroots policing-type activities. It’s happening in other countries and I think it’s a way of working with the people…You’ve raised this issue ‘what’s the difference between interface communities and working-class communities anywhere?’ – working-class communities anywhere don’t get on with the police. The police are there to stop some of those people doing what they want to do so they’re not going to love the police. Some of the people within those communities are in a better position to work with the people in the communities and move them on and deal with some of the problems and I hope that that work doesn’t get lost in the transformation.”
Mike: “thank you, we’ll go to another question…”
Q 6. “I want to ask Frankie this question: in the very beginning you mentioned about the Penal Laws and Presbyterianism and Roman Catholicism. And the Penal Laws did affect both religions. And you also speak about the class struggle in the Protestant areas of Belfast. Now I presume you are a loyalist. I don’t know how you equate loyalism – to the monarchy, I suppose, love of the monarchy – to your working-class socialist views? You come across as a James Connolly to me, and I liked a lot of what you said, you made a lot of sense, apart from the fact ….
Frankie: “Can you record that!”
Questioner: “…apart from the fact that you said you were British. Now I’ve nothing against that at all …. It’s all the same to me really, we are all working people whether you are British, English, Scottish, it doesn’t give a damn at the end of the day. But when you look at the royal family, it’s the pinnacle of the class system, right up there, it’s a left-over. I don’t understand why…”
Frankie: “I’m a loyalist?”
Questioner: “I don’t understand how you can be a loyalist and yet hold such socialist views, I would say, you come across as a James Connolly. Please answer that for me.”
Frankie Gallagher: “I think your question has lots of assumptions in it that loyalism is – that we are all royalists. Because during the Penal days etc, the Loyalists, the Red Coats etc would have had that abbreviation to them. Certainly in the 1798 rebellion etc, the red coats and stuff. I would have seen myself as a Dissenter as much as a Protestant, coming from the Protestant family. I’m not a Presbyterian but I would see myself in that ilk. And I suppose I would identify with the ideas and ideals of what happened in 1798 because we were being treated so badly as human beings.
“I have a serious problem in terms of the argument of being British because you have got an English-dominated Westminster who have hijacked the word ‘British’ even though English wasn’t really invented until the 11th or 12th century. I feel I am part of an ancient Celtic people, and being Francis James Gallagher, I think I have a wee bit of entitlement to claim a bit of it. I see myself as a part of an ancient Celtic people who were part of the Pretani, part of the British Isles prior to English being invented. And no disrespect to anybody who is English, but I have a problem because they treat us all like Paddies. And then, when you go to Dáil Éireann, and they all fiddly dee and rub their thumbs and they all say ‘sure they will wise up after a while, they are all Irish anyway and when the English are away they will all see the sense, you know, of the way we are going. That’s not going to happen. Waken up and smell the roses! I see myself – and we are trying to structure arguments around this to move on – I’m not Scottish but I have got Scottish cousins, I don’t see myself Irish but I see myself as having Irish cousins. And I recognise those relationships. But I am something in between, I’m different, and I want to define my own self what I am culturally and how I feel as a people. And I have refined this argument, I mean my people, a lot of them would be royalists, you know, for the Queen etc but I see myself as a person who wants my own national self determination. I am quite willing to recognise the Irish nationalists’ national self-determination and protect that for them, but I want that back, and I don’t want to be put into, when consent comes about, to be put into an equation of ‘you have only one choice, you go into a united Ireland’, whatever that may be, whenever that may happen. So my loyalism is to the people, to the Ulster people, I see myself very much as an Ulsterman, part of an ancient Celtic people. And I even believe in the pre-Christian church, before Patrick and different things like there, I recognise all that. I want to explore all that and I want to add that to the diversity of this island. So I have a job to do: to convince my own people about our own background, which is fact. You may go on about Cuchulainn that he is mythical and all the rest but things that happened after that, it is pretty certain that they did happen. So I want to argue that, so my loyalism is to the people, my Ulster people.
“I believe in the Union as well by the way, I believe the ancient kingdom of the United Kingdom is a good thing, I think it is positive, I’m not sure where they’re going with Europe. I would rather have a United Kingdom than a united Europe but I’m quite willing to explore the idea of being a European as well. What I don’t want is everybody turning round and telling me what I am going to be, either English or Irish.
“So my loyalism is based in and around all that. Yes I would be a socialist, I’m also a democrat, I also would see myself as a Dissenter. And I have learned all about Jacksonian politics which formed the democratic politics in America, I would see myself as a Jacksonian as well. Quite complex, but I think many of our people within the Ulster tribe of people, if you want to call it that, have to be left and allowed space to define who we are and how we are. And we are loyalists, as opposed to unionists in terms of political and economic agreement. We see the Union as something much more different – we see it as a cultural thing as well as a social and economic thing, or a political and economic thing. So in all that, that’s what I see my loyalism is.”
Mike Reade: “I’ll move on to the next question rather than ask other people…. We are already over time. Maybe if we could have more general-based questions. I think a lot of us have been fascinated at Frankie being here and the questions like our last one that might be unique to yourself, but maybe if we could get a couple more general type questions.”
Q.7. Fr Pat McManus (Columban missionary): “Listening to all the speakers, it’s clear there is a tremendous need for forgiveness, and healing and reconciliation, and that really is to be found in the Christian Gospel which we all have in common. And the absence of the Christian churches in all your speaking was really – it kind of shocked me. So I’m just wondering if you have given up on the churches? A Protestant friend …. described Northern Ireland for me when things were at their worst. He said ‘it’s all religion but in the end no religion.’ I don’t mean disrespect by that. But, really, we can’t ignore the Christian Gospel as the source for healing and forgiveness and reconciliation. And you talked about the privileged class and the working class being forgotten. I don’t doubt that for one moment. But the Gospel speaks to the individual person, and it is in the Gospel that the individual person will find affirmation and healing and self-confidence. And I can’t see how the people of Northern Ireland are going to heal without the Christian Gospel at its best.
“And, as you pointed out rightly, it’s the individual person that matters and that’s where the Gospel stands out because the Gospel is interested in the individual person. So, I congratulate you, I worked in Northern Ireland for two years and you’re great workers, you remind me of the Jewish people – I worked in America too with Jewish people and they were really great workers I couldn’t but notice it, and the Northern Ireland people remind me of the same, both sides. But with all these blueprints, and all the rest of it, and your doubts about both governments, you really have to take charge of your own lives and of Northern Ireland. And you talked about, you are interested in history, and Christianity before St Patrick, have you given up on the churches? Because if you have, don’t give up on the Gospel.
“And if I could just draw a parallel with the talks that have gone on for the last years and years, and it’s going on tonight and it has a purpose, but they wont solve things by themselves. For example, since the Vatican Council ended we have had talks and meetings and meetings, since 1965 and it’s still going on, but the reality on the ground is we are dying out as Columban Fathers, nobody wants to join us anymore, family life is deteriorating here in Ireland, the conflict is really in the family too and marriage is being seriously threatened. People don’t bother going through a marriage ceremony, they just live together and hope that will work out, and the drug culture, it is really quite something. And the violence –I’m talking about the South of Ireland – it really is quite something. And the Gospel does say ‘by your fruits you shall know them’. So what I would say to you, with the best will in the world, don’t rely on talk shops to solve the problem that’s up in Northern Ireland. We’ve all got to go back to the Gospel…”
Mike Reade: “There was that historic meeting between Archbishop Brady and Rev Ian Paisley as well…”
Sean Brennan: “Many times, when people talk about Northern Ireland, the first thing that comes up is religion. I feel I am a deeply religious person, I believe in God, I don’t have a problem with that.
“What I do have a problem with is that sometimes people misconstrue the church and the administration of the church. And I think that, with the deepest respect to anybody who is an administrator in the church, that the church has moved on beyond the administrators sometimes. That’s not to say that the message is lost. I read quite a lot of Gandhi to make sense of conflict, and the point that Gandhi made was that ‘Christianity is a wonderful thing, it’s just a pity there aren’t enough Christians’. And I am also aware of the Brahmin tradition that says that ‘truth is one the sages know it by many names’.
“So I don’t think that we should be restrictive into a specific Christian or Muslim or Hindu or Jewish faith. I think we are all the children of God. I say to people that I am a child of God on the basis of ‘blessed be the peacemakers’. Now that’s not for me to decide whether I am doing a good job or not, but that’s where I come from, and I just think that sometimes the religious can sometimes inhibit. So we move forward as best we can, whether we are right or we are wrong. And I always say to people, because I am a human being, the first law for me, the first commandment, is ‘thou shall not kill’. And that is what I try and practise, and I find that that’s true across all religious beliefs. So for me it doesn’t matter whether you’re a Christian or a Roman Catholic or Anglican or whatever, it’s the goodness in you and I try to see the goodness in people whether they are trying to kill me or not. …”
Frankie Gallagher: “I’m not sure if I believe in God or not. I know when I was going to get done in there, killed, a couple of years ago, I prayed. Because I was sitting on my own, in the house, and it was my family I was worried about, that nothing would happen to them. So with this big you know socialist and all the rest, why did I pray? Because at the end of the day there was nobody with me, I was on my own, and I thought it was the right thing to do. But I am totally turned off the churches, most Protestant churches, there’s a lot of people in there, they’re ‘good living for a living’. They look down their noses if you are from a poor background. And it’s happened to me – all the way through my childhood you were made to feel lesser than everybody else. And I think the churches have a lot to answer for because they are part of the State, whether it is in Northern Ireland or the Republic, because how did they let their State get away with the killing and the murdering, the collusion that went on? I can’t understand that. I also find believing in God hard because there are so many people getting away with murder, getting away with stealing, robbing , and you’re saying to yourself, ‘see if you do all those things, you get away with it’. And then this is the irony, ‘blessed are the peacemakers’: blessed are the UDA then… they’re trying to develop peace! But you can’t say that.
“So it is pretty confusing, the religious picture. I think there’s a constant fight between light and dark, I don’t know if that means one thing or another, but I think we have to be strong and fight against all these things. One of the things I found, my thoughts praying that night, was that I reckoned by shining a bit of light on the people who are doing these things and exposing them was actually enough in the end, and by and large that’s what we have done in the interfaces, we exposed those who were using the structures and stuff for criminal ends and that type of thing. So I don’t think I’ve give up on it but I have to be honest with you, I’m not sure. Having said that, working in a place like this [Dalgan] and going abroad with missionaries and stuff, I see it better as a religious way of working than going sitting praying in a church. I don’t see myself ever going praying like that, I couldn’t do it.”
Chris O’Halloran: “Just very quickly, I agree with everything Seán had to say in terms of the importance of a value base for me rather than subscription to any particular denomination. Like Frankie, I don’t want to get into theological discussion – is there a God? From my experience in interface areas where we have worked, something I have noticed about the churches is that the churches are good at working with the churches, churches seem to work with other churches quite well, that’s something that has developed quite a lot over recent years – there are quite well established structures of engagement now between churches and between church congregations. I don’t se anything like as much presence on the ground between the churches and the communities, and I see virtually no engagement, in terms of my work, in terms of the churches and inter-community structures or peacebuilding structures. There’s very few of those except on a church with church basis. So maybe those are areas of work that the churches could perhaps put a bit more work into.”
Neil Jarman: “I’m an atheist, I have been as long as I can remember. I know a number of Christians who have been involved in elements of the peace process and some of them have done some very good work. I suppose that of all the groups, the group I have the most respect for are the Quakers. I think they have done some good work and they continue to do some good work …. I don’t hold other people’s Christianity against them, it’s not a plus factor for me – if they are doing good work they’re doing good work.”
Fr Pat: “Thank you very much.”
Q.8. David O’Gorman (Dublin): “What about in the South? Do we have any responsibilities in terms of contributing to solutions in interface areas of Belfast or elsewhere in the North, or do we get a free ride?”
Mike: “Before a response, I am very conscious of the time and I will take a question from this lady as well…”
Q.9 Geraldine Horgan (Kiltale): “I think it is very appropriate that you have a final question from a lady! Thank you very much for your input. As you were talking I wondered whether two groups were being left out. I was very heartened by what Neil had to say – if I heard you correctly – that there’s a possibility of a Chinese woman being elected. If she was elected, how well do you think that that would reflect the new Northern Ireland? To what extent is there a policy among your different organisations and your working areas to have a gender balance and also to make a special effort to include immigrant communities in your work? Is that an issue that’s emerging? It is certainly an issue that we are trying to deal with down here…”
Mike Reade: “I suppose they combine very well throughout the whole island, the question of demographics, gender, integration, immigration and the future for the island of Ireland. If I could ask each of our guests this evening to respond to the two questions in their closing statements.”
Frankie Gallagher: “In answer to David, We’ve had some chats long into the night, down in Glencree and stuff. You know my views on some of this, I think the government of the Republic of Ireland has a responsibility, it has a responsibility to embrace diversity up in Northern Ireland that’s coming from my community. It’s got to help try and create a space for that diversity to grow. And I think that will nurture the ideas of those people. One of the problems we are having, and I have tried certainly to embrace – and the Meath Peace Group and Glencree is another place where I would go, where you are allowed to grow, your diversity, and talk about it and get the right words to describe what you are talking about. Because it’s only through that practice that certainly I found how to do it. I feel that the Republic of Ireland has got a joint strategy with the British Government and it’s about harmonisation, it’s about trying, before that consent comes – whatever mathematical equation they come up with – that by the day that comes we will have harmonised the economics, we will have harmonised some of the political issues, the social issues and all the rest of it and they are going to get us to see sense and when it comes we’ll all say ‘brilliant, sure we are all Irish anyway’. That’s wrong. They’re going to recreate the problem that was created in 1921/22, the State of Northern Ireland – there is a sizeable population who seen that State as alien and there is nothing on God’s earth that is going to get them to see different, they were totally alien to that and look at what has happened since. That’s what’s going to happen.
“I think people need to start looking for a new Ireland. We are trying to develop a new loyalist thinking, we’re trying to put these arguments out among our own people. And they do sound socialist at times, and we sound very like other people who have fought against a state, but, let’s be honest, we’re working on the premise that the island of Ireland was never united in the first place except under Queen Elizabeth I. She configured, you know, with the 9 counties of Ulster, and took out one of the smallest kingdoms which was Breifne…. We need to grow, we need to find out where we fit in to a new thinking, and we have to have the space to do that. At the minute I think it’s a mistake being made that they’re trying to harmonise us. And that’s wrong because Westminster, whatever shape it is going to be after it gets rid of Scotland and after whatever it does with Wales, I feel they are going to make a mistake and it’s going to be our problem and we are just going to recreate the problems.
“And if the Irish people are serious about oppression and freeing themselves from the bonds of English rule and all the rest of it, then they should look up to the Ulster people and give them space and don’t do to them what they clam an English dominated history has done, what they claim has done to the Irish people. So I hope they give us space, but we need people to lobby down south for this to happen, defuse what’s going to happen in the future. It will be a new Ireland, but it may well be determined by all the people on this island and I hope it does, someday in the future.”
Racism and gender: “As far as racism and women are concerned, I live in a community that’s based on machoism, and that’s one of the complex reasons why people are killing themselves as well because they can’t go and talk to anybody, because they were the fighters, they can’t be seen to be weak and all the rest of it. And there’s not even a place, to be honest with you, for a lot of women in loyalism or, I believe, even in Sinn Fein’s republican politics as well. I know they’ve got women and all but I don’t know how much that has really got down to the bottom. I think women are still not on the agenda down south in the Republic of Ireland. I don’t think it’s there. In terms of racism with women, we have to get to the women issue to get to the racist issue. We are filled with all sorts of conspiracies that it is the Roman Catholic Church bringing all the Poles in and all the different migrant workers in because they are going to be able to vote in 3 months or 5 years, and they’re going to vote us into a united Ireland, Sinn Fein are working hard to embrace them. So we have a big big issue within my community to address that, get the truth out and shine the light on it, and get the proper facts about it, embrace people who are different from ourselves. Because we are actually claiming we are different and we need to recognise that with us, so when we do the Bill of Rights in Northern Ireland – and you have to remember as well that it was the UDA that writ the first Bill of Rights, Sammy Smith. And for his troubles he was shot dead by the INLA in 1975, because it didn’t suit somebody at the time to have a Bill of Rights then. Well, hold on, these troubles are going to go on for another 30 years, that’s too soon, you can fix it too soon. I know that’s all mixed up but that’s the way we think at the minute. We need women, certainly within our camp. We can get 12 men to go and do this, 12 good men – that sounds like a jury – but women are not even there. We are going to have to make an effort but …we don’t have the support. We are not even recognised as people ourselves to go and do these things so we have lots of issues and we want to try and address them.
Chris O’Halloran: “In terms of the Irish State, I suppose I would feel that the Irish Republic has been party to the conflict so therefore it needs to be party to the resolution. It’s not a bystander, it’s an active participant in that conflict transformation process which I suppose means that there is an onus on the Irish state to come up with suggestions and solutions and not just ask all the time. But in terms of asking, I guess part of the answer is, as Frankie was saying, to walk with people, to walk with us from the North and from England, Scotland and Wales, and see what we are thinking of this process as we are working it through, and where that might sit with the Irish Republic.
Gender and race: “In terms of gender balance and women, I appreciate that in terms of the panel maybe we could have done better in terms of gender balance and minorities! In relation to ethnic minorities, it is clear to us that there is an issue in some interface communities in Belfast. One of the features of some interface communities is that there is more dereliction, there can be more empty houses, more turnover of houses than in more settled areas which is part of the reason why in some interface communities, there’s been reasonably high numbers of ethnic minority groups moving in, and those have tended to be more in Protestant and unionist areas than in Catholic and nationalist areas. We were carrying out some interviews with community groups recently and in nationalist areas they were saying ‘we don’t have a big problem with racism’ Because they don’t have many ethnic minorities. In the unionist areas, some of them were saying ‘actually we are having a growing problem with racism, and we have a growing number of ethnic minorities’. So there seems to be a bit of a disparity there. In terms of ourselves and our project [Belfast Interface Project], we’re carrying out a piece of work to try and find out what are the experiences of ethnic minorities living in interface communities, because we are picking up that they might be almost in the worst of both worlds in some interface communities. If you imagine a Chinese family – take that as an example – are living on a front line where to the community opposite they are perceived as being different to them and so they are attacked because they are different to them, and to the community they are living in they are attacked because they are perceived as being different to them.
“So they’re just not at home anywhere. And that’s the picture we’ve had from one or two families, but we are carrying out a survey now to find out just what are the experiences of ethnic minority groups.”
Neil Jarman: “Our organisation is not quite balanced in the workforce but it is very balanced in the Board, and it has made a conscious decision to maintain that. We have also over the last seven years done a lot of work on racism and racist violence, we have done studies on migrant workers and the arrival of migrants and the impact that those communities have, and a number of areas of study relating to the growing diversity. And we have been pretty much in the forefront of trying to raise some of those issues, and other issues such as issues relating to the lesbian and gay community, and there’s a report over there on some of those issues. They are real issues and they need to be addressed in Northern Ireland.
“In relation to the Republic, I would say very much what Chris has said. I take issue with Frankie in that I don’t think there’s going be a united Ireland, I just don’t see it happening for practical reasons in a formal sense. I see it happening in an informal sense in the way that the border disappears and people move across, and a sense of building relationships between those people, and a sense of understanding, and losing any sense of threat that each has from the other. And I think there are lots of steps that you can see to start moving towards that. I think that needs to carry on. I think the point Chris made – it’s not up to us to start telling you what to do, it’s for people up here to see what they can put into. It was interesting a couple of weeks back, I think, Bertie Ahern announced investment in infrastructure of the north. I think … the boundaries in some sense are blurring on some issues. I don’t think it’s going to happen in terms of Northern Ireland leaving the United Kingdom. For one thing, I don’t think the Republic wants a Northern Ireland as part of the Republic when push comes to shove. We saw the problems that happened with German reunification. I think there are even bigger issues in Irish reunification. I just don’t see it happening but I do see a much closer sense of relationship building up over the next generations, and meetings like this and other projects are part of that process of building a sense of common understanding and making the border seem irrelevant.”
Sean Brennan: “I suppose I should start off by saying that what a lot of people don’t remember or realize is that the Belfast Agreement in 1998 was an agreement between the two government of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. They have made peace with each other. What we do probably is irrelevant. I think that has a major dynamic, an impact on how things are going to change over the next few years. Do I think that the British Government is going to be hounded out of Northern Ireland and with it 800,000 Protestant people? No. But what I think will happen is that we are in a new dispensation, driving down here today and watching the road coming right up, creeping up to the border, there are big changes coming here, we are a small island, five and a half, six and a half million people.We can’t afford to have hospitals on either side of the border. We have to start sharing resources. We are living in a global village that is increasingly getting hotter. Fortunately we may be a bit cooler for a while but not that much longer. I saw a report last year that said that by 2060 white people will be in a minority on this island. So, there are a lot of things happening. I think the Dublin government has an essential role to play in what happens on this island – how that happens that’s for us to decide over the next course of years. I certainly wouldn’t want to force anyone into a political situation that would then have the repercussions we had in the North for 60/70 years. I think the other thing that a lot of people haven’t realised is the increase in east-west links, between the people on the island of Britain and the people on the island of Ireland. I was at a wedding last year in England, and it was on the day that England played in the World Cup. And I didn’t see one Union Jack, and I think if you look through that whole World Cup of 3 weeks or whatever, the only Union Jacks you will see were on the Australian flags. Now that is strange. So I think we are in a completely new and different era. Physical violence that we have seen over the past 35/40 years will not return to the levels that it was at, but I think increasingly people will find the relationships – and as Frankie says, he is getting a better response here than he is in the United Kingdom political system. For him to survive he’s going to have to work with that.
“With the emergence of Anna Lo – I love Anna, Anna and I have known each other on and off for a few years and she has always talked about this and I have always said to her ‘yes, go for it’. Now South Belfast is a slight anomaly in that it is the university area, you would have a whole range of different ethnic and national identities. Probably some of the smartest people on this island live in that area ….
“So I think Anna’s going to get a good shout, I think it may create a false dawn in that people will then think that Northern Ireland is going to see stability, that we are all going to be Hindus or Muslims or whatever. No, we are still going to have the sectarian divisions that we have, but I think that places like South Belfast, you will see Anna coming through. And interestingly enough, I was just reading her article on the Internet before I came here – the first Chinese person in the UK! They’re coming from China and Hong Kong to interview her! This is a new phenomenon for us on this island. When we think about the different people who have come here from Poland, from Lithuania, from Nigeria, just to name a few, the dynamic on this island is going to change. At the minute this is predominantly white, western, middle-aged society. That’s going to change, and we are going to have to find a way of accommodating that change. And if we don’t learn the lessons of Northern Ireland then – this is a question I ask people that I meet and I’ll leave this one with you – if we don’t learn the lessons of Northern Ireland we will then be wondering has Northern Ireland turned into the rest of the world or has the rest of the world turned into Northern Ireland?”
Mike Reade: “I’m sure you will agree, it was fascinating to hear the views and share the discussions tonight with Neil Jarman, Chris O’Halloran, Frankie Gallagher and Sean Brennan. Thanks very much…. And we will probably take up some of this tomorrow on the ‘Loosetalk’ programme [LMFM radio]. Thanks for having me here as well and congratulations to the group for another wonderful meeting.”
Concluding words: Anne Nolan (Meath Peace Group): “…Just to try and finish up, it’s been a bit of a marathon session tonight, but I think we have all heard great things here tonight, and I really want to thank Mike Reade from LMFM for his constant support and for tonight, and particularly our speakers who have not only given up their time tonight but have given up their time in the past to come down and educate us and teach us. Tonight they were talking about a shared future and transformation, and going forward, and I am reminded that one of our earlier talks – over 13 years ago – was about building understanding, and so we have come an awfully long way. And I want to thank them for all they are doing on the ground and at the coal face and coming back and teaching us that there is more than one perspective. This is what we have to understand – this diversity of this island, and going forward it is all about diversity, and understanding that we can’t label and box people, that we are all individuals. So thank you very much….”
Mike Reade: “I just want to thank as always the Columban Fathers for their room tonight and for the tea and refreshments. You are all welcome to speak with the guests over a cup. Good night.”
Meath Peace Group report 65 (2007). Taped by Judith Hamill, Oliver Ward and Jim Kealy
Transcribed and edited by Julitta Clancy ©Meath Peace Group
Appendix 1: Extract from ‘A Shared Future’: Interface areas (para.2.3)
“Reducing tensions at interface areas must go beyond the ‘band-aid’ approach. It requires a combined short, medium and long-term approach that is earthed in encouraging local dialogue and communication, the sharing of resources, which is set in a wider context of social and economic renewal.” [2.3]
-
“Conflict at interfaces is the tragic symptom of a systemic lack of trust rather than the sole cause or only evidence of it. [2.3.1]
-
“Supporting communities in these areas to transform conflict remains an important priority for Government. Neil Jarman’s report ‘Demography, Development and Disorder: Changing Patterns of Interface Areas’ (July 2004) and the report prepared by the Belfast Interface Project entitled ‘A Policy Agenda for the Interface’ (July 2004) offer significant contributions to the emerging discussion on responding to issues in interface areas. [2.3.2]
-
“The former report reminds us that interface areas are not a static phenomenon, nor a purely historical legacy of ‘the Troubles’. Rather they are a dynamic part of the social fabric of a community that is highly polarized and extensively segregated. The concept of an interface and the forms of interfaces are more complex than has previously been acknowledged.
-
“The report also stresses the need to acknowledge the social dynamic in processes of segregation and the continuing pressures to further segregation in many areas. It makes the point that shared and neutral spaces come under particular types of pressure and need positive, sustained actions to ensure that they are not abandoned nor avoided, but rather that they remain shared and used by all sections of all communities.” [2.3.3]
-
“The Belfast Interface Project report argues strongly for the development of a coherent long-term strategy to address the needs of interface areas and communities both through government plans and priorities and through strategies developed by local bodies, such as Belfast City Council.” [2.3.4] [Extracts from ‘A Shared Future – Policy and Strategic Framework for Good Relations in Northern Ireland’, Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, March 2005]
Appendix 2: Biographical notes on speakers
Dr Neil Jarman is an anthropologist by training and has carried out research on issues related to policing, hate crime, migration, the management of public order and freedom of assembly, and is the author of several publications. Neil is the director of the Institute for Conflict Research, an independent research centre based in Belfast which specialises in issues related to conflict, social transformation and social justice. The ICR undertakes research work for a wide variety of government departments and statutory agencies, including studies of racism, homophobia and sectarianism; migrant workers; service provision for victims; young people’s experiences of violence; young people and electoral politics and issues related to policing, interface violence and the dynamics of mixed housing areas. The ICR previously operated under the names of: Community Conflict Impact on Children (1999-2001), The Cost of the Troubles Study (1996-99) and Templegrove Action Research (1994-96). (Neil Jarman previously addressed a Meath Peace Group talk in Oct. 1996: No. 22 – “Parading Disputes in Northern Ireland”)
Chris O’Halloran was raised in North Belfast, graduated in Psychology in 1975, studied youth and community work at the University of Ulster and took part in a pilot project in community development in West Belfast’s Suffolk estate in 1986 followed by similar projects in Milltown, Knockmore, Roden Street and Ballybeen. Chris has been employed as full-time project worker with the Belfast Interface Project (BIP) since its inception in August 1995 and is currently director of the organisation. Over this period BIP has aimed to: a) enhance and develop the knowledge base regarding Belfast’s interface areas; b) lobby for change that is of practical benefit to interface communities; c) consult, develop and support the membership of Belfast Interface Project; d) support interface communities in addressing issues relating to conflict. The BIP currently has a membership of approximately 43 community groups from nationalist and unionist interface areas of Belfast as well as associate and individual members. (Chris was a guest speaker for the Meath Peace Group transition year peace studies programme in St Joseph’s Navan in 2004-05).
Frankie Gallagher first visited Navan in May 1998 when, as welfare officer for UDA prisoners, he brought a group of ex- prisoners to the Meath Peace Group talk ‘The Good Friday Agreement’ held in St Joseph’s (Mercy) secondary school, Navan, and asked whether the Irish Government would act as guarantors of the rights of both communities, following the ratification of the Agreement (MPG talk no. 29 – transcript available on the website). He is a leading member of the Ulster Political Research Group, an advisory body connected to the Ulster Defence Association, providing advice to them on political matters. The group, founded in 2002, is largely a successor to the Ulster Democratic Party, which dissolved in 2001.
Seán Brennan is a Development Officer with the North Belfast Developing Leadership Initiative CEP (Community Empowerment Programme). The CEP is a partnership between Intercomm and the Edward de Bono Foundation NI. The CEP works to implement the Dunlop Report and address interface violence in North Belfast. The CEP works to develop local capacity by empowering people, and interface communities, to creatively engage in decision-making processes that affect their everyday life. Seán is currently living and working in Belfast and is the Treasurer of the Ulster People’s College and has previously been a member of The Wheel Core Group, Open College Network NI Board of Governors and Craigavon District Partnership Board as well as a number of local community groups.
©Meath Peace Group
Meath Peace Group Public Talks Report No. 65, 2007
Taped by Judith Hamill, Oliver Ward and Jim Kealy.
Transcribed and edited by Julitta Clancy
Acknowledgments: Meath Peace Group would like to thank the speakers and guest chair for coming to address this public talk and for giving so generously of their time. A special thanks to all who came to the talk (some from long distances), those who took part in the discussion afterwards and all those who have given their continued support, encouragement and participation through the years. Thanks also to those who assisted in the planning, organisation, publicity and recording of the talk, to the Columban Fathers at Dalgan Park for facilitating the majority of our public talks and to the Dept. of Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund for financial assistance towards the running costs of the talks and school programmes, and to the staff and students of secondary schools who have taken part in our peace studies programmes
The Meath Peace Group is a voluntary group founded in 1993 with the aims of promoting peace and the fostering of understanding and mutual respect through dialogue.
Meath Peace Group Managing Committee: Rev. John Clarke, Navan; Anne Nolan, Slane; Julitta and John Clancy, Batterstown; Philomena Boylan-Stewart, Longwood; Vincent McDevitt, Ardbraccan; Judith Hamill, Ross, Dunsany; Leonie Rennicks, Ardbraccan; Olive Kelly, Lismullin.
photos
Back row: l.to r. Leonie Rennicks, Sean Brennan, Neil Jarman, Frankie Gallagher, Chris O’Halloran
Front row: Julitta Clancy, Philomena Boylan-Stewart, Anne Nolan, Mike Reade
MPG talk no. 65: l.to r. Sean Brennan, Frankie Gallagher, Chris O’Halloran, Neil Jarman, Mike Reade
MEATH PEACE GROUP TALKS
No. 64 – ‘Peace and Stability: the Way Forward’
Monday 29th January, 2007
Ardboyne Hotel, Navan, Co. Meath
Speakers:
Dominic Bradley, MLA (SDLP, Newry and Armagh)
Gregory Campbell, MLA, MP (DUP, East Londonderry)
Cllr Killian Forde (Sinn Féin, Dublin)
Cllr James McKerrow (UUP, North Down)
Chaired by
Des Fegan (Head of Funding and Support, Cooperation Ireland)
Contents
Introduction: Des Fegan
Dominic Bradley
Gregory Campbell
Killian Forde
James McKerrow
Questions and comments
Closing words: Julitta Clancy
Biographical notes
[photos]
©Meath Peace Group
64 – ‘Peace and Stability: the way forward’
Monday 29th January, 2007
Introduction: Guest chair – Des Fegan (Cooperation Ireland):
“Many thanks to Julitta and the Meath Peace Group for inviting me on behalf of Cooperation Ireland to chair this talk. If ever we’re in doubt again as to the timetabling and choreography of the peace process in Northern Ireland I think in future – rather than going to all these various lobbyists and politicians – we’ll just go to the Meath Peace Group and find out when they have scheduled their next meeting! It’s an incredible opportunity to be here tonight, I’m massively looking forward to listening to the views of our panellists. Cooperation Ireland was founded in 1979. I was born and bred in Belfast. I was born in West Belfast, a place that bore the brunt of a lot of the violence of those years, and I now have teenage children myself and it is just absolutely fantastic, as a parent from Belfast, to be sitting here tonight 24 hours after what was quite an historic day yesterday [Sinn Féin’s special ard fheis on policing]. I personally am very very positive for the future, I’m positive for the future for myself, for my family and for my community and I’m really interested to hear some of the questions and some of the comments from our panellists. However, I suppose – to be a realist about it, and Cooperation Ireland have been in the work of building practical cooperation, trying to tread that a-political divide, trying to encourage cross-border cooperation… the theory being that as people know each other and get to know each other and remove the fear, there wasn’t a dislike to start off with in the first place. Kids will like kids and adults will like adults if we can only get them together. A bit naïve, my friends sometimes tell me, but it works, that’s the answer – it actually works. Just get people in and get them talking, and we have the DUP and Sinn Fein sitting and talking. These were things we wouldn’t have dreamt about ten years ago. But to try and keep it with some sense of reality, there are big threats as well as these massive opportunities. And sometimes, with all due respect to the panellists here, the politicians that we have – are they part of the problem or part of the solution? That is something we all struggle with and what should we be doing? What do we mean by a shared future? Does a shared future mean ‘I’ll do my thing without any responsibility, without any recognition for what someone else does?’ Is it an agreed future? Does it mean shared space? Or does it mean divided space? Does it mean segregation? Does it mean participation? These are all things that we struggle with in our daily lives on the island and I suppose particularly and in particular areas of Northern Ireland. So it’s with that that I’d like to start calling on the panellists to discuss ‘peace and stability the way forward’ – if we could get a brief definition from each of the panellists and then open it to the floor for questions.”
1. Dominic Bradley, MLA (SDLP, Newry and Armagh)
“Go raibh míle maith agat. Agus ba mhaith liom a rá ag an dtús tá an-athas orm beith air ais i gCondae na Mí…. Thank you very much for the invitation to be here this evening. I have been here before and I certainly enjoyed my last visit and I hope that we will have an interesting and productive evening here tonight. The way forward to peace and stability. In the view of the SDLP the way forward to peace and stability in Ireland North and South is quite clear: get the power sharing institutions of the Good Friday Agreement up and running as quickly as possible without any further delay. I believe that’s what the majority of people north and south voted for and I believe that is what the majority of people north and south still want. The two major impediments to achieving devolution are the attitude of Sinn Féin towards the police and the attitude of the DUP towards power sharing.
Policing: “Yesterday we saw Sinn Féin take an important step in the direction of supporting the policing arrangements and I believe that they should go even further and begin to engage with policing immediately, and not because the DUP ask them to do so but because the nationalist community have the right to protection from crime, so that older people can feel safe in their homes, young women can walk home safely at night, and our local areas are free from ant-social behaviour and joyriding. Policing in Northern Ireland has changed radically over the past five years, even Sinn Féin now admit to that. We now have 86% of the Patten reforms implemented, we have over 20% nationalist membership of the PSNI, and that will rise in the next three years to 30%. And we have achieved that only five years into a 10-year programme of Patten reforms. Above all, we have strong accountability mechanisms which will ensure that the abuses of the past will not occur in the future.
“One of the basic requirements of peace and stability is law and order. You only have law and order where the vast majority of the people can give their support to those charged with upholding law and order. That is why we have worked for a police service that could command the full support of the vast majority of the community here. But that is not to say that we will accept anything but the highest standards from the police service. We won’t. It is in no one’s interests to allow police a free hand or to turn a blind eye to practices which do not meet the highest standards. Such attitudes are wrong and will only return to haunt those who allow them to flourish. Accountability in policing is in everyone’s interests no matter what their background. That is why Sinn Féin should do policing and do it now.
Power sharing: “And I believe that the DUP should do power sharing. We have learned over the years that majority rule will not produce peace and stability here. I do not want to rake over the embers of the past once again. But I will say this. It is now accepted by all parties to the situation that partnership through power sharing is the best way to deliver peace and stability in the future. Peace, prosperity and stability in the future will only come if we all give our support to a system of government which provides for all of the people equally and fairly. It may not always be easy, in fact it may be a difficult road ahead for some years but I believe it is the best way for all of us.
Principle of consent: “We have now reached the stage where all parties are agreed that any future change in the constitutional position will be by consent only, through democratic means. We should all be in a position to accept the right of one another to pursue the political future each thinks is best for the people of this island north and south, so long as that is done entirely through peaceful and democratic means. The Good Friday Agreement offers that way forward to peace and stability; it recognises the totality of relationships in these islands, within Northern Ireland, with the Republic and with Britain. The aspirations of all groups are given full and equal recognition; it threatens no party, no group, or no community. The acceptance of totally peaceful and democratic means by all parties is part of the bedrock of peace and stability.
Police collusion and dealing with the past: “Last week we saw the publication of the Police Ombudsman’s report into the murder of Raymond McCord. The reality of the past hit us square between the eyes. We know that collusion between the RUC Special Branch, the British intelligence services and both loyalist and republican paramilitaries was widespread. It wasn’t just confined to north Belfast. It happened in my constituency. People were murdered as a result of it. Their relatives want to know the truth. The relatives of people murdered by republican paramilitaries want to know the truth. The families of the Disappeared want the remains of their loved ones returned to them for burial. We need a means of dealing with the past which will deal with these problems. Dealing with the past will help create peace and stability in the future. Ignoring it will only allow bitterness to fester into the future.
Economic prosperity: “Economic investment and the jobs which follow it will much more readily come to a country where there is an end to civil strife and ambivalence about the rule of law.
If the underlying issues above can be dealt with, future peace and stability can be underpinned by economic prosperity. Bread and butter issues are important to people. Most people are struggling with the everyday problems of daily life – doing a day’s work, providing for their families, planning for their future through education and training. In Northern Ireland we have over 100,000 children living in poverty. We have huge numeracy and literacy issues to resolve. These are damning statistics. Huge social deprivation is not conducive to future peace and stability; in fact it is a recipe for future unrest. If we are to achieve an anchored peace and stability we must deal also with social deprivation. Go raibh mile maith agaibh. Thank you very much.”
Chair (Des Fegan): “Thanks, Dominic. Unless there are some pressing questions, I’ll now pass the mike to Gregory Campbell, MLA for – as decided by the courts most definitely – for East Londonderry… I would imagine that Gregory would need very little introduction, he comes from the ‘reserved wing’ of the DUP – reserved for what, I’m sure Gregory will tell us tonight. So please welcome Gregory.
2. Gregory Campbell, MLA, MP (DUP, East Londonderry)
“Thank you very much, chairman. Could I first of all thank Julitta and the group for inviting me back again. I think I was here two years ago. I don’t know whether I said something wrong so that they didn’t get back to me or said something right which means I wasn’t needed back! I suppose one of the issues that we should all be looking at I suppose is the nature of this event and the timing of it. I was just saying on the way over here, I don’t know how you managed to time it in such an impeccable way but you’re certainly on the money in terms of getting an event like this at a time like this in Northern Ireland’s history! So thanks for inviting me to the meeting.
Cross-border relations: “Dominic [Bradley] and I took part in a debate today on cross-border relations, in the Assembly. I’m all in favour of coming to your country and I hope you’ll all be in favour of coming to ours because I think that’s the way we should make progress.
Opportunity to make progress: “There are a number of very fundamental issues that I think are at last being addressed, they haven’t been resolved but they are being addressed – and I use the present tense, rather than past tense, as they are being addressed. We have, in my view and the view of my party, an opportunity to try and make more significant progress in the next period of – I don’t know whether it will be six months, hopefully not six years, but certainly a period of time that is the immediate future – to make more progress than we have made in the past thirty years. As we stand at the end of January that’s as much as I see it as, the potential for progress. Because Tony Blair keeps on saying to us that there are the twin pillars for progress and Dominic alluded to them: there is Sinn Féin’s requirement to support policing and the rule of law, and the need for us in the DUP to support the concept of power sharing.
DUP is up for power sharing: “Now I’m not going to go back over history, you’ll be glad to hear, but, in our view, 1998 addressed the problem and came up with the wrong solution. It did address the problem but it came up with the wrong solution. Because if you come up with a solution that either ignores the wishes of a considerable number of people or seeks to override their wishes, then I think you arrive at the wrong conclusion. But those problems having been now in the past, there is a potential for not just addressing them, which I believe is happening, but an actual resolution of them. For our part we have made it as clear as we can, without ambiguity, without conditionality, crystal clear: we are up for a power sharing administration with every political party that has a mandate, who are democrats.
Who is a democrat? “Now usually then in the media that begs the question: ‘well what is your interpretation of a democrat?’ And in our view, just as 1998 failed to address this issue, it hopefully is being addressed now. An essential part of being a democrat is that, whatever nation you belong to, you support the legally constituted police service of that country. That if there is a breach of the law, you recommend that, if you’re involved, you give information to that legally constituted authority, and if it is required you go to the court of law and give evidence, and you support the prosecution of those who are suspected of that crime. That is a democrat, quite apart from the political ramifications of a democrat, abiding by the wishes of the democratically held electoral contest in any particular nation.
“So, in our view, we have unambiguously signed up to a power sharing administration. The thing that stops that power sharing administration taking place is that there is one party whose members at the moment, as of the 29th of January, do not subscribe to supporting the police, the courts and the rule of law. Now, as far as I’m aware, every other political philosophy in Northern Ireland and all the advocates of that philosophy, all the members of it, will say ‘if there is a breach of the law we have no ambiguity about going to the police, we have no reservation, no qualification. There is nothing that holds us back from saying someone who breaks the law ought to be punished and we will give every information that we can in order to bring them before the courts.’ Every political party does that – except one. And even today after the ard fheis, I heard a Sinn Féin spokesperson on BBC radio this morning asked four times to say unambiguously: ‘now that you’ve passed the resolution, do you support the police in Northern Ireland?’
Need for unequivocal ‘yes’ to policing and rule of law: “Now in my view we’re at the point where, whatever happens now, if there is a break-in tonight in west Belfast, or a rape or a burglary or any other breach of the law anywhere where there are Sinn Féin representatives, then the first question that should be posed to Sinn Féin in the light of their resolution is: ‘what should people do now as a result of that breach of the law?’ And if their answer is anything other than an unequivocal: ‘go to the police, give whatever information you have, do whatever you can to bring those responsible before the courts of law’ – anything other than an unequivocal ‘yes, that is what we need to do’, is a ‘no’. I don’t care how they dress it up, I don’t care what qualification they use, it equates to a ‘no’, and until we hear an unequivocal ‘yes’, then there is still one party who are holding back from supporting the rule of law. Once that Rubicon has been crossed – and many people hinted yesterday that it was being crossed, but I still don’t see the evidence of that crossing of the Rubicon – until it is crossed I don’t believe we can begin to measure the extent of the crossing.
Inequality: “Many people have said to me: ‘Gregory, you’re building hurdles, you’re putting further qualifications in place’. And I keep pointing back to statements that we have made over weeks and months: that we will sit down on an equal basis with all other democrats. There is a lot of talk about equality and I feel an unequal citizen in my own country, because my culture and my nationality and my citizenship doesn’t get anything like those who say they are Irish does in Northern Ireland, nothing like it. So I am all for equality, I am a fervent and positive advocate of equality, it is something that I aspire to for my community. But I feel like an unequal citizen when it comes to the support for the rule of law, because for 30 years Sinn Féin had an ace that I don’t have and don’t particularly want, and the ace that they were able to play was ‘if we don’t get our way we’ll go back to shooting you, bombing you, to giving another Canary Wharf in the heart of the city of London, if we don’t get our way.’ I didn’t have that as a negotiating ploy, I didn’t have that as a negotiating skill to turn to if my rational argument didn’t win the day, Sinn Féin did. If that is being removed then that means we are all equals; we come to the table purely with our negotiating skills and our ability to argue and reason, we have the force of our argument rather than the force of our guns. And that’s good if that is where we are going.
Putting words into practice: “We need to see over the next days and weeks that that is where we are going. And that’s how we will test if Sinn Féin move beyond the ard fheis and say what I have outlined. I think everyone demands that they need to say: this unequivocal support for the courts, the police and the rule of law. Once we get that verbal commitment to what everyone else has subscribed to – the courts, the police and the rule of law – then we can start to see what it means. Because once Gerry Adams – and I have heard it alluded to that he was coming close to saying that today, and if he was then that’s good, that’s progress – then we need to see what it means. Because there will be breaches of the law and we will have to see what the words of Gerry Adams mean in practice. Will people start to give evidence? Will they give information? Will there be more people prosecuted in the courts? Will there be more people coming forward and saying: ‘I’m prepared to stand up and be counted against the rapists, the muggers, the car thieves, all of those in our areas’? That’s tangible proof that people are responding to leadership in their community. If my community was not responding to me saying ‘these things are wrong and you must report them’, I would question my support within my community. I would go to my community and say ‘why are you sheltering these drug dealers and these thieves and these muggers and these rapists, why are you not getting into court to get them prosecuted?’ But they’re not doing that thankfully and that must be the case in every other part of Northern Ireland.
Testing period: “So then we begin the testing period. I don’t know how long that will be. It’s like the elephant in the room; we will know it when we see it. But we’re making progress and I think we have to continue to make progress. Support for the police was not on the radar screen five years ago, it is now. And it’s not leaving the radar screen until we get it resolved.
Power-sharing based on equality: “When we get it resolved then we can enter into a power-sharing administration with everybody in that administration being there on the basis of equality. I won’t then argue that anyone has an advantage over me. I will then be looking for all the changes that I want to see in Northern Ireland; all the rights that my community are being denied. We had a motion in the Assembly about two weeks ago, about how our community feel discriminated against now in jobs. I want to see that rectified. Our cultural rights, our parading rights, our passport rights – all of the things that we don’t have that nationalists do.
“I will then want to see that Executive and that administration start to address those disadvantages that my community have to endure. And it will be the testing of that for all of us – Sinn Féin, UUP, SDLP and DUP – that will test my community’s consent to approving for those administrative arrangements and institutions that will by then be up and running. And I would then want within four years to be able to go back to my community and say that this is working and we are seeing tangible change because we are all in there as equals and we are all beginning to see positive results. Thank you again for the invite.”
Chair (Des Fegan): “Thank you very much Gregory. I must take comfort in you talking about days and weeks and maybe we can tease that out later on. They will be exceptionally interesting days and weeks lying ahead, and could I ask Dominic Bradley is there an election definite in your eye?
Dominic Bradley: “As far as we can read it, yes that is the case.”
Des Fegan: “… I’d like to hand over now to Killian. I got short notice coming here tonight, I think Killian got even shorter notice so with a great deal of gratitude I welcome Killian Forde, Sinn Féin councillor for Dublin. He works a lot with Mary Lou McDonald [MEP]. I haven’t met Killian before but I have met Mary Lou and Jim Allister [DUP MEP] on EU matters – differences in style and content perhaps but very very enjoyable. So I’d like to hand over to Killian…”
3. Cllr Killian Forde (Sinn Fein, Dublin City Council)
“…After Gregory’s interesting contribution, I’ll just read out something and maybe this will clarify some things. I got this email at a quarter past five, it’s a statement from Gerry Adams: ‘If any citizen is the target of crime whether it be a death threat, drug pushers or rape, or attacks on the elderly, if there is a crime against the people, against the community; Sinn Féin will be urging and encouraging victims and citizens to cooperate with the police. There is no equivocation or qualification on this’. So I hope that clarifies matters for you.
Democrats: “The other thing that I think is quite interesting – and I’m not going to be all negative here, I’ll try to stay positive, but sometimes it’s difficult because you do hear an element of rewriting of history – but Gregory suggested that I wasn’t a democrat, but if I’m not a democrat and I’m a republican does that make me still a democrat? It’s very confusing. I’m going to leave that thought with you.
“I’ll just introduce myself. I’m here in place of Joe Reilly who is a local Sinn Féin councillor in Meath. Joe sends his apologies, and I send my apologies for my lack of preparation in advance. I was elected for Sinn Féin to Dublin City Council in 2004. I had joined Sinn Féin only in the year 2000 after a second attempt. The first attempt was when I spent a very wet year in Derry – a very beautiful city but very wet – in the early ‘90s. I suppose part of the uniqueness of our conflict – and it goes back to Gregory’s point about jaw jaw and not war war – was that in the University of Ulster political parties were banned, which I found absolutely extraordinary. Although I spent a year in a city that had an amazing conflict resolution faculty, you couldn’t join a political party and political debate was seriously frowned upon – of any nature – so while we used to do campaigns, we were involved in some of the campaigns around Nicaragua for instance, you couldn’t campaign on either side on both communities on any issues whatsoever, it was seriously frowned upon. I think it’s probably one of those things that will take some time to come out in terms of the impact on society both north and south, the equivalent I suppose in a sense in the south would be Section 31. And what was that impact on various different sections of society academia, civic, political, religious? We probably won’t know or we probably won’t have a clear idea for some years to come.
Peace process hugely successful: “Firstly, on a positive note, this peace process is phenomenally successful. I spent yearsin the Balkans, I’ve seen peace processes gone wrong, I’ve seen theeffects of mass slaughter, ethnic cleansing of a complete nature – and I’m talking about areas of Bosnia we had to drive through for two or three hours and every single house would have been destroyed, with no roof, and every single village would be empty of people. This peace process has been coming out of a very long war so people’s attitudes and approaches are different but the fact is it is hugely successful.
“The other two peace processes that started at the same time were the Mideast and Sri Lanka and unfortunately both of them have reverted back to bloodshed and have collapsed and I think it’s very unfortunate. I hope it’s not a coincidence that Gerry Adams was in one just prior to that collapsing and Martin McGuiness was in the other prior to Sri Lanka collapsing!
Way forward: “The way forward, I think there are three parts to this. There is the short the long and the constant stuff that needs to be done, and there are different actors on how we portray the way forward.
Sinn Féin’s responsibility: “In the short term, and I’ll start with ourselves in Sinn Féin, I look forward to critically engaging and supporting the PSNI. And I think most of our members do. Yesterday [special ard fheis] was a very historic day and we had roughly between 90% and 95% compliance with the motion after a very long debate, I wouldn’t say anybody was overly enthusiastic and there was a lot of emotion but the fact was that people felt it was a good option. That, given what had happened particularly with the report of the Ombudsman on Monday, that it was time to get involved in terms of policing for that not to happen again, and to also provide a service to the community who are desperately crying out for it. So that’s in terms of Sinn Féin’s responsibility.
British government: “With the British and the Irish governments, there are two things really. I’d like the British government to actually stick to deadlines because really it’s dragged on in terms of them changing the deadlines an awful lot and I think they lose credibility. If they don’t insist on deadlines it could drift on for another few years. I hear what Gregory Campbell is saying, and, like most republicans and nationalists, the worry is how long is a piece of string? ‘We’ll know when we know’ is not politics. That’s definite lack of leadership being provided there. If he wants to put qualifications or measurements on it, let’s hear exactly what he wants to see, by what time and in what case: there’s ways to measure this stuff and if that’s what he needs to lay it down .
Irish government: “From the Irish government, one of the things that has gone under the radar has been the very low engagement from the Irish government, probably over the last two years, and I think that probably coincides with the local elections and the European elections of 2004 which, as some of you might remember, were the ones that Sinn Féin won – that was how the media portrayed it. I think that part of the Irish government sees us as an electoral threat and therefore they need to tread carefully with that. I think it’s unfortunate, I think Bertie Ahern has done phenomenal work and put huge amount of hours into the peace process and I think the advice he is getting now is poor. You do remember that Bertie Ahern’s mother had passed away just prior to the Good Friday Agreement, and he had actually come up just straight from the funeral, so he’s certainly interested.
DUP: “Just one other thing in relation to the short term, we clearly want to hear from the DUP that they agree to power sharing. I think we heard it here tonight, and then we heard a ‘but’, and we just need to be very very clear. Are they agreeing to power sharing?
Parades issue: “And in terms of the unionists in general, I really do believe that they need to deal with the parades issue in a very mature manner. A parades issue that continues to go on from year to year is going to reverse any sort of community trust that is being built. I think it’s not part of unionist culture. I think it is coat-trailing, triumphalism and an anarchism of the past and it doesn’t need to be done. If people want to parade in their own areas, that’s fine, if that’s their prerogative, but [otherwise] I don’t see any advantage whatsoever politically to continue to do it, it rubs people up the wrong way and it causes huge amounts of conflict.
Truth Commission: “In the longer term I think one of the things that is really needed is a truth commission. I don’t want a truth commission that involves dragging various members from the various parties, political groups and paramilitary groups in front of a court in Belfast. That’s not going to give us the truth. What is needed is legislation from both the Irish and British governments that actually says ‘you are compelled to tell the truth’ and pulls in a wide range of people which includes ex-gardaí, some people in the media and all the politicians who were around at the time. Something very odd happened, we know what happened and we know how many people died, but we don’t know who killed them, how they were killed or why they were killed, and I think it’s fair to say that it should be explored.
Unified island – shared space: “Also I think that one of the difficulties that unionism – and I’m trying transference here – is having with this process is that there are no other options given, and I think that the Irish government needs to draw up – and perhaps in the longer term Sinn Féin will be in the Irish government – it needs to draw up a Green Paper about the issue of a unified island. And I use the word ‘unified island’ on purpose because it’s not about trying to have a 32-county Free State. It’s not about enforcing unionists to live within and under the green, white and orange. All of this can be negotiated, it will be negotiated. It’s about having a shared space and having a civic responsibility to each other and that’s what I would like to see: that the Irish government actually draw up a Green Paper on unification, hopefully we can … actually begin a debate about what Irish unity would mean to both people in the south and in the north, which would include both communities.
Leadership: “In terms of the constant stuff that needs to be done, it’s just providing leadership, so a constant attempt to have political civil and religious leadership to maintain all of the work….
Rule of law – fairness, justice and separation of powers: “I just want to say a couple of things in relation to the rule of law. The rule of law was a concept brought up by a guy called Samuel Rutherford. Like a lot of people with good ideas he was half Scottish. It wasn’t about doing what the police tell you, it wasn’t about recognising the courts, it was about fairness and justice and part of it was the clear separation of powers. Now I think any consistent or critical look at the State of Northern Ireland as it existed [would see that] it didn’t contain any of these things, so to have a rule of law you have to have fair, transparent and clear laws, you have to have fair and impartial police. I don’t think anybody; any republican, has a problem with any rule of law as long as the rule of law fits in with consistent universal values that we all value. So that’s one thing about the rule of law.
Policing – ambiguity from DUP: “And I also heard Gregory talk about ‘no ambiguity’ and ‘unequivocal support in terms of the PSNI’, I think that goes both ways and I don’t want to get into this situation because I hate it, I hate the ‘what-aboutery’ that exists. We must accept that we are all hypocrites, the only party on this table who can clearly stand up and say ‘we had nothing to do whatsoever with any political violence put on anybody over any years’ are the SDLP, and that is the truth. The riots in the Springfield road recently – which were the most serious riots in Belfast for years – the DUP would not condemn them, would not ask people to go to the police, were trying to maintain that these people had the right to riot because they weren’t allowed down a lane onto a nationalist area. The Holy Cross episode – the role of Nigel Dodds in north Belfast was nothing short of disgraceful. He didn’t again ask people to go to the police, he didn’t again ask people to report that their neighbours were attacking young nationalist kids. The most recent one, a DUP councillor – I believe, Gregory, in your own constituency, is it Coleraine? – he was convicted of voter fraud, and again no statement from the DUP, nothing, no condemnation. As I said, I don’t want to get into it because we can all individually get up and say the same thing about each other’s parties. The point is it isn’t black and white and I suppose for the future that the sooner some of us realise that things aren’t black and white, that everybody did right and wrong that then there is a chance for the future. If people continue to pretend that they are holier than thou and hold up the rule of law as being an enforcement of internment, assaults and attacks on people standing up for their civil rights, well then, to be honest, there isn’t much hope, and we’ll always have a separated community and the best that we can hope for is that in that separation we can have some sort of uneasy peace. Thank you very much.”
Chair: “Well I still maintain my optimism. We have four main parties in the north and I suppose it would be true to say, in reflection – I’m apolitical myself with no political allegiances – but the Ulster Unionist Party, when we read our history books, is supposedly the party that has paid the heaviest price in terms of electoral support. I don’t know whether Councillor McKerrow will necessarily agree with this but they were certainly key players and maintain a key presence in unionism, so to round up this part of the evening I’d like to call on James McKerrow to give us the view from the Ulster Unionist Party.
4. Cllr James McKerrow (UUP, north Down):
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for inviting me here. Let me just say that the last time I was at a meeting where Gregory Campbell was, he was a Minister, he was the Minister for Regional Development. I was presenting the Ulster Unionist case for keeping and developing the railways. With me were Peter Weir and Jeffrey Donaldson and unlike Peter Weir and Jeffrey Donaldson, I am still with the Ulster Unionist Party!”
Gregory Campbell: ‘We’ll work on you!”
James McKerrow: “… and I would quite like to see Gregory back in that office. ‘Peace and stability: the way forward’: this evening I want to develop two very important aspects of how I believe we can set out to broaden and develop peace and stability in Northern Ireland in the longer term. I think our politicians have all majored on what happens today and tomorrow, I want to talk about what happens a bit later down the line. And I want to set these in the context of what unionism should mean in the 21st Century. These two aspects are the system of government and how that system influences the development of society, and the development of the economy and how that can improve, or retard, social cohesion.
Role of modern unionism: “But first let me state my belief that modern unionism should be about building a society where everybody can benefit, and can appreciate that they are benefiting. That calls first for mutual respect, not just between Roman Catholics and Protestants, but between all segments of society. For in all parts of Ireland we are increasingly becoming a cosmopolitan, and affluent and educated society. Communities may still be stratified through wealth, but the old hierarchical practices based on wealth and recognised institutions have largely evaporated with the advent of affluence and consumerism, and legislation reinforcing human rights and equality. But those are not enough to build respect for others, and their beliefs and views. That calls for a culture of co-operation and listening, and one where groups, especially opposing political parties, do get down to the task of understanding each other’s origins and situation, and appreciating what other parties are seeking to do for their own people. So I believe that modern unionism, still the majority persuasion in Northern Ireland, needs to focus not only on representing the views of its supporters on the continuance of the Union, but also on representing the interests of everybody in the Union. Making a final and distinct break with ethnic nationalism is the key to promoting peace and stability for both unionists and nationalists. Abraham Lincoln gave voice to this when he stated his belief, “If you do well for all, everybody does well”.
System of government: “First, let us look at the system of government, and how that can alter and shape society. Political philosophers from Thucydides to Frances Fukuyama have elaborated the view that the structure and practice of government is intrinsically linked to the cohesion, dynamism, and character or lack of it, of a society. But there is no set standard; what flies in one age and set of circumstances may not in another. Thucydides lived in 5th Century Athens. His rendition of Pericles’ funeral ovation is a model for the virtues of democracy to this day. He lived in a slave state with limited franchise. Athens in those times was a vibrant and dynamic state and economy. Yet the Deep South that fought the American Civil War, also a slave state with limited franchise, bred indolence instead of dynamism, and fell to the industrialised and more organised North. Quatrocento Florence at its height was an autocracy. There is no set standard of governmental organisation that can guarantee results. Consider that in the 1930s, the western industrial democracies were languishing in the great slump. The countries exhibiting growth and development were Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia, both highly authoritarian regimes. But Machiavelli taught us not only how to use power by whatever means necessary to achieve stated aims, but also that institutions, left to themselves and not challenged, are apt to decline and degenerate. Machievelli wrote of monarchy tending to tyranny, autocracy to autarchy, and democracy to anarchy. He could also have added paramilitarism to organised crime. The lesson is that any system of government, no matter how successful, needs to be stimulated and challenged if it is to remain successful.
Models of democracy and government: “Undoubtedly, during modern times, it is the liberal representative capitalist democracy that is proving most successful in both the developed and developing world, in both economic and quality of life terms. This mix requires free, fair and frequent elections (hopefully we will have them North and South later this year), a free press, a strong legal system reinforcing the rights of the individual and over property, and a capitalist waged economy. When we study various countries, we find several models that meet this criteria – some more successfully than others. The United States and the United Kingdom have very different models of democracy, and very different institutions of government and bureaucracy. And the Republic of Ireland, currently a very dynamic and affluent state, but not always so, lies between these two. At partition, the North was industrialised and profitable; the economy revolved around manual labour, there was considerable local ownership of the means of production creating a symbiotic dependency between the propertied and working classes; the public sector was minor and the Chancellor of the Exchequer received considerably more in taxation than he sent back. But demographics would ensure a half century of unbroken unionist rule, leading to its eventual demise at the hands of an impatient British Government. All this time Northern Ireland was a democracy, but lacking the motivation to maintain dynamism and change. And all that time it was a democracy, but not supported by an increasing proportion of its citizens.
Republic of Ireland: “Following partition, the South was relatively impoverished for six decades, relying largely on British markets for agricultural exports at a time of British subsidies and cheap food policies. Advent to the Common Market and the benevolent Common Agricultural Policy transformed Ireland’s economy overnight, funding the development of education that, with other initiatives, has led to the phenomenal growth of Ireland’s post manual labour economy. All this time Ireland was a democracy, but until joining the Common Market, lacking sufficient wealth to create the fundamental building blocks to grow the economy and spread affluence. Since joining the Common Market, the Irish economy has grown almost every year upon year, and the Irish economy has roared past almost every other developed country, including Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and the South East of England. The situation at the end of the troubles is very different, North and South, than at the beginning.
Power sharing – dramatic development: “I do not want to get mired into arguments about the detail of what did or did not occur during 50 years of unbroken unionist rule, nor indeed about the following 35 years of direct rule. Instead I want to concentrate on the fact that today, for the first time, the four main parties in Northern Ireland, representing the great majority of its people, and represented on this panel tonight, are poised to form an inclusive power-sharing legislature and executive, to govern Northern Ireland openly and together, and by so doing to give voice to the great majority of the population. This dramatic development, I believe, is capable of not only giving everybody a sense of voice, but also inculcating ownership and respect.
“It has been a long road from the first ceasefires, through the Good Friday Agreement and to date a largely dysfunctional Assembly. But we have now reached a point where we consolidate all that and move on, or find the divide still too wide for too many to bridge, and really do lapse into colonial status. If we move on I have no doubt partisan arguments will continue to rage, but if devolved government is successful, they will become our partisans, and far preferable to the peripatetic English governors of Direct Rule. For some time to come I would see concotiational mandatory coalition as the form of government in the North, and a major key to increasing social cohesion, peace, and stability. This is because it does give all four major factions a voice. But when social cohesion becomes strong enough to overcome inter-tribal preferences and intra-tribal differences, it is quite feasible that the people of Northern Ireland and their political parties will want to reform the mandatory nature of coalition in favour of voluntary arrangements, much as you have in the Dáil.
Economic growth: “The other component of building peace and stability is the development of a vibrant and competitive economy capable of providing increasingly satisfying job opportunities, and that is grounded firmly on equality of opportunity. Today it is widely recognised that the best form of welfare is a job that gives satisfaction, security of tenure, and a living wage. A source of income that the recipients can take pride in and base their circumstances on.
Comparisons between North and South: “The economic position of the North and the South has been reversed. The various manufacturing industries that made the North a hub of output are much diminished. North East Asia is now the general manufacturing hub of the world. Meanwhile the South has built a competitive economy fitted to its circumstances and the skills of its people, with more limited reliance on manual labour.
“And today’s economy in Northern Ireland differs from the Republic in three further and very significant ways.
- “First, the pattern of emigration and immigration has resulted in the South having half the dependency ratio of the North, that being the ratio of the non working population, including children, retired people, those out of work and those not seeking work, to those in work. This has a major impact on government spending.
- “Second, and in large part as a consequence, the public sector in the South is relatively smaller than the North. As a sovereign state you have had to balance the books. Meanwhile under Direct Rule the North’s public sector has grown to unsustainable proportions.
- “Third, without academic selection but with a growing private education sector, you are turning out young men and women with the skills and capabilities that match and sustain your economy.
“Emulating your success will not be easy, in the short term at least. But it is an area where hard decisions will have to be made if we are to underpin future peace and stability through creating sustainable and satisfying employment that delivers a living wage.
Balance needed to attract investment and employ people: “What modern unionism needs to concentrate on to achieve this economic growth is to pursue those policies, usually labelled as old fashioned supply side policies, that make it easier to attract investment and employ people. This is a matter of balance. I do not want to abrogate rights, but I want to make them more simple, robust, and easier to understand and put into practice. Already this year the Equality Commission has issued a consultation paper of more than 100 pages on how the public sector should roll out the Equality Commission’s aims into the private sector. This underlies the problem that we face with the burgeoning liberal agenda, emphasizing the rights of the individual regardless of the ramifications and knock-on effects, or the interests of wider society and other groups. The balance needs to be redressed a little. We are getting ourselves into tangles that work against creating jobs, working against investment and employment. I believe we have to step back a little from the liberal revolution, and whilst ensuring that we maintain equality of opportunity, work at aspects of education and training, the industrial relations environment, and working practices.
“At the same time we need to bring in measures that attract investment and ideas, particularly from home-grown entrepreneurs and innovators. One part of this programme aims to make the jobs appear. The other part aims to ensure that we have the people with the skills, attributes and capabilities to fill them.
Public/private sector: “Prior to Direct Rule the subvention in Northern Ireland, the balance of public expenditure over public income from taxes etc, was minor, manageable and acceptable. Direct Rule Ministers have uniformly increased the scale and costs of our public services. So one of the legacies of our civil war is an enlarged and more expensive public sector that employs 2 in every 5 in work. And if all goes to plan and devolution is implemented, our income from the Treasury will increasingly fall short of necessary expenditure, and our public sector will be squeezed. We need jobs in abundance in the private sector that not only promote growth, but that also enable us to absorb workers from the reducing public sector. And obviously a burgeoning private sector will provide additional taxation and thus reduce the subvention and pressure on the public sector.
“There is nothing to gain in pursuing jobs that have to be subsidised in the long term to compete, these jobs are usually in so called traditional areas that have now lost competitiveness, usually to North East Asia.
“So if we are to sustain peace and stability, jobs have to provide the wherewithal to buy and live in a house, and raise a family. The two areas of primary importance open to us at the moment are jobs based on the knowledge industry, and jobs based on particular advanced skills. To attract good people we have to pay competitive rates, and wage levels will determine the sorts of goods and services that we can produce and that will sustain profitable and competitive jobs.
Achieving peace and stability: “Giving all its citizens a stake in the modern Northern Ireland, through a widely accepted and supported system of government, and through participation in a vibrant and competitive economy on the basis of equality of opportunity, are I submit two of the most effective ways of achieving long term peace and stability. And that is my opinion of the direction unionism has to go in the twenty first century.”
QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS
Q.1. Chair (Des Fegan): “Thank you James. They were four very thoughtful presentations, and, incredibly, although some differences in the presentation, what I was most comforted about were the similarities in all the presentations, and I suppose, trying to sum up before we invite some questions, all speakers – perhaps with different emphasis or different focuses – have identified a need to acknowledge our past, and I would go further and approximate that that incorporates the whole island. But certainly that is an issue that comes up time and time again in the work of Cooperation Ireland: recognition of hurt, recognition of pain and recognition of difficulty. I think it’s obvious that every speaker has talked about that to some degree, it’s not the domain of one section, there has been massive hurt caused to many many people and many families throughout our troubled history, and we certainly need to look at ways at how we can do that and what’s the best form of doing that and how we can facilitate that as we go forward.
“Equally I think there were issues here about dealing with the present, and maybe that’s our most difficult thing here, and they’re certainly the questions I would like as I’m living in Belfast and with representatives of my political leadership around this table, the four major parties, how we should actually deal with our present to go into a shared future whatever that may be. I found James’s illustrations of the problems here at the structural level, macro-economic level, fascinating stuff but how do you deal with that? And are the DUP and Sinn Féin different on that? …. Every time I’ve had the privilege to meet DUP, UUP, SDLP, and Sinn Féin councillors, when we’re talking about issues about community support, Jim Allister is as supportive on the exact same issues as Mary Lou Mac Donald or Barbara de Brún or Jim Nicholson. They speak to us agreeing on the same issues, agreeing on the way forward, agreeing on where the money needs to be spent, so there’s consensus. There may be the natural left/right tendencies within Gregory’s own party. We can see those obviously.
Programme for Government: “So I would like to start the ball rolling. … Would it be possible if we do agree on forming some form of joint administration, how difficult do you think it would be? And I address this to one and all to come up with a common programme for government that would have the SDLP and the DUP sitting with Sinn Féin and the UUP: do you think there are major differences in how we would see economic development in the North, or do you think these things are a ‘pie in the sky’ and that we have to sort out the definitive dotting ‘i’s’ and crossing‘t’s’ of the policing argument?”
Dominic Bradley: “I think a lot of good work has been done in Stormont during the summer and after the summer, and a Programme for Government has been – maybe not totally agreed – but has been discussed, and there are wide areas of agreement within that which can be worked on in the future. There are some areas of disagreement – and there will always be areas of disagreement – but I think that eventually we can find some sort of compromise on these issues. I myself was working on the Education Committee and I suppose the main bone of contention there is the issue of academic selection. As it happens, on that issue the unionist parties are generally in favour of retention of academic selection, whereas the SDLP and Sinn Féin are opposed to it and are in favour of giving choice to parents. So as I say that is an issue where unionism and nationalism are diametrically opposed. Yet, during the course of our work in that particular committee, we didn’t find absolute agreement but we found a degree of agreement and agreed to explore the concept of transferral from one form of schooling to another at age 14.
“Now some people might say that that is passing the buck. There was general consensus among us on that and I think that where we can find degrees of consensus there is the basis there for moving forward.
“Quite a substantial amount of work has been done on the programme for government and I think that provides the basis for the future when an executive is up and running.
Gregory Campbell: “If we skip over the next couple of months – or whatever time it might be, maybe a year or two years ahead – and look at the economic distinctions that various parties have, I can see the proverbial curate’s egg because we have anything from sort of right of centre approach across to a very centred approach, to a left of centre, to a very left wing approach on economic issues. And I think you will have pluses and minuses in that because the Northern Ireland economy is very heavily public sector dependent. So, in my view, I think it is a self evident fact that if our economy is to get up and running it is going to have to be private sector led. If that is the case you can see how a right of centre economic approach, if it was left t to create wealth and to create a dynamic economy, could probably achieve that although there would be some casualties on the way. I think that is going to be constrained because of the nature of any administration by those who have a more left of centre approach. I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing because some of those casualties may well be minimised because of that, but you are going to get this range of economic approaches in an economy that has been 67% dependent on the public sector with a greater degree of private sector interest coming to bear. And how that is going to be reflected across the range of ideologies that exist – and I’m talking now about post resolution of our policing issues and all of those. I think it is going to be a very very dynamic time but it is not going to be without the huge difficulties that all of that brings with it.”
Chair: “… I suppose what I am really trying to tease out here is whether economic issues will lead to alliances formed maybe across the traditional divide? Would it be feasible that members of the DUP, for example, who – I don’t want to be too generalist here – but the DUP would I suppose be more the working man’s party, I’m talking about traditional divisions here in unionism. … Would it be possible for the DUP to find allegiance with the SDLP or indeed Sinn Féin on some of these issues? What would be your view?”
Killian Forde: “I worked on a peace building project within Kosovo and on our wall we had written ‘money knows no ethnicity’, and I was trying to recognise that the key to building peace was not so much setting up groups of people who were already converted – because I think that’s what happens a lot of the time, you end up talking to people who are already liberal minded, open-minded, haven’t suffered in the conflict, relatively wealthy, educated etc. So the combatants never actually end up seeing the benefit of having peace. So what we did was very simple things in terms of, for instance there was a dairy on one side of the border and the cows on the other, and the milk from the cows were being sent north into Serbia and then the dairy was being underused so it was just about sort of linking in the people. It can be done.
“I think – and I speak at a disadvantage here because I’m not in the Assembly and don’t know the ins and outs of what has been happening over the last few months to that detail – but I understand that the St Andrew’s Agreement has put also a different emphasis on the responsibilities of each Minister which I think is probably beneficial as long as people don’t keep applying vetoes. My fear is that – and I’m not naming names, I’m not accusing anybody who might have an ulterior motive to do it. For this to work there has to be a level of being able to work on similar stuff together, and I think one of the things, because in the peace process you sometimes can miss it you can miss interesting and significant things that happen because of the nature of how people need to move their own community on or to compromise. I think a very heartening thing was – was it last week the National Development Plan was announced? – and there was an unambiguous and unequivocal welcome by Jeffrey Donaldson in terms of the cross-border element of the funding, and I think that was really important. Because even two or three year ago it was highly unlikely that a unionist would have said it, and a DUP man would have said it, and I think that was part of the good part.
Tax raising: “In terms of tax raising, because ultimately you know at the moment the northern economy is a poor regional economy of the British economy, I think it would be helpful to have more integration within the southern economy which is booming. How long that will last I don’t know. Also at some point to have some form of tax raising, because really only at that stage does a space become a country if you like.
James McKerrow: “Taking a different tack, I think today the largest lot of society in Northern Ireland – probably in southern Ireland as well – is the aspiring middle classes: people who have their family roots in the working classes who transformed their living conditions over the last 30, 40, 50 years, who are now far more interested in education, clothes, foreign holidays. And also in the North an increasing number of this block of people have stopped voting. I think it’s not because they are not interested in politics but they are being turned off by politicians, and by how long it has taken for politicians to get down to coming to agreements on things. This potentially is the block of people who can influence the politics most, because, at the end of the day, politicians can’t get too far away from their voters or they are out-of-office politicians. And I have optimism that this block will demand the sort of changes and will drive things more to the middle from the edges, and that applies not only to things like policing, nationalism and unionism, it will also apply to the economic situation and the need to build jobs for them and their children. So I would be an optimist that, although there are a wide range of views represented in the Assembly, over time these views will be pushed more and more towards a manageable consensus.”
Killian Forde: “Just one more small point in relation to the economy. One of the hits that unionism took within the peace process was about the loss of the security industry which would have provided thousands of jobs in various different armies and police forces and there would have been spin-off jobs from that as well. The dependency on the State has sort of lessened in one aspect but has now become more and more focused on health and education ……”
Q.2. Fintan (Dublin): “First of all, as someone who is a descendant of the someone who came from Derry, I would like to welcome Mr Campbell because my ancestors were from Northern Ireland and your ancestors, I presume, were from Scotland because that wonderful name Campbell is well known up there. Basically, as far as I can see, the one thing I would love to see at the end of the night when we are going off is for the chairman to get the four of you up there to shake hands with one another! And that would be a gesture. It doesn’t matter whether you love him or hate him, but the shaking of hands would be a little stepping stone. Gregory, my father left Derry in 1933 and came south. And there’s a huge number. You’ll probably find nearly half of us down here have ancestors who are half northern and in that way we have an interest in the north but … I wouldn’t live there at the moment. And that’s the way we feel about it because it has been so anchored between the two bunches. It took the likes of John Hume to come in to replace McAteer – he was the only man out of the twelve who ended up in Westminster. I would love to see Gerry Adams and the other two going over next Monday to Westminster and getting in there and saying ‘we’ve done it’ and shake hands. Because up until now they have been getting their wages for nothing by not going over. And I’d love them to go over and meet all their mates over there. And Gregory could be over there and you could introduce them to all these people, This is the way you change the attitude.
“In the south, when we were in school we weren’t allowed to aspire to go to Trinity College because the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin [John Charles McQuaid] didn’t agree with it for some reason, the way they taught medicine or something…. All of those things have changed. I was at a ‘do’ in Greenhills the other week, where different churches were together, and it was the first time Archbishop Brady said that he sat in the place where Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims all spoke from the top platform, and we had a most wonderful day. And I think the sooner that gentleman from the unionist party looks forward – you were looking back Mr Campbell as if you were over on the other side of the Carlisle Bridge looking over at us over in Williams Street! It’s for your generation, you’re young enough, to see another 20- 30 years ahead and your kids might even start going to dances with the Catholic kids. God bless you!”
Q.3. James McGeever (Kingscourt). “Dominic spoke about the need to deal with the past. I expected something like that so I wrote out something before I came here tonight… I’m going to ask Gregory a question, and I hope Killian will listen to it: would the DUP agree or disagree that, given their commitment to ending partition and achieving a united free Ireland, it would be a noble endeavour if in response to the symbolism of the white strip of our national flag, which calls for a lasting truce between Orange and Green, and also in response to the resolve expressed in the 1916 Proclamation that the Orange and Green children of the nation – of which Gregory is considered one – are to be cherished equally, if in response to those, the entire republican movement was to express sorrow for having in the past caused death and injury and suffering to the unionist/loyalist people, and would now solemnly declare that a united Ireland depends on winning the hearts and minds of the protestant, unionist, and loyalist people for a united Ireland?”
Collusion: “For Killian: He was a bit hard there on the DUP and unionist parties for not condemning collusion and I’d just like to mention that Pádraig Pearse dismissed the Orangeman’s fears as foolish, but he did acknowledge that if he felt his liberty was under threat it was not only common sense but it was his clear duty to arm in defence of this threatened liberty. And if we consider collusion in those terms we shouldn’t be too hard. Now we condemn collusion and all the rest of it but we have to sympathetically understand those RUC and UDR men who did collude with loyalists.”
“I wanted to ask Gregory would he consider that a noble enterprise – if the IRA were to express sorrow for the past and say that a united Ireland now depends on winning your hearts and minds? Is that not a noble enterprise? Would the DUP agree that it is a noble enterprise?”
Gregory Campbell: “Thanks for the question. I will keep it brief. This is an issue quite close to my heart. I think it would be a right thing for Sinn Féin to do what the questioner has asked, but not for the reasons which he mentioned. Perhaps I have misunderstood him but what I understand is a complete misnomer that many in the nationalist and republican community have about the nature of the Irish nation, about the State and about Irishness. So I think that they should do it, not for the reasons that I sometimes detect are prevalent in the nationalist community.
Identity: “There is a widespread view in my opinion that nationalists have, and we in the unionist community are to blame for some reason for this perception …. Nationalists feel that it is unionist’s perception of Irishness which has led them not to feel Irish, and therefore nationalist republicans feel that if they change the concept of Irishness to a more ‘touchy-feely’ friendly Irishness towards the unionist community that we will over a period of time begin to realise that we are Irish after all! Now I cannot reject that strongly enough. I just cannot do it. There was talk earlier on about the Green, the White and the Orange. If the Republic of Ireland was an Orange state, I still wouldn’t feel part of it because I’m British. There isn’t anything that the Irish nation state can do about its flag, its anthem, its background, its ethos, it’s tradition that can make me feel Irish, because I’m not Irish. And we will never be Irish. I fully appreciate that we in the unionist community have sometimes added to that by feeding this ‘Home Rule is Rome Rule’ concept in the early part of the last century, but that day is long over. And I think if people do the thing because it is the right thing to do, then they should do it but not in order to try and say to us as unionists: ‘perhaps now you will come with us into this great new future because our Irishness is now something that you can cherish where you were closed out from it in the past’.”
Chair: “It does highlight the problems that we deal with in Northern Ireland. It’s an identity crisis in Northern Ireland, and it’s how we deal with that crisis. There were phrases used here tonight that were a bit comforting, we’re not talking about majorities any more. We’re talking about substantial numbers, significant communities, and regardless of what way the demographics lie, be it 60:40, the difficulties are how we are going to get through this and how we share it. We feel, obviously, in Cooperation Ireland that cross-border practical cooperation is the key part of that as long as it is done apolitically. And let people find their space and develop a shared future.”
Q.4 Gerry (Belfast): “Gregory, how do you feel about having the redundant former explosive consultant in government with you or has that been an excuse for you? There is also the question of progress from history to perceived transparency within Sinn Féin. They got some part of the way but not all the way yet. Perhaps that’s not the DUP. Will you also acknowledge that ordinary decent loyalist people have been held hostage at times in this situation politically?
“I’ll come back to an historical thing. Maggie Thatcher declared war on the IRA. Who won the war? Collusion! Nothing is new, it’s a new word. … It’s going to have to come down to the big question of policing. This pardon for policing, this plea for policing. Can it be made retrospective and cover the most recent murder of the IRA – the Mc Cartney murder? Policing is not an exact science. We’ve lots of control over policing, lots of legislation there but policing on the ground is a mismatch. ….
Q. 5. Joe (Kells): “Killian, you’ve talked about your vision for the north, and I think that was shared state and civic responsibility to each other in the different communities, and I think you said that you weren’t expecting unionists to live under the Tricolor. Could you just expand on that?”
Killian Forde: “I think it’s part of the question that Gregory has just rejected in relation to not being anything but a British man. I think the debate is sometimes confusing. … Personally, I believe that one of the problems with the north and the fact that there isn’t any significant progress in the constitutional issue is that we have got a very oppositional debate. We’ve got a debate of ‘you are Irish’ and ‘you are British’. And what I think we should explore, and perhaps it won’t be Sinn Féin particularly doing it, is that identity of people. For instance I found out only a couple of years ago that my ancestors were from Liverpool. It doesn’t make any difference to me. Even if I was from Liverpool I don’t think it would affect my personal politics or identity because identity is not real. It’s imagined: ‘I’m Irish because I’m not British; I’m British because I’m not French, and so on’. When we get to a stage of you have a constitutional issue and it comes alive again, for whatever that reason could be, maybe it’s demographics, maybe it’s a burgeoning middle class who want to join the Republic There’s no point asking unionists and saying ‘do you want to live in this place down here?’ Because it becomes a new country, then it becomes a united island. In that way it’s not just about getting unionists and saying ‘see that tricolor, the one you associate with the funerals and the people you think were part of terrorism, the people you think targeted your community in a sectarian war?’ and they say ‘yes’, and you say ‘that’s your new flag’. At the same time it’s not about having a situation in the north which existed, and probably still exists to a certain extent, where Irish people who identified themselves solely as Irish couldn’t fly their flag because they associated the other flag with being the butcher’s apron and to do with beatings and torture, repression etc. So in that space in between there is a huge amount.
Need for imaginative thinking: “One thing I learned from being abroad is that there is no set rule in what makes a country. There’s many ways. There’s huge variety in how you apply courts, identities, human rights, ethnic responsibilities, make-ups of presidencies, who is in charge, what they are in charge of, how many police forces you have. There’s a huge amount. I think we have been very weak on that creativity. For instance, if you go to Barcelona, if you walk down the street, you can pass four sets of policemen who could be reporting to different people. In Bosnia you have three presidents at any one time. In Kosovo you have two, in Macedonia you have two, and you have two separate parliaments. There are millions of different ways to do it. We have become fixated on Stormont, Leinster House, Westminster, end of story. One police force here. ‘You’re British, you’re Irish, and so that’s it’.
“That’s why you need to have this Green Paper on unity so you’re actually talking about all of these issues and saying ‘look it’s not just about you becoming Irish, it’s not about us becoming British, there is a middle ground here, we can bring in neutral symbols shared symbols’ etc. It does work and has been proven to work, I think we have to be more imaginative on it. That’s all sides, all parties, both governments, everybody.
Q.6. Pat (Batterstown): “To James and Gregory: the late Mao Tse Tung had a policy called ‘denouncement’. He used his close associates to denounce them and it had the effect of keeping them in control, but it also weakened their ability to negotiate as a business team. In the southern part of this island when our political leaders talk about their ideologies, it’s usually regarded as a bit of a joke. James set out the scenario of your economy and economic matters, and the ideologies would be there in the background someplace that you keep to yourself and you have in your heart, when you go to do a business deal with your community that they should go down the back of it.
“Would you like to comment on that? The question is essentially that the ‘isms’ of the past are now gone and we’re now in a different ballgame and the economy in Northern Ireland, as James pointed out, needs something done and something done soon, because Gregory’s part of the United Kingdom is the United Kingdom in decline rather than in the ascent, and the economy of the world will overtake events and you need to get working among yourselves at this stage.”
Chair: “Is the question here again one of ‘will the politics of Northern Ireland rise above the constitutional question’? … I’ll just try and clarify this. I was in Cyprus last December for a conference, I made a terrible mistake. It was in Nicosia… and it was organised by the European Centre of Border Conflict Studies. I said how delighted I was to be here on the border. And the hostility in the room, I knew I’d made a terrible gaff, but I didn’t know what. There was no border, they didn’t recognise it. It was all how they defined themselves. There wasn’t a border, there was just an administration in the North which they didn’t talk to terribly much. So I was delighted the next day when they introduced me as ‘Des Fagan from cooperation Ireland and Des works on the contested border in Ireland’. There’s no contested border in Ireland. There may have been ten years ago. That’s what has changed in my lifetime. Sinn Féin to my mind does not contest a border. The DUP certainly don’t. So for the political parties, the border is no longer contested, and yet everything – we had a classic example from Dominic – the school system, the education system in Northern Ireland is still along party political lines. When are the political parties in Northern Ireland going to represent us from what they feel about true economic development, true educational development and leave this identity crisis behind?”
.
Dominic Bradley: “I said that the unionist parties in general are in favour of academic selection and the nationalist parties are opposed to it, but that doesn’t mean that society in Northern Ireland is split down the middle. There are many unionist people, many headmasters in schools who want to see the end of academic selection. At the same time there are people from the nationalist community who want to maintain academic selection. So I don’t think it’s correct to portray the situation in education especially around that particular issue as a sort of nationalist or unionist, there is quite a grey area interlocking between…. One thing which all the parties agree on is that the 11 plus in its present form has to go. But what we’re not agreed on is what replaces it. Generally speaking, the unionist parties want that replaced by another form of academic selection, whereas my own party and Sinn Féin are in favour of parental choice. Similar to the situation that you have down here.”
Q.7. Linda (Batterstown): “Just to say that the academic standard achieved through the 11 plus system is excellent and you did get the highest result in Great Britain this year, as far as I know, and you should be very proud of it.”
Dominic Bradley: “That depends on what statistics you use. We are very proud of the pupils who achieve very high results, but we have to look at both ends of the scale. Education in Northern Ireland serves the academically gifted very well. But it serves pupils who are not academically gifted very poorly. We have a huge problem with literacy and numeracy in Northern Ireland at the other end of the scale. So, whilst we want to retain the high achievement, we also need to deal with the long tail of under-achievement at the other end.”
Gregory Campbell: “I want to respond to the question of ‘isms’ of the past. I don’t think that a huge number of people in Northern Ireland regard some of those ‘isms’, however you describe them, as being redundant. I think, because of the politically correct society that we live in now, there are many people who still hold those ‘isms’ that you described as being in the past but are looking at more professional ways of describing them and they are now being put forward in a much more rational and plausible sense. They have not yet disappeared from the scene, but I think that they are being repackaged if you like, and re-presented in different ways, and I think it’s probably going to be another generation before what you said is an accurate description: that it is a case of those ‘isms’ being now in the past. I think that we are gradually moving to a more casual presentation of many of them and probably in 15 or 20 years time your analysis will be correct, but not just yet.”
James McKerrow: “Just returning to the education question, first of all we know in Northern Ireland the system of education produces results which are good in the UK. Depending upon how you measure them, Wales comes out round about the same as us, but UK education worldwide or in Europe is not particularly good. One of the things that we have to look at is the fact that in Ireland your system of education is coming out on measures rather better than ours without academic selection. But what is growing, I think, is a consensus that trying to determine a child’s future at 11 is not wise. It was ok in my days when 15% went to grammar schools. You had a test which basically those who got into grammar schools were generally suitable for hot house academic selection, but it left a lot outside who could have benefited. Today it is a much wider catchment. It is letting people down. The consensus is moving towards looking at the age of 14 and asking children and their parents to look very seriously what they have done so far, where they want to go, what sort of courses are going to suit them.
Chair: “I think this is turning into an education debate. There’s another question…”
Q.8: John Clancy: “Question for the panel. Are the panel optimistic to see a power sharing assembly up and working by the end of the year, and if not why not, and what steps should be taken?”
Chair: “Could I just ask for a ‘yes’ or ‘no’, and we will come back to it.”
Dominic Bradley: “Yes.”
Gregory Campbell: “This year, yes.”
Killian Forde: “Yes.”
James McKerrow: “I’ll say yes because I think there is a majority of unionist MLAs for it and … if Paisley won’t do it, Robinson will!”
Q.9. Marie (Drogheda): “To Gregory and Killian: What significance do you attribute to the fact that in yesterday’s ard fheis Gerry Adams used the words ‘will be urging our people to report crime to the police’ rather than ‘are urging’? I just ask that because I’m still trying to evaluate what happened yesterday. And a small comment to Gregory. I find it sad, Gregory, that you define yourself so negatively, in such a negative way. There are millions of people who are Scottish and British, there are a lesser number of people – and I lived among them – who are Welsh and British. There are English people who are English and British, and I simply can’t understand how somebody in Northern Ireland can’t confidently be Irish and British.”
Killian Forde: “…When I got this, I made a note because I thought I would be asked about it… I hope we’re not going to have an argument over tenses. This is important. I’ve been through 18 months of this, I don’t like many parts of it … From a principled point of view I want the police to be devolved to the Assembly. This huge challenge is very difficult for us. I’m not getting into an argument over tenses. Don’t underestimate what happened yesterday and what Gerry Adams’s statement said today. We’re not going to wait and end up in a situation whereby the press are going forced statements out of us. This statement wasn’t asked by anybody, it was brought out. It’s a tense. It’s very clear as far as I’m concerned.”
Chair: “Gregory do you want to comment?”
Gregory Campbell: “I was listening to a radio programme today. Sinn Féin took their decision in the ard fheis round about 6 o’clock last night. A couple of hours after, and totally unconnected with it, there was a Bloody Sunday demonstration in Londonderry and by about 8 o’clock there were some young people, not connected at all to the ard fheis, who started to throw some petrol bombs at the police as a result of the policing of the parade. Now I just make the point, two hours after the ard fheis decision, would Sinn Féin say to anybody who had any knowledge or information about that petrol bombing that they should go to the police? That is a classic test, within a couple of hours of saying something, what does it mean? What is the tangible expression of ‘support the police’, ‘give evidence’, ‘give some information’? Unfortunately we are still waiting and that’s why the tense is very important. We need to see the practical out-working of thought that that actually means.
Identity: “Could I just answer that other point? I have no difficulty about what you said about being English and British. In fact, I would qualify what I said earlier. I am Irish in the same way a Canadian person is American. But you try telling a Canadian that they are American, because they will say ‘that’s the country that’s to the south of me’. That’s exactly the same for me.”
Dominic Bradley: “I welcome the statement that Killian read out there from Gerry Adams saying that Sinn Féin will be – ‘urging’ people may be too strong – but to report crime to the police. The fact of the matter is that in nationalist areas, people are already doing this. I come from Newry which is a strongly Nationalist town, I also represent South Armagh, and statistics show that even in the Crossmaglen area, there are huge increases in the number of people who are reporting crime directly to the PSNI. I welcome the fact that Gerry Adams made this statement. Really, to some extent, Sinn Féin are playing catch-up on this issue because the nationalist community has already caught on that they need the police to protect them, to deal with crime in their areas. There is an appalling vista ahead for them if they don’t do it. They have caught on to that and they have been doing that. I’ve been out in Newry talking to people on the doorsteps; they talk to me about anti-social behaviour. I ask them ‘have you reported this to the police?’ and they say ‘yes we have’. They do complain sometimes that police response times are not always as they should be, but they don’t tell me that on principle they haven’t contacted the police. They want the problems that are affecting their areas dealt with and they have been using the police for some time regardless of Sinn Féin or Gerry Adams.”
Chair: “Is that tense a problem? There’s someone at the back with a question…”
Q.10. Anne (Slane): “Killian, in reference to your comment to aspiration for – not a united Ireland – but for this ‘unified island’, that is a shared space and a shared community: I’m wondering, if you have a vision of a shared space and a shared community, why have you such difficulty with parading? I refer to your comment where you said you cannot see the point in parading, that ‘it isn’t part of unionist tradition or culture’. That seems to be very dismissive. That seems that, on the one hand you’re saying ‘this space is for everybody and needs to be shared by everybody’, and, on the other hand, you’re saying ‘no, I’ve decided it’s not part of your culture and tradition’. So I was wondering if you could expand on that, maybe I misunderstood?”
Killian Forde: “I find parading … I almost get angry about it because I think it demonstrates an astonishing provocation to nationalist communities. There is no basis for doing it. After everything that we have been through, this insistence year after year. You saw what happened in Garvaghy Road, you saw what happened in the Springfield Road. It is unbelievable. It is almost moronic, the insistence on marching down these streets, it makes no sense. It’s bad political leadership year after year after year. It heightens tensions. It’s unbelievable the tension and the worry and stress it causes people. What I’m asking the unionists to do is to step up to the mark and say ‘ok guys, if you want to go down that street, go talk to your neighbours. Go talk, that’s all you have to do, and stop making excuses.’ There might be a guy in the residents’ community that once was in the IRA. People have to get real with this parading, it need to be dealt with. Because otherwise there is a danger that year after year working class youths, particularly in urban areas, are going to continue to have very violent acts against each other and it has to be dealt with. I don’t accept that it’s a cultural trait that has to be held forever. Cultures shift, move and adapt. They do that for various different ways. Sometimes they are sensitised and sometimes they are desensitised. But I think there is a 100% responsibility on the unionists to get their head around parading and deal with it. It was dealt brilliantly in Derry, and it was done in the right way, and that model should be followed by everybody else. I do welcome the Orange Order actually making an announcement that this year they will speak to the Garvaghy Road residents, but really what we don’t need is DUP politicians egging them on, it really needs to be dealt with.”
Q.11: “I have been trying to get in for some time… The first question I have is for Gregory Campbell. Gregory, the blockage that seems to be at the moment and the new word in the lexicon in the DUP is now ‘blank cheque’, Gerry Adams issued a ‘blank cheque’. Can you put some framework about how you will measure when that cheque can be cashed? In other words, how will you measure when the people from the areas you are talking about will be cooperating with the police? Assuming that the contacts between the police at the moment and the leadership of the DUP are not what they were in RUC days when stuff was leaked.
“Another question, for Killian: is the guarantee that Gerry Adams has given today about cooperating with the police, is that retrospective? Does that only start from the girl who is raped tonight or tomorrow night, or does it start from the one who was raped last week or a year ago? I do know of cases where cooperation has not been given and, as a result of that, serious injustice has been done particularly in cases of rape.”
Chair: “… Gregory, the date?”
Gregory Campbell: “…From our perspective we are being asked to go into government with people whose political mandate we do not dispute. They get the percentage of votes again. There is no dispute about that, no argument or debate. The debate and argument that we have is with their lack of support for the rule of law. Now, that is based on 35 years of terror and violence and murder. …It’s effectively, if you like, like someone who has been the subject of sustained attack over three and half decades and then the attacker turning up at the door and saying that that day is over and ‘I want to be your friend’. I think the person under attack is perfectly legitimate, in fact I would call them naïve if they were to do other than to say: ‘well, thank you very much for coming up and telling me that it’s over but I really would like to see some evidence that it’s over, rather than just you telling me that it’s over, especially if weapons that you used to inflict the pain over the thirty five years were put to one side 13 years ago, 13 years ago, and now you’re coming to me and saying that this is now over’. So I would think that that person would have sufficient time to say that I want to be sure that it is over. That’s what I mean by the post-dated cheque.”
Chair: “Days, weeks, months?”
Gregory: “Certainly not days and weeks, I think we need to have a sustained period of months whereby we see that it does mean something. Could I just respond very quickly on the parading issue? I agree that the parading issue has to be resolved and I think you in the Republic give a perfectly good example. I go to Rossnowlagh every year and there isn’t a problem, there is no residents’ group, there is no attempt to inflict violence on people who just want to express their history and their culture. Just as if you go to Kilkeel – this is not a one-way street you know that we’re marching down – if you go to Kilkeel every year, a unionist town, the AOH march there every year, and they’re not the subject of debate or argument or requests for permission to walk. They simply get on with it and have their day and go home. And everyone says that’s another day over, let’s have another day in the future.”
Chair: “Pre-dates Killian?”
Killian Forde: “The short answer is I don’t know. …I’m very aware of the case, I think it was last summer in relation to the rape of a young girl and then subsequently this psycho ended up taking the girl’s phone and ringing her mother and telling her she was raped, it was absolutely sick. The situation whereby you put a microphone in front of Sinn Fein representatives and ask them ‘are you asking people to go to the police’? At the time the advice was that they should go to a solicitor who can go to the police. That … demonstrated the problem with the stance that we had in relation to the police. So I don’t know. The short answer: I think clear cut cases which don’t involve any sort of political policing are much easier to deal with and they’re the ones that will be dealt with first. In the event of a non-sectarian, non-political violent attack on somebody, I think that’s very clear where the stance is. In other cases it’s going to be more difficult. I also think it must be remembered, and Dominic touches on this, Sinn Féin saying ‘xyz’ it doesn’t mean that we’re all going to bat now, the republicans are going to volunteer or go up and say ‘ I have all this information’. They haven’t got that power, I think it’s one of the things, and as a southerner as well I used to be under this illusion, the illusion that is put out by the press, that the IRA godfathers controlled these vast estates in west Belfast and were able to tell anybody what to do. It doesn’t work that way. People are people. So if people want to volunteer information, if they want to go to the police, our situation at the moment is ‘yes, go ahead, go to the police’ … But we’re a political party. Remember, within a democracy it’s the police who are supposed to swear loyalty to the State and then it’s the political parties that they should be supporting instead of the other way round. We’ve gone a bit topsy turvy in the role of police here.”
Q.12. Ronnie (Slane): “Just an interesting observation: it’s only 20,30 years ago, the two middle of the road parties, the SDLP and UUP, were the dominant parties and I think it’s quite clear that the DUP and Sinn Féin became the dominant parties on foot of the terror and the violence. The two sides polarised into two very intolerant opposites of each other, so as a result of the efforts of the middle of the road parties, the Good Friday Agreement came about where those two polarised parties now have to come back and sit beside each other and sort it out. It’s a pity in a sense that they couldn’t have listened to that very very obvious common sense 20-30 years ago. But it has come full circle one way or the other and we should still celebrate the prodigal son, as it were, and see them around about the table greeting one another rather than teasing one another. I’m inclined to sense tonight that Gregory on the one hand, and Killian on the other, are still engaged in a certain amount of teasing of each other. I would say to Gregory, if he’s wondering about his rights about parades let him answer the question ‘what are the parades about’? I’ve seen them myself in Portadown and they are certainly very intimidating in those areas. Now maybe not in Rossnowlagh, or taken out of a local context, they’re not at all intimidating … But that’s one of the reasons why the parades are an issue. If the parades were about, let’s say, everybody coming together parading, about getting the jobs that you need, maybe that would a better subject matter for parades.”
Chair: “So make the Orange Order a trade union?
Ronnie: “Gregory’s identity crisis…if he comes down to Croke Park in two or three weeks’ time [Ireland/England rugby match] and sees that there is no equivocation…”
Chair: “Sorry, as somebody from Northern Ireland, I find it offensive almost – and I’m trying to chair this impartially – but that’s the second time that Gregory has been criticised for feeling British, and that’s a problem. Gregory is absolutely entitled to feel as British as he wants. If there is a challenge I’m sure Gregory would sit and listen and argue and make a case. …but asking someone to apologise…”
Ronnie: “I’m not asking him to apologise… Chairman, I’m illustrating there are many ways of being Irish and being British without conflict. The rugby team is one instance of that where the whole community of Ireland can come together and enjoy themselves and maybe that’s one of the keys that they should play more rather than tease each other.”
Q.13. Conor (SF councillor): “James had the decency to say about 50 years of mismanagement and 35 years of unionist domination. Gregory is constantly saying about the rule of law. Now was the rule of law in South Africa ok when South Africa existed because they were in power? Was it ok? That was the rule of law. Where has the UDR gone? Where have the B specials gone? Where have all those militias gone? Where have they gone and why have they been changed? What was the reason? Because they were not acceptable. The police were used as a militia against nationalists, that’s who they were used against. The rule of law that was imposed by unionists is not acceptable, it is never acceptable.”
Chair. “But with Patten being 86% implemented now?”
Conor: “We have no problem with that. The only thing that I would have a problem with is that it is not an Irish police force, but we’ll live with what we have. Because that’s the reality of the situation. It keeps going back to the rule of law. The rule of law that you had is never coming back, it’s never coming back.”
Q.14: “On the education issue, I wonder why on one side the republicans want one form of education and the unionists want another, surely people want a balance? The other thing is will we stop shadow boxing? I’d say to Gregory and the Reverend Ian Paisley ‘just gets the gloves off, get in there, get together and sort the problems out.’
“You got the mandate yesterday from Gerry Adams, what he wants to do about policing. You don’t want him cutting his wrists. He’s gone so far, give him time to get the other part in. He has really gone down a long road and you have to give them credit. Give credit to all the politicians in the North …… The only problem I have with them is they’re not taking on their own communities. They are saying what the communities want them to hear. So you have to be a bit braver to get this thing up and running.”
Chair: “Sometimes I find it’s the other way about, to be quite honest. This is peace and stability, the way forward. One last question, and I’m going to ask the panellists to sum up if that’s ok.
Q.15: Rev John Clarke: “It’s been a little all over the place this evening and I think to see this shared future together we need to know exactly where we’re going two three, five years down the line. So, ever so briefly, we have four strong political parties present here this evening. Could you tell me please what is your vision for the peace process in the medium to long term? Could you tidy it up for me please – what is your vision for the future?”
Chair: “… As an NGO, a representative of Cooperation Ireland, originally Cooperation North, we’ve been working in Northern Ireland and indeed in all of Ireland since 1979 to try and develop practical cooperation. We wouldn’t have dared dream of the day that we’re in today 10 years ago. We wouldn’t have dared dream, when we sat around and still sit around at our staff meetings and our project meetings. I think where we have come to we can all give each other a pat on the back as long as we don’t get complacent about it. The vision for me as a parent and as someone who has been born and bred in Belfast, the vision for me is when I can sit in and discuss the things – my wife is from Newbridge, my uncle was shot dead by the IRA, and my cousin was shot dead by the UFF – when I can sit down and simply talk about sport…. I think the vision is when we can have a shared vision which is not bound by identity. When I can look at Gregory and I know and understand Gregory is British, I can look at Killian and understand he’s an Irish republican and so what? A shrug of the shoulders. It’s as much as that. It’s no more whether they support Liverpool or Dublin. It’s just another part of the personal side.
Questioner: “How is the administration going to work though? What type of administration are we going to have in Northern Ireland?…”
Chair: “There must be a cross-border dimension, I would say, to what degree and how that’s recognised in this structure. Let’s go from right to left, if that’s ok..”
Dominic Bradley: “I said in my initial presentation that our party obviously backs the Good Friday Agreement and I think that all parties have to a greater or lesser extent bought into that at that stage. The type of administration I want to see is a power-sharing administration. Now we’ve had glimpses in the past of that at work. Not all parties at that stage had entirely bought into it, but I think that that type of administration can work, and it’s really the best model of government for Northern Ireland under the circumstances which exist at the moment. I think that people on the ground, they want to see the Executive and the Assembly up and running, exercising the powers under the legislation rather than operating in shadow form. They want to see local politicians taking decisions about the issues which affect their daily lives. I would hope that we get to that situation in the short term rather than the long term. In the longer term, I would like to see that system of government bed down into a stable system. For the SDLP our long term aim is a united Ireland with the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement still in operation.”
Gregory Campbell: “I think, as in most things in 2007, the sharp edges of political outlook are being filed away. The sharp edges are coming off slowly but surely, and I can envisage if we get over the hump over the next whatever it is – six, three months – if we get over that I can envisage the first full term of any Assembly with all parties being there on the basis of what we’ve talked about. Having some considerable difficulties but managing through, muddling through some would say.
“But beyond that I can see it bedding down, and the outlook that I would have, and our party would have, would be a peaceful Northern Ireland that is gradually evolving, moving away from the generations … with power-sharing – that’s the practical reality of 2007 – and gradually becoming at peace with itself over a period of time, and hopefully within two or three generations, everyone would have settled for Northern Ireland within the UK being either British or Irish whatever they choose.”
Killian Forde: “….What I actually think is probably going to happen is I would be fairly confident that by the summer we’ll have something up and running and then I think it’ll probably get interesting. The way the St Andrew’s Agreement is set up is that effectively both sides – and please excuse me if anybody takes exception to be called a side – but both communities have a veto on each other and on any decisions made by the ministers. I imagine you are probably going to see a lot of shadow boxing for a start in people vetoing each other. I think that would probably be good to actually happen because I think what the end result of that is is that you will get a lot more cross-community support and cross-party support on various different proposals because it’ll be the only way it works. So I expect that the Assembly, as Gregory said, will muddle along very badly for a while, people will get frustrated, that frustration will be felt by politicians and effectively they will have to administer the Assembly.
“I’d like to see the strengthening of cross-border institutions, not just in terms of ones that exist now but also an outworking of them and a further integration of the 6 Counties within the Republic. And also then to work alongside in terms of the big vision stuff that the history gets in the way of, so to have that breathing space to go ‘look here we are, what do we want? How do we do it, what does everybody agree with, what does everybody disagree with?’ But with the comfort of not having violence associated with it which obviously raises tensions.”
James McKerrow: “This is the last of a series of elections which started in 1996 and I think it’s the decider; things go one way or the other. I believe it is going to go positively. The big advantage, once you have a devolved Assembly, is that direct rule will diminish considerably. We will stop having the politics of the nursery, we’ll stop having nanny there to separate the sides. Perhaps it has taken the two extreme parties to come to the fore to realise their responsibilities and, I have to say, to step up to them and take them and move things forward, because it has created a major consensus that perhaps we lacked previously. Because, let’s remember, Sinn Féin didn’t sign up to the Good Friday Agreement at the time and I’m not sure when or if they ever did, but they’ve certainly embraced it as the DUP have. I would be positive, I would say once the institutions are set up and running, reality will creep in, possibly a lot quicker than Gregory thinks. Because when you take the nanny out of the nursery, people have to get on together.”
Chair (Des Fegan): “I just want to thank our panelists, Dominic, Gregory, Killian and James, and a round of applause for the Meath Peace group for pulling this together.”
Closing words: Julitta Clancy: “On behalf of the Meath Peace Group I would like to say thanks to all the panel, and a special thanks to Des Fegan for filling in for Tony Kennedy (CEO Cooperation North) at extremely short notice. If anybody remembers the first time we had Sinn Fein and the DUP together – it was almost a year ago (talk no. 59, 27 March 2006) – and a lot of people felt it was quite a depressing night, a lot of things were said, a lot of emotions raised, and Jim Wells of the DUP said that he would have to think again about coming back to the Meath Peace Group … I think massive progress has been made over the last number of years and it’s great credit to the people of Northern Ireland particularly who have moved mountains and moved in the face of terrible adversity and terrible pain. So we just want to wish you well in the coming year particularly. … Issues like ‘identity’ – they come up in our schools all the time and we need to do our work down here – remember, only a year ago we had the February 25th riots in Dublin over the ‘Love Ulster’ parade. We don’t ever want to see that type of thing again. On a final note, somebody, was it Gregory or the Chair, mentioned the timeliness of this talk, coming just a day after the special Sinn Fein ard fheis on policing, I’d like to remind Gregory that when this talk was first mooted a few months ago, this date was actually given us by his office!”
Biographical notes on speakers
Gregory Campbell, MP, MLA, represents the Democratic Unionist Party in the East Londonderry constituency. He was first elected to Londonderry City Council in 1981 and has been the leader of the DUP group in the Council since 1981. He contested Assembly and Parliamentary elections on behalf of the DUP and was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in 1998 and again in 2003. He served as Regional Development Minister in the NI Executive from July 2000 to September 2001. In the 2001 Westminster elections he was elected Member of Parliament for East Londonderry. Before full-time politics he established a local publishing company which was designed to create greater awareness of Ulster history and tradition, especially the Ulster-Scots contribution to the United States of America. Gregory has also written a number of booklets on the question of discrimination against the Protestant community in Northern Ireland. His leisure interests are soccer, music and reading. Gregory previously addressed a Meath Peace Group talk in Dalgan Park on 18th November 2002 (MPG report no. 46).
Dominic Bradley is the SDLP Assembly Member for Newry and Armagh, and is Party Spokesperson on Education and the Irish Language. Born in Bessbrook, he is one of twelve children; his late parents, Willie and Sheila, met when they worked in the linen mill in Bessbrook. Dominic’ first taste of politics was as a fifteen year old participant in Civil Rights’ marches in Newry campaigning peacefully for ‘One Man One Vote’, for fair-play in housing allocation, for equal rights for all. Subsequently, after the formation of the SDLP, his first experience of electioneering was on behalf of Paddy O’Hanlon in Stormont elections. Dominic has been a member of the SDLP for almost twenty years. During that time he acted successfully as Director of Elections for Seamus Mallon M.P. and for the Party in the Newry and Mourne Council area. At present he is Chair of the Fews Branch and has represented the Party on Council and Community Committees. Dominic previously addressed a Meath Peace Group talk along with Minister Dermot Ahern and others on 25th February 2005 (MPG report no. 54)
Cllr. Killian Forde is Sinn Féin’s finance spokesperson on Dublin City Council. He joined Sinn Fein in 2000 having previously spent five years in the Balkans as an aid worker and later as a consultant with the United Nations. On returning to Ireland he studied first for a master’s degree at Trinity College and left to become a community worker with a local Travellers’ organization. In June 2004, he stood in the local elections and was elected for Donaghmede, having topped the poll with 3, 500 votes. In an interview with the Sunday Business Post shortly after the elections, Cllr Forde explained why he had joined the party: “I had no real republican connections and my family was not involved with Sinn Fein. Sinn Fein reflects my values and I believe in the vision of a united Ireland based on socialist values.”
Cllr. James McKerrow (UUP, North Down) was born and brought up on the edge of London, taking a degree in mechanical engineering and a Masters in Business Administration and Production Engineering. He came to live in North Down in 1973 to join Harland and Wolff and in 1976 he joined the Commercial and Marketing Department of Shorts, taking early retirement in 1998. James became a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1970, and the Chartered Institute of Marketing in 1980. Since then he has been involved in social work and has completed a degree at the Open University in economics and politics. He has been a member of the Ulster Unionist Party since 1995 and is the local Constituency Office Manager and Secretary of the North Down Association. He is also a member of the Ulster Unionist Council and serves on the Party’s Trade and Enterprise Committee. He was elected in 2005 to serve on North Down Borough Council for the first time. James is particularly interested in “constitutional settlement, law and order, education, and the interests of the older generation”.
Meath Peace Group report 64, 2007. ©Meath Peace Group
Taped by Judith Hamill, Oliver Ward and Jim Kealy
Transcribed by Catherine Clancy and edited by Julitta Clancy
Meath Peace Group Committee: Julitta and John Clancy, Batterstown; Anne Nolan, (Treasurer), Gernonstown; Rev. Canon John Clarke, Navan; Judith Hamill, Ross, Dunsany; Philomena Boylan-Stewart, Longwood; Olive Kelly, Lismullen; Leonie Rennicks, Ardbraccan, Navan; Vincent McDevitt, An Tobar, Ardbraccan
©Meath Peace Group (report no. 64)
©Meath Peace Group (report no. 64)
MEATH PEACE GROUP TALKS
No. 63 – “Towards a Shared Future”
Monday, 13th November 2006
St. Columban’s College, Dalgan Park, Navan, Co. Meath, at 8pm
Duncan Morrow
(CEO, Community Relations Council)
Esmond Birnie, MLA
(UUP, south Belfast)
Caroline Wilson
(Good Relations Officer, Belfast City Council)
Jeremy Gardiner
(Youthlink)
Chaired by
Dr Colin Coulter (Dept. of Sociology, NUI Maynooth)
Contents:
Welcome: Anne Nolan
Opening words: Colin Coulter (Chair)
Duncan Morrow
Esmond Birnie
Caroline Wilson
Jeremy Gardiner
Questions and comments
Closing Words: Canon John Clarke
Biographical notes
©Meath Peace Group
‘Towards a Shared Future’
“The overall aim of this policy is to establish, over time, a shared society defined by a culture of tolerance: a normal, civic society in which all individuals are considered as equals, where differences are resolved through dialogue in the public sphere and where all individuals are treated impartially. A society where there is equity, respect for diversity and recognition of our interdependence” (A Shared Future: Policy and strategic framework for good relations in Northern Ireland, Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, March 2005)
Welcome and introductions: Anne Nolan, a founder member of the Meath Peace Group, welcomed the speakers and the audience to Dalgan Park, before handing over to the guest chair, Dr Colin Coulter of the Dept of Sociology, NUI Maynooth …
Dr. Colin Coulter (NUI Maynooth):
‘Thanks very much. Can I just start by returning your thanks and I just want to express my appreciation for the opportunity to come and chair this evening’s talk on ‘A Shared Future’ and the possibility of a shared future for Northern Ireland. It is a very opportune time, it always seems to be an opportune time for these discussions in the context of Northern Ireland. There are a number of deadlines looming in Northern Irish politics, perhaps an influx of choreography towards what seems to be a pre-ordained end of, perhaps, a re-instalment of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Perhaps Esmond will have more insights into that later on.
“I think that when the original ceasefires were declared in late summer/early autumn of 1994, and certainly when the Good Friday Agreement was signed back in 1998, a lot of people were very hopeful for the future of the North of Ireland, particularly the future for community relations and so on. And certainly there are signs of progress in the North but unfortunately as ever there are also signs that things are moving in some context in the opposite direction. It’s sometimes hard to sum these things up and capture what’s really going on, but certainly some people are optimistic about the future and others are not. Certainly the assumed ‘peace dividend’ of what has been going on over the last generation in the North in some parts of working-class Belfast doesn’t seem to have come to fruition. The research of a former colleague of Duncan’s and a good friend of mine, Pete Shirlow, would suggest that in certain parts of the north and east of the city that what you might call sectarian feeling and hatreds not only haven’t evaporated … but if anything they appear to have hardened. Research by other people such as Paul Connolly in the North would suggest that sectarian recognitions and the beginnings of sectarian enmities begin perhaps as young as among 3 year olds….
“What perhaps I think is particularly depressing is that certain forms of ethno-nationalist sectarian feeling in the North seem to persist in certain areas, some people would say they have hardened. But what has happened of course more recently – and this has got rather lurid headlines that possibly over-stated the problem but it is I think unfortunately a problem – is that pre-existing traditional long-established forms of prejudice have been complemented by other forms of perhaps slightly newer prejudice in the form of racial intolerance. I’m sure many of you have seen those perhaps slightly hysterical headlines about Belfast being the sectarian capital of Europe. There’s been a number of these including a recent BBC NI ‘Spotlight’ documentary about this problem.
“So in the context of this political flux at the level of political elites, and in the context of ongoing enmities, stereotypes, on the ground, we are here to have this particular debate/discussion, sharing of ideas and so on, talking about a shared future for the North of Ireland. Some of you will have seen the document which has been presented from the Office of First Minister and Deputy First Minister which talks about the possibility of a shared future, not merely among Protestants and Catholics, but of course among the other ethnic groupings that exist in Northern Ireland.
“To put it in perhaps a slightly brief context, hopefully the rest of our speakers who have more experience of Northern Ireland – I have been very happily in exile in Co. Kildare for the last few years and I have enjoyed it very much, but of course one of the problems of living that distance, even a distance of 100 miles, you don’t necessarily have a feeling for what’s going on on the ground and obviously the four speakers here tonight will have more of a grasp of the nuance of things as they are lived day and daily in Northern Ireland than I certainly would.
“The first of our speakers – and I will introduce them in turn, everybody has been given biographical details of the four speakers so I won’t say too much about them [Editor’s note: biographies included at end of report]. But I just want to introduce our first speaker and he will speak for 15 to 20 minutes – Duncan Morrow. Duncan is an academic, a political scientist by training, and he has written particularly about issues of religious identity and religious intolerance in Northern Ireland and has been seconded as Chief Executive of the Community Relations Council….
1. Duncan Morrow (CEO, Community Relations Council)
“Thank you very much indeed, and thank you for inviting me. It’s always nice to come and speak to a new group. Julitta has been trying to get me to come here for a while and it’s good to take leave of your traditional routes if you’re from Northern Ireland every now and again, so thank you very much indeed.
“My name is Duncan Morrow, as Colin said. I am chief executive of a very unique organisation – I don’t know if it has any parallel – called the Community Relations Council which was established in 1990 as an attempt to try to engage a wide range of people across particularly Northern Irish society but it has always tried to reach past that in discussion as to how we might move forward on a collective and a shared basis. So our fundamental reason for being is to explore from a grassroots level what that might look like and what the specific issues might be, and we have a degree of finance and money which we put as far as possible to good use to promote and support people who are trying to do that kind of work.
“But recently, and really since I came into the job, our focus has been on how we ‘mainstream’ – that’s the word, the language, the jargon of the time – this whole idea of sharing. The Government – the British Government I suppose and I will talk about that at some point – in 2002 launched a strategy and a consultation to try to look at what this might look like in practice, and it was called ‘ A Shared Future’. And I suppose there was a certain kind of unforeseen beauty in the whole concept of what they were trying to talk about. In talking about a shared future the notion was to focus people on what kind of future are we going to have, some point of common interest, I suppose that’s the first point – that we all have a common interest in this future.
“And usefully – certainly for somebody whose organisation was up for grabs and we as an organisation were part of the review, so that was also important from my point of view of course but that is not really what I am here to talk about today – but this document did not have, or it missed out, a question mark. It simply stated it: ‘a shared future’.
“Now since then I have had various typos put my way in relation to this, one of which talked about a ‘shared failure’, another which talked about ‘a sharded future’, and then it had ‘scared future’ and ‘snared future’ since then, which basically starts to show how quickly you can move off track here.
“It was useful for me when we were going around trying to engage people in thinking about a shared future to avoid the possibility of a question mark, to actually put it as a statement, to say ‘we are here together, we live together, we have some interest in the future, the only question is what kind of future is that shared future going to be?’ And then to try and focus people on that.
“But I want to, at least here, and I do this a wee bit more in the North than I have been doing of late, focus the minds on the fact that in these kinds of situations a question mark is the backdrop against everything. A question mark about whether there is a shared future is the backdrop which comes out of decades, and even centuries if you want to go back, of conflict as the daily reality of people’s experience and certainly of division.
Mark of progress: “So the first thing I want to say is: to get to the point where a Shared Future has no question mark is of itself a remarkable achievement and as such possibly is still a sleight of hand, possibly is still a sleight of hand, although I hope not. But I want to at least set the backdrop of progress in terms of – first of all the absence of a question mark.
Perceptions of community relations: “I also want to say that ‘community relations’ – too often the work that I have been involved in is focused on good relations, nice talks. I did a piece of work before I went into this job where we asked people what they thought community relations actually was. Now first of all we got a whole load of people who expressed their political fears. Most of the unionists told us they thought it was an ill-disguised plot to rumble them into a united Ireland against their will, and most of the nationalists told us it was a British Government counter-insurgency strategy! But the most damning of all came from the civil service, a leading civil servant now retired – I won’t mention his name but he is retired and I’m sure his ghost still haunts the corridors – he told us that it was the ‘cucumber sandwiches of policy’ – nice people talking about nice things harmlessly. And you don’t even need teeth – you can take the crusts off.
“Now, the difficulty with all of this is, he is associating all this stuff with the soft end of work, and as soon as you are called ‘soft’ in government be very careful because you are on the slippery slope and a vast slippery slope towards oblivion. Because after soft comes ‘hopeless’, ‘harmless’ and then ‘meaningless’.
Community relations as ‘hard policy’: “Actually, in my view, this isn’t soft at all. It’s hard and harder. This is harder policy, and it’s harder policy because what you are trying to do is put two magnets with polarised opposites against each other together. You are trying to do policy which other people don’t have to do because they assume that the nation is a point of social cohesion. That’s the great language of our day – ‘social cohesion’, what brings us together. And the notion that most people have is that we’re all members of a nation. And the notion that Gordon Brown in Britain has is that Britishness will bring us all together. I have to say ‘try to apply that in the Falls Road and you will see’, but I also have to say that 1916 rerun by Bertie [Ahern] was the idea of social cohesion for the Irish Republic, and I have to say that ‘it doesn’t work on the Shankill Road either’. And we have a problem about what it is that is going to bring us together in this shared future. What is our point of social cohesion? What is the thing that joins us together?
“And I would also like to say that trying to make policy for this is therefore not soft – it is asking people to do what we don’t know how to do, it’s asking us to learn what we don’t know how to learn, which is: how do we trust people who it is rational for us to fear? And it’s rational on the basis of evidence… I don’t know about down here but up North there’s talk about ‘evidence-based policy-making’ and the evidence is not in favour of trusting them to share the future….
Expansion/expulsion:“A truth about Northern Ireland is that we have lived in a politics where the goals historically were expansion and/or expulsion. In other words: ‘we take over you but there’s no possibility of you taking over us, so we will expand and if necessary we will expel.’ Sharing sits for me at the opposite of the politics of both expansion and expulsion. If colonialism is expansion, then getting rid of them is expulsion. And at the end of it we have to decide when people say ‘is the war over?’ What the war being over means that the policy of expansion and expulsion are replaced… And that ask is huge, and it’s the one thing that the political traditions of this island find extremely difficult to both acknowledge that that’s at their heart and that that’s the problem, but also to row back from, or to find another space from.
“Because the antidote to their expulsion is our expansion and the antidote to their expansion is our expulsion. They’ve always been answers to each other. We have to find a different answer altogether if we are to move past it, and a shared future at the end of the day, taking off all the wrappings, is actually about saying something new has to happen here. But I don’t want to be here as Mr Naïve either, that’s why it’s hard and hard, not hard and soft, none of that is soft, not one bit of it is soft.
Zero sum game: ‘I think that to have lived in communities in Northern Ireland which have been at loggerheads is to grow up with the presumption and – a big academic word again here – antagonism. What does ‘antagonism’ mean? Antagonism means that our future depends on their defeat, it’s the so-called ‘zero sum game’. The zero sum game is: if I go up one, you have to go down one, if you go up one it means me going down one. Plus one minus one equals zero. That’s the notion of the zero sum game. Therefore antagonism is ‘if they go up, we’re going down, if we go up, then they go down’. And therefore the truth of it is that if antagonism and ‘they’re out to get us’ was not the lie… And huge amounts of violence over time, certainly of organised keeping apart, have been the story, and trauma of actual experience is in the middle of that. Sharing isn’t logical, to be honest. So in some sense or other being asked to share is already a big question.
Is it right to ask me to ‘share the future with my abuser’? “Number two: if you believe – as most of our communities appear to believe – that ‘we only did what we did because of what they did to us first’, in other words, we agree on who the problem in Northern Ireland is and it’s nearly always ‘them’, and if the problem is ‘them’, then they have to do the changing because they’re responsible. And we can’t change actually because if we do they’ll take it and it’ll be a further act of injustice. So if we are the abused community, if we are more sinned against than sinning – which is the line – then the logic, the imperative of it is that actually we the sinned against are being asked to make a deal with the sinners on the basis of equality and that’s not an appropriate equality. The peace we should be looking for is the victory of the sinned against over the sinners. And so it is fundamentally unjust to be asked, even to be asked, to deliver anything in this context. And I suppose – to modernise that up from sins and sinners into a less religious context – if we believe we are the abused, is it right to ask me to share the future with my abuser? Do we do that in child abuse cases, do we do that in rape cases? No we do not. And there are many who believe that their community is the abused one, is the sinned against, and that being asked is an ask too far.
“So I suppose the fact that it has taken 12 years to get from ceasefires to now – and we’re trying to do it on a voluntary basis – is hardly surprising. I’m going to take that and twist it around and say it is another reason for optimism. Another reason for optimism is that we have got further along this road than we dare hoped that we would ever get.
Hard conversations: “A lot of people think community relations is nice talking, and we are absolutely plagued with the notion that community relations is harmony. People think you come away with a nice feeling, that it is a kind of organised new-age thinking in which the main feeling is a kind of a spiritual glow.
“It’s not that at all. It’s under what circumstances can we have real conversations, so paradoxically it is about finding the spaces in which we can have the hardest and the most difficult conversations, not the lightest ones, not the easy ones. And progress is measured because more comes into the realm of the possible.
Massive progress: “There is simply no way to discuss paramilitarism and politics and policing in Northern Ireland without risking that these will be controversial issues. There is simply no way to deal with how we share government without there being difficult questions. And so, in my view, the fact that we now can is massive progress, massive progress. These are now things we don’t resolve in people being killed or walking out, they result in people taking the issues home and re-thinking them. Now I think that’s progress. But I have to tell you we haven’t made the click yet but we might be closer to the click than anywhere we have ever been before and we might be beginning to see the scale of the thing.
NI one of the best examples of ‘conflict management’: “Finally, British-Irish cooperation: we have had big advantages over a lot of different places and one of them is the fact that, over time, Britain and Ireland have ceased to be the enemies they once were. That has consequences I have to say. What it means is that in some sense or other, Northern Ireland is one of the best examples of conflict management anywhere in the world. … Basically, in 1920 when partition happened, anti-Britishness, anti-Irishness, was rampant across both of these islands and in some sense or other it got wrapped up and reduced and managed in the 6 Counties. The rest of Britain and the rest of Ireland moved away. They weren’t dragged into an everyday experience of violence and trauma. It was possible to go on. But Northern Ireland continued internally to have the same discussion, rolling round and round in a circle.
“In 1970, or 1969, when Britain and Ireland re-engaged in Northern Ireland, the British Government had lost India and they didn’t care about Ahoghill. The Irish Government thought about stopping standing idly by and then generally did stand idly by. In the end of the day, Northern Ireland was ‘The North’, it was a place apart, it was now a different place. But even since then – and this is to meet Colin’s point – even since then we have had an incredibly successful conflict management strategy. After 1975, 95% of the people who were killed in Northern Ireland were killed in 3 measurable groups: they were the poor in urban Belfast, particularly north and west, they were the people who lived in contested rural districts, mostly the border areas and mid-Ulster, and the security forces who by nature of their work went into those zones. After that the rest of us managed to live past it.
“Now the result of that is that unpacking this means that it is very discomfiting for people who were quite comfortable with the conflict. The truth is that the conflict as it was was expensive, financially, but it was only difficult at a once-removed way for Britain and Ireland, and then for the middle classes in Northern Ireland or those who were not directly affected. And so to be asked to change, if we’re asking everybody to change, it may be more uncomfortable than living the conflict with some other people paying.
“So conflict management is something which has worked, and I think has been a great success, I am here to say that it has been a success and that it has downsides because as we go into reverse on it, it may ask people who were comfortable to become uncomfortable, and that’s going to be a complicated and difficult process. And in some sense or other we are now at that point where everybody has to engage.
“I have two more things to say and one of them is about this document, you’ll be glad to hear!
Different world: “I suppose that we live in a different world now. The world is changing very rapidly. Not only are we getting migrants coming through the door at the most profound rate that Ireland has ever seen, we have moved as an island from being a place of emigration and poverty to a place now of migration and wealth, or seen as such.
“And that’s true even in Northern Ireland where 70,000 people have arrived since 2001. So the whole nature of the bipolarity of Northern Ireland begins to alter with that.
Western Europe: “But we have also other things. We live in western Europe and thankfully western Europe has two things: first of all, it’s an acknowledgment, I think, after World War I, that the wars of empire had stuck, and an acknowledgment after World War II that actually nationalism which doesn’t know its limits also must be stuck. And so Northern Ireland lives with those two advantages, that we do have specific pressure to find a deal which is not about expulsion and expansion.
“Antonio Gramsci who is an Italian Marxist wrote: ‘the crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born. In the interregnum – in that pause in between – a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.’ I think we are living in the time of the morbid symptoms. The old is gone, it still hasn’t any morbid symptoms, and the question is can we bring something new to birth here, in Northern Ireland?
Shared Future: “Let me go on quickly to talk about the Shared Future. ‘A Shared Future’ as a document was actually by the British Government. And there’s a set of paradoxes in all of that. The last Executive could not agree on a document to consult on, it was one of the things that after ten months of disagreement they had to leave on the shelf when the Executive collapsed. That is its own kind of tragedy. The British Government under Des Brown …. then pushed the document out, not this document but the consultation document, which has left a lot of people thinking that it is a British Government document but I certainly think that it is very important that the devolved executive would get its hands on it and agree what it is that people want although it was extremely widely consulted on. 10,000 people at least directly took part, through various submissions and written submissions and so on. It’s a huge consultation on a policy document. And the outcomes in it are here [document]
Vision for NI: “The document has a number of things I still want to hold to. One is the Government adopted the first Executive’s vision for Northern Ireland which is very very general and very high level and nevertheless needs to be clung on to, in my view: ‘ a peaceful, inclusive, prosperous, stable and fair society firmly founded on the achievement of reconciliation, tolerance and mutual trust and the protection and vindication of human rights for all to be founded on partnership, equality and mutual respect …’ That was something agreed by the parties prior to them collapsing.
Normal, civic society: “It then put in this second one which is: ‘the establishment over time of a normal, civic society in which all individuals are considered equal, where differences are resolved through dialogue and where all people are treated impartially, a society where there is equity, respect for diversity and a recognition of our interdependence.’
Recognition that change needed ‘at all levels and policy’: “So there’s all these high-faluting words. And nevertheless, the critical element of it for me is that government at some level or other bought in that this isn’t a work for NGOs just, this isn’t just a work for nice people at tea parties, this is the work which, if people are serious about a shared future, will require change at all levels and policy.
“And for the first time in a government document it starts to spell that out, and in spelling that out I suppose it starts to hit at vested interests and the reality that this will not be a quick process but a slow process of dialogue and recognition and exchange.
“It says housing, education, it says working on interfaces, it says the whole issue of flags and emblems, it says that planning and all sorts of other areas of public life like youth policy will all have to be considered now with what difference does it make that we are shared rather than that we are a defensive mutually antagonistic society?
Making trust credible: “How do we begin to build things now from a different point? If we take that as our starting point and that as our end goal, what would we do differently and how would we get there? And it starts to say this isn’t a 2-month, or even a 5-year agenda. This is about a direction, about turning a tanker, about beginning to take policy choices across the room all of which over time begin to add up to a different direction for Northern Ireland, on the basis of one thing: on the basis that – and I’m giving you this – that as we take these steps there may be another history begins to emerge, the history that trust is credible. Because the critical issue in moving from conflict management to conflict transformation is to make trust credible.
Conflict management and apartheid: “Because conflict management is extremely extremely plausible: just manage this, let’s have apartheid. Well let me just say very quickly why I think it won’t work. I don’t think you can have apartheid without having inter-community defence forces springing up to defend it, I think you can’t get over apartheid while not having what they call in the North ‘the pike in the thatch’, holding out the possibility that you might have to defend it.
Equality: “I also think that unless we have a common shared sense of mutual obligation to each other, equality will always look like a competition, not like something we give to each other as citizens.
Housing: “I also think that if you have apartheid you have inevitable sectarian clashes, around, for example, housing. If only some people can live in one area and some people can live in another, then what happens is that if more people want housing on one side and there’s empty houses on the other, then you have to negotiate change and that starts to look like territorial defeat rather than just adjustment to new demographics.
Poverty: “I think the reality of poverty is that if you have antagonistic communities continuing, the reality is not just does that create poverty but that poor people are people who live in the middle because everyone else gets out. If you have economic choices you don’t live beside the interfaces, and the reality is that violence causes poverty just as much as poverty causes violence. There is no way to get investment into those areas, there is no way to get educational purpose into those areas because as soon as you invest in it people leave. So conflict management which does not address this issue is simply another recipe for maintaining things as they are and it will continue to penalise the poor in my view. It lets off the rest. It has all sorts of labour market problems. The problem with management isn’t management. It’s done very well, but we can’t settle for it.
Task for a shared future: “So the task for a shared future is … can we make sharing plausible? And to make it plausible it has to be serious, and I don’t know if we are still at the point where we really really buy in that we have a shared future. Because fundamentally it is a decision and it is a decision not for strategic purposes, for tactical purposes, it’s an actual understanding that one way or another and in what other jurisdiction, the British-Irish question can’t be solved by expansion and expulsion any more in the North. It has to be solved by something else, whether under Ireland, whether under Britain or whether under any other jurisdiction. Thank you very much indeed.’
Colin Coulter: ‘Thank you very much, Duncan Morrow. Our second speaker is Esmond Birnie. Esmond was an economist in Queen’s University Belfast and since 1998 has been a member of the legislative assembly for the Ulster Unionist Party.
2. Esmond Birnie, MLA (UUP, south Belfast):
“Thank you very much for inviting me. I believe I was last here in 2000 I think and obviously over the last 5 to 6 six years quite a lot has happened.
“The theme is ‘A Shared Future’ as Duncan has been outlining, and I also want to talk about community relations and the policy in general. I certainly agree with Duncan that this is a matter of great significance. It is also clearly a difficult subject and there are no easy solutions.
“I will start by outlining what you might call my own perspective. I have lived in Northern Ireland for most of my life. I suppose like anyone who has – if we can use that phrase today – ‘patriotic feelings’ I do want what is best for the country I live in. All of my own children are under the age of five and I now have that added good reason to feel – as I think many people in Northern Ireland feel now – in the middle of the 2000s in terms of the experience of the Troubles since 1968, please never again. So how can we stabilise the relative peace that we have and indeed improve it and entrench it so that we do not repeat what happened between 1968 and more recent years?
Unionists and community relations: “I also obviously speak as a unionist. Now it is true I should say right from the start that the view of unionists such as myself on community relations has sometimes been criticised. I think Duncan was too polite to go into that but we have been criticised.
Perceptions of unionism: “It has been said, first of all in this context, that we lack political vision to help build or entrench the new society which, arguably, we should be striving for in Northern Ireland. Or it has been said: ‘well, if unionists do have a vision with respect to community relations and all of that, it is at best one of ‘leave us alone’, in other words it is said unionists such as myself that what we really want is an uncomplicated world where there are no Irish nationalists living in Northern Ireland and indeed there is no Dublin government south of the border to annoy us: ‘if only all these things would go away’. That’s the sort of caricature of the view that some unionists are alleged to have. Most seriously it is sometimes alleged that unionism cannot comprehend community relations, in a sense can’t even go to the first base in this, because it is argued that unionism is necessarily about dominance, about dominance of one sectarian grouping over another.
“Well, how do I evaluate all of that? It is sadly true, I think it is undoubtedly true, that some unionists do lack vision – but then that’s probably true of all political camps within Northern Ireland – and that some do hanker after some perceived past nirvana, maybe it’s the 1950s, I’m not sure what the decade is they would imagine, but some time in the past when they imagine that political life was much less complicated and indeed had far fewer compromises. And yet this lack of vision or narrowness of vision, I would submit to you, is not true of all unionists, it may be true of some.
It is also sadly true that some unionists are, I have to confess, bigoted, some are deeply sectarian and indeed – Colin was referring to this point about race attacks etc – some are indeed also racists. But then that would be true of some nationalists and republicans on both sides of the Irish border.
And none of this proves that unionism as an ideology is necessarily about ethnic or race supremacism. It’s precisely because I want UK – United Kingdom – rights for all that I personally am a unionist in Northern Ireland and I am proud of the United Kingdom’s essential nature as a multi-national multi-ethnic unit.
A Shared Future – essential elements: “But what of my vision as a unionist, and indeed as an Ulster Unionist member of the Northern Ireland Assembly regarding the shared future? Well I believe any shared future should include the following elements:
-
“A Northern Ireland that works, and that is true on a number of levels, obviously politically but also socially, and indeed – as both Colin and Duncan were referring to – there is the economic aspect which we have been devoting a lot of attention to over recent months.
-
“It should also be a Northern Ireland ‘at ease with itself’ to quote from a phrase from the former leader of my party, David Trimble. And part of being at ease, but not the only part of it, is a decisive end to terrorism and it has to be said we have not yet got completely to that point, as well as bring an end to the problem of the organised crime which is being spawned from the paramilitary groups. So it moved to a new franchise, from political violence to commercial threat and violence
-
“Whatever ultimate constitutional aspirations various people have, as part of a shared future I hope there will be some shared loyalty to Northern Ireland as a region or province, depending on what your preference is for nomenclature, which we have in common. And such loyalty can be part of the multiple identities which most individuals have, so within these islands I think it is rare for people to have single identities, people think of themselves as having a variety of different national and indeed regional and cultural identifications.
-
“I think there needs to be some working assumption that the constitutional status quo – what we currently have – is what we will work with as long as a majority so wish; that, after all, is part and parcel of the terms of the original 1998 Agreement and it hasn’t actually been changed by the subsequent semi-agreement – if it turns out to be an agreement – at St Andrew’s in Scotland last month.
“Now all the above has to be allied to the recognition that it would neither be in my view realistic or right to attempt to create some sort of bland ‘neutral homogenous identity’ within Northern Ireland.
Role of government – balance needed: “Regarding the role of government in all of this, I think a balance is needed. Government action, and indeed even on occasions legislation, can sometimes have a valuable role in signalling and therefore nudging society in the direction it should move. In other words, it can encourage social attitudes to shift, though I think fundamentally government cannot really change attitudes. And yet we do need to be very careful. World history in the 20th century demonstrates limits of social engineering and how attempts to build heaven on earth often lead in practice, as it were, to the other place being attained.
Lessons of history: “In any case a particular identity is very much part and parcel of who each of us are so it may well be that it’s simply morally wrong for governments to attempt to re-engineer individuals in such a radical manner. The 20th century historical record – using that again – in various European countries also shows that increases in social integration between, for example, ethnic and religious groups – which after all is what we are concerned about in the Northern Ireland context – are no guarantee that communal violence will not subsequently occur. Compare, for example, Tito’s Yugoslavia where there was considerable integration of Croats, Serbs and Muslims, and that did not stop the subsequent bloodbath that came about during the disintegration of Yugoslavia after 1991. The more positive way to look at the lessons of history, and indeed European history of the last 100 years, is to see that it is possible to have a somewhat pillarised society – ‘pillar’ as in door pillar – that is between the various confessional and sectarian groups in society and yet also have a peaceful society. Good examples of this were provided by Switzerland and the Netherlands between roughly the 1880s up until roughly the 1950s.
“By that stage secularisation would have somewhat but not entirely removed the former entrenchment of the pillars – Protestant, Catholic and indeed then also the non-religious socialist trade union pillar – in each of those continental countries.It might well be objected that we are not the same as those continental successfully pluralist societies. True, but in a sense that’s precisely my point, because any prospect of a shared future in this part of Europe – Northern Ireland, that is – has been undermined precisely because we have what is unusual relative to Switzerland and the Netherlands: a 4-decade or so terrorist campaign plus chronic instability between constitutional options.
“And I fear the latter, the instability regarding Northern Ireland’s constitutional destination, has not yet been removed.
Shared Future document: “To make some more detailed comments on the Government’s ‘A Shared Future’ document which was published in March 2005. Now there are some things in that document which I can agree with, and indeed my party can agree with, so I am only going to highlight a few areas – areas where my party and I have particular concerns.
Support for a shared society: “Page 4 of the document, one which Duncan didn’t quote, says: ‘there is overwhelming support for a shared and inclusive society’. I hope that is true but I have to wonder if everyone has the same understanding of what that society might entail.
Flags: “Then when it comes to actions through public policy, the first one to be mentioned in the document is the removal of – as it terms it – ‘visible manifestations of sectarianism and racism’. Particular stress is placed on flags flying in our streets etc. In the first instance there will be attempts, the document says, to remove these through local agreement. Failing that then the police will step in and try to bring the flags down. Now the document claims that two-thirds of people want to see paramilitary flags, i.e. flags relating to the IRA, UVF, UDA etc, removed. I would certainly support that. Like many others I find such flags, including those relating to the loyalist groups – some of which actually have in the past hung in the street where my house is – deeply offensive.
“The document does also note, and rightly so, that there is additionally a tradition of what it terms ‘popular flag flying’ in Northern Ireland. I assume that’s a reference to the flags and bunting that go up before the 12th July and so forth. I would add that whilst I do not think street lamp-posts should be changed into flagpoles – in that I am with the policy – it is, I believe, and my party would say, proper and right to have regulated flying of the national flag in Northern Ireland – which is the Union flag – from government buildings
Education: “A shared education, that’s another theme in the document. Now here the terminology used is, I believe, significant. It does note the existence of the so-called integrated school sector – about 5% of secondary level pupils at the moment – and yet it places, and I would say rightly so, most stress on attaining more integration within the existing school sectors be they State schools, Catholic Church schools or indeed now the growing Irish language school sector.
Higher education: “Now at one point, I wonder if the shared future document is being too complacent. It simply in a sense, it seems to me, assumes that higher education – that is the universities – are already highly integrated. And I wonder if we can take this for granted given that there has been for many years now differential migration between the two main communities in Northern Ireland at age 18. In practice, Protestant school leavers are much more likely to leave Northern Ireland to study at universities in England, Scotland and Wales. There are a variety of reasons for that but this is now being reflected in the student bodies of the two Northern Ireland universities – Queen’s Belfast where Colin and myself used to teach, and indeed the University of Ulster as well.
“There’s already in those two student bodies an increasing disproportionate Catholic composition of the student body, and it may well be getting towards the tipping point at which that becomes cumulative and self-reinforcing. I think that’s bad for community relations, and bad in a number of other social and economic and indeed political senses.
Sport: “I also wonder if the document was being more optimistic than realistic when it talked about the potential to use sport as a means of binding people together rather than dividing people.
Language: “Similarly, the document’s emphasis on so-called ‘language diversity’ – we would suggest that the UK Government sticks to its obligations under the European Charter for regional or minority languages with respect to the role of the Irish language and indeed the Ulster-Scots language in Northern Ireland.
“Any attempt to foist a level of bi-lingualism, or indeed even official tri-lingualism, which is not justified by the level of real demand amongst the population will, I believe, only divide our society further.
Constitutional status of NI: “Finally now, going back to the politics – because I think this will fundamentally determine whether the Shared Future policy actually works – the notion of a shared future only works if there is a party political consensus that the future to be shared is within Northern Ireland as it is. If however one section of the electorate – the 40% plus represented by Sinn Fein and indeed the SDLP – believes that the future is to be shared within a Northern Ireland which is being nudged out of the United Kingdom and into a so-called ‘united Ireland’, then the logic underpinning ‘A Shared Future’ strategy will unfortunately prove to be very dodgy indeed. Put bluntly, you cannot have a shared future against a background in which the political parties continue to squabble over the constitutional status of Northern Ireland.
“Now I do not wish to imply that the strategy is entirely wrong. Let me quote from one government minister in the Spring of this year (Lord Rooker): ‘by creating a culture which is both generous and co-operative, Northern Ireland will attract new investment, tourism and newcomers. The growing diversity of Northern Ireland is to be welcomed, not feared’. That view is entirely correct but my fear is that the Shared Future strategy in practice may represent on the part of Government a deliberate and long-term exercise in social and political engineering. It may be that the Government – or I should say the two governments, London and Dublin – are actually trying to create an environment in which an all-Ireland constitutional and economic framework is given preference over Northern Ireland which is unambiguously recognised as an integral part of the United Kingdom until such time as a majority of people freely express otherwise.
If that is the case, then it may transpire that the Shared Future strategy – for all its good intentions – will create rather than resolve problems. Thank you very much.”
Colin Coulter: “Thanks very much, Esmond. Our third speaker is Caroline Wilson who is working as a Good Relations Officer with Belfast City Council.”
3. Caroline Wilson (Good Relations Officer, Belfast City Council):
“Thank you very much for the invitation and for coming out this evening. I have worked with the City Council for three and a half years now on the Good Relations programme. Traditionally, community relations within local government, within district councils, has been fairly peripheral and, as Duncan alluded to, would have been seen as the soft end. A community relations officer in an unnamed district council a number of years ago – about 6 to 8 years ago – when she first started, she was told that one of the main things that she had to fund out of her quite restrictive budget was the Christmas lights. And she wondered ‘why would I fund Christmas lights?’
“And the answer back was ‘well because Protestants and Catholics both look at them and it kind of creates a feel-good factor in the city’! And that’s the way community relations may sometimes have been seen in local government.
Deaths from the Troubles: “Within Belfast, the kind of bleak picture that Colin talked about, Belfast would have suffered disproportionately in terms of the conflict. About 50% of the total deaths in Northern Ireland were located within the Greater Belfast Area, and of those about 80% happened within a kilometre of an interface wall or a peaceline. So the moral case for Belfast to look at what is a very lived experience for people is quite astounding, it’s in your face a lot of the day.
Segregated service delivery: “One of the effects of this has been a conflict management tool of segregated service delivery. Where Belfast City Council has delivered one community centre on one side of a wall, it has had to open another community centre on the other side of the wall. Similarly for leisure centres and for different workforces within the city.
“And this has been the way, right across the public sector, they dealt with the conflict. They segregated and lived with the reality of people living in segregated communities.
“So that’s the bleak picture.
Belfast City Council. “There are 51 members in Belfast City Council. 4 of them are members of the Alliance Party and they hold a balance within the Council. The other 2 groups would be fairly evenly split: I think it is about 25/24 between the unionist parties and the nationalist/republican parties. In 2001, Belfast City Council decided to make promoting good relations a corporate objective. And promoting good relations looks primarily at good relations between people of different political and religious beliefs and different ethnic backgrounds.
“S. 75 was a piece of legislation which came out of the Northern Ireland Act in 1998, out of the Good Friday Agreement, and that brought a new impetus to good relations, really trying to move it away from the softer end and moving it into the harder issues.
“One of the things about Good Relations within Belfast City Council is that it’s both internal and external. It’s not something that the Council does on to the community, it’s something that the Council is challenged internally to do. How does it promote good relations within the building as well as out of the building?
Steering panel: “Some of the things the City Council has engaged in. They set up a Good Relations Steering Panel which is unique within the City Council committee structure, and it is 6 elected members from each of the different party political groups in the Council as well as 12 civic representatives. And it’s a semi-private space within the Council, to really start to talk through some of the more sensitive issues. My boss would talk about the ‘too difficult’ tray. For many years in Belfast City Council many things were filed in the ‘too difficult’ tray. We couldn’t go there because it would end up in an argument in the Council chamber. So the Good Relations Steering Panel is a place to start to work through some of the issues, particularly around flags and symbolism and cultural celebrations in the city.
St Patrick’s Day: “One of the pieces of work that we have been involved in has been the St Patrick’s Day celebrations in the city which traditionally have been fairly controversial over whether we should fund them or not. So through various discussions with the communities, with the political groups, we were able this year – for the first time in a number of years – to fund an outdoor festival event. And that really sends out a very big symbol of hope for the city.
“There were still difficulties, I mean there were still a small number of tricolours flying and there were still people who felt that they couldn’t participate, there were still some issues around anti-social behaviour, but it was a massive step forward for the city
Bonfires: “Similarly this year I worked on the Bonfires project in Belfast. Each Eleventh Night, the 11th of July, a number of bonfires across the city would be lit as part of the Twelfth celebrations. And these have often included paramilitary symbolism, they have included the burning of the Irish tricolour. One of the good things that we have managed to do through engaging with communities is to say ‘why is it necessary to burn the Irish tricolour? What needs to change in the city for that not to be important any more?’ And it is a very different conversation, we are not in any sort of solution yet, but at least it is being spoken about and that’s for me a symbol of hope.
Suffolk/Lenadoon project: “Some of the other things that we would fund within the city are a number of community projects. One of the projects is at Suffolk and Lenadoon. It’s a project where a very small Protestant/unionist enclave [Suffolk] of about 600 families, with Lenadoon which would be a large Catholic/nationalist community across the road, and between them they have managed, through some very difficult times, to negotiate a shared space at the interface.
“They have interface workers on both sides, in both communities, trying to develop a sense of citizenship within the communities but also a sense of shared citizenship. They have a building now that has a number of shops in it, they have a café which both communities use, they have entrances into both communities so neither community has to walk into what they consider to be not their territory, and it is a meeting place which is really very important in a city where there are few meeting places.
North Belfast forum: “We have another project in North Belfast called the North Belfast Conflict Transformation Forum. They are a group of community activists from both sides of the interfaces in the north of the city and, as Duncan and Colin both said, north of the city was again disproportionately affected. And these are people who have contact particularly at times of tension to work across the interface and to communicate with one another and to look at ways of trying to reduce levels of tension and reduce incidents at the interface. They are now looking at a more pro-active role: rather than just managing conflict and fire-fighting conflict they are looking at how do we start preventing conflict in the first place? What work needs to be done with young people in those communities? What work needs to be done with the broader communities, the adult community because often – I’m sure Jeremy will talk about this – often times it’s all about young people and it’s really a question of asking ourselves as adults ‘what is it that I have to do to change things?’ So the North Belfast Conflict Transformation Forum is doing that sort of work. One of the interesting things is that they have really challenged the statutory sector in how they engage in the north of the city and how as a statutory sector they, in some way, leave the status quo as it is in terms of segregation and in some ways reinforce the segregation. So it has been a very interesting dialogue between the statutory sector and this group of community activists, looking at what a Good Relations strategy for the north of the city would be: what are the agreed points around economic regeneration, environmental regeneration and the youth strategies?
Belfast City Hall: “Within City Hall, one of the things we looked at is the memorabilia in City Hall. We had a group of experts who came in to City Hall and they looked around and they said that predominantly the symbolism within City Hall was ‘white, male, unionist and middle class’. But one of the key things in changing the City Hall was that to take anything away, some people would feel a sense of loss. And it was important to guard against that, that people needed not to start feeling that they had to defend their right to be symbolised within the city institution. Equally, there needed to be a place for people who were not represented within that symbolism. So, between the party groups there was a lot of discussion about how we could address that. And it goes to Duncan’s idea of zero sum – if you win something what am I losing?
“So the strategy they came up with was balancing up: that no symbolism within City Hall would be removed but new symbolism would be introduced. So one of the recent statues that was put in, was a bust of Mary Anne McCracken. And looking at what has been the untold history of Belfast in terms of her work with women, with young people, with the working class in the city.
“So that is the challenge internally to City Council.
Need to learn how to share: “The Chief Executive of Belfast City Council is very supportive of good relations, and he would often say that 80% of decisions within Belfast City Council are taken without a vote between all of the parties yet it is the other 20% that we see in the media. And it’s really about building that consensus and building the civic leadership within the city. We have to learn how to share, it is new.
“We don’t know what sharing feels like but it will be a progress over time. And it’s about keeping the faith, and knowing what is safe. As City Council we can’t suddenly say ‘right, there’s going to be one leisure centre and everybody’s got to share it.’ It’s about developing a dialogue around how do you make it safe enough for people to share, how do you take into account people’s very real lived experiences in the city, and what we hope to be a new shared future for the city. So it’s bringing it to the surface and talking about it.
Legacy of conflict: “I suppose there are a couple of challenges for the city in terms of a shared future. One is the very real legacies of conflict – in terms of trans-generational trauma of young people, children and young people who have not had any direct experience of the conflict but who are displaying signs of the stress of conflict, people who have very flawed relationships because of the context within which we have lived.
Territoriality and new communities: “And that includes territoriality. If it’s ok to say ‘this is my area and I will expel anybody out of this area if they do not belong to my group’ where do the new Polish migrants live, where do the new Lithuanian migrants live in the city of Belfast? Belfast needs those new communities to rebuild the city and really bring it into the future. So that’s a key issue.
Shared space: “We also have issues around securing shared spaces in the city. What does a shared space look like? Is it neutral, is it devoid of any symbolism, is it harmonious because nobody feels offended by anything? Or how do we start to introduce symbolism where people feel that they can belong and they are not unwelcome at best, and under threat at worst, in a particular area because of the symbolism?
Separation not sustainable: “Finally, the key message of a shared future is that separation is not sustainable. And whether that is in terms of the new Europe or whether that is economically, Belfast City cannot survive as a segregated city. But the challenge is how do we learn to share? And enabling that process requires political leadership, it also requires community support. And I think it is a collective task for the city of Belfast.
Hope for the future: “But in terms of a bleak picture, Colin, I would be very hopeful about some of the work that is going on, both within the Council and very definitely within the community. This summer was the most peaceful summer for many many years and that did not happen on its own. That happened with an extraordinary amount of work, at 3am in the morning, with people going out on the streets and making sure the summer was peaceful. And my hope is that the City Council takes that on board and together we can build a shared future for the city of Belfast. Thank you.”
Colin Coulter: “Thank you. Our final speaker is Jeremy Gardiner who is community relations development officer for Youthlink which represents the four main Christian churches in the North.”
4. Jeremy Gardiner (Community Relations Development Officer, Youthlink):
“Hi, now the heavyweights are over you get me to lighten it at the end – and I don’t mean by weight! I’m Jeremy and I am a youth worker in Belfast.
Ballymena: “Just to give you a little background about Ballymena – I worked in Ballymena for the last two years as a youth pastor in a Presbyterian church. I am just going to give you a little background about what my work involved there in the last two years obviously in regard to a shared future. Ballymena is predominantly Protestant: the split is roughly about 70:30. In the past few years it has largely been unaffected by the Troubles which has actually made it a town which has never had to ask the questions in regard to community relations work. In fact, to be honest with you, the loyalist community within Ballymena don’t even recognise that it is a shared space. They see it as Protestant, and when you have to work in that that’s quite difficult for moving forward.
Catholic community a ‘community without a voice’:“As Duncan said – and when he said it he actually put a light on – Ballymena has been comfortable in the conflict that it has engaged in for the past 30 years because it has never had to ask the questions. In regard to the Catholic community, the 30%, it really has been a community without a voice.
“And I remember talking to one of the parishioners from a Catholic church there and they said: ‘when it comes to July what we do is we put our heads down and don’t even say anything’. That’s the environment they live in, they didn’t want to put their heads above the parapet because they were just so afraid of getting it shot off or whatever. This is reflected in regard to the Council within Ballymena. The Catholic community don’t have a lot of representation. They have a few in regard to SDLP and one Sinn Fein councillor. But it’s predominantly DUP, it’s predominantly Protestant. They don’t have a lot of representation with regard to the town itself.
Dissident republicans and identity issues: “Over the last 4 years, Ballymena has seen an influx of dissident IRA republicans which has brought its own problems. Last summer, the summer of 2005, Ballymena had its first republican march in the town which definitely brought out a lot of contentious issues in regard to the loyalist community. Even to the Protestant community they didn’t know, it was a very contentious time. The actual march went off quite well but there was a bit of reaction which I will tell you about later. I think the dissident IRA, or the dissident republicans who have moved into Ballymena at this stage, are really trying to find a voice for the Catholic community which hasn’t had a voice in the past 30 years. That’s creating tension. It’s creating loyalists trying to find identity in their town again and trying to work out who they are. So there’s a lot of identity issues going on there within the loyalist communities and Protestant communities.
Harryville chapel graffiti: “In regard to my work, I worked in a church called High Kirk Presbyterian up until about a month ago which is in Ballymena itself, I was a youth pastor there. And over the last two years of working within Ballymena I obtained a few nicknames particularly within the loyalist community. Some of them I’ll not be able to tell you but one specifically – I am known as the ‘chapel cleaner’. I don’t know if you remember, it was in the summer of 2005, in July, there was some graffitti written on the Harryville chapel – I am sure you all know of Harryville chapel, a Catholic church within a loyalist estate – and there was some graffiti written on the church and myself and a few other people out of our church decided to go down and clean the doors of the church. So that was a Protestant church reaching out to a Catholic church within Ballymena. And if I had known how contentious that would be, I don’t know if I would have done it, I have to be honest with you, because it was such a contentious issue. And the area of Harryville was so contentious that it sparked a whole discussion.
“And one of the things that came out of that was, particularly within the Christian community, the church-going community, it really engaged them. They asked questions specifically around the issue of sectarianism. And one of the things that came out was that within Ballymena sectarianism is not just rooted within the loyalist, within the working-class communities. We have a mindset that it is. But specifically within Ballymena, it’s in the middle class upper communities. Sectarianism can be dressed in suits. And that’s what we really found from this. I had a number of people come to me who go to church and whatever else and they said to me ‘we will never forget you for what you have done’. When you are working with that in that community, it’s quite unique. How do you say something like that and hold Christianity hand in hand? I don’t know.
“But that’s the real community in which we live, and that’s what Ballymena is.
Shared future: “In regard to a shared future, as Duncan said, when I think about this and read it, it’s almost an impossible task when you consider the uniqueness of areas, specifically like Ballymena.
“And it’s not a one-size-fits-all strategy. It is a strategy that is going to need to find local solutions to local problems, it’s going to need to find community leaders coming together, church leaders coming together, the police and Council members coming together and trying to find solutions to the problems within the local community. That’s how this is going to play out. The unfortunate thing about it is is that everyone has to buy into it. It’s not just one person, we are all going to have to buy into it.
“And when I think about Northern Ireland, with what’s happening politically and everything else, I really see that we have an opportunity. Some people say to me: ‘you must be really devastated working within that community and having to go through those types of things, and those types of comments that are made about you’. And I have to say that I’m not, I am actually quite positive about it because at the end of the day we have an opportunity. Northern Ireland is changing whether you like it or not, and people are going to have to change, and the demographic change in Northern Ireland, the way it is happening, is forcing people to mentally change. And I think that’s a good thing.
“So right now there’s an opportunity for that to happen. And I think that how this is going to actually physically play out is that for everybody to engage with it and not just use the words ‘tolerance’ and ‘mutual respect’ as buzzwords at conferences like this, but actually that they become words that describe the communities and towns in which we live. I think that’s what we are aiming for when it comes to a shared future. Thank you.”
QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS [summary of main points]
Q.1.Gerry (Belfast): ‘A few questions: 1) “In the Northern Ireland context what would define resistance – to policing and the problems of policing? 2) Is there a possibility that the armed struggle and the resistance which we have suffered over the last 35 years has now produced so-called ‘political heroes’? A question for the panel. 3) How much longer do we have to suffer this indignity in this robust statement about the ‘two communities’? I just think there is only one community. 4) Is there a possibility that religious leadership has fallen behind the political leadership in Northern Ireland, because …. no matter what happens there is no condemnation or criticism from the churches for any of the recent atrocities. 5) Has the Chief Constable betrayed the people of Northern Ireland by his appeasement and playing to Sinn Fein regarding policing? Thank you.”
Colin Coulter: “Duncan, do you want to start us off? There are half a dozen questions there, so maybe you want to just try and blend them together in some way?
Duncan Morrow: “A very complicated set of questions and I hope I will do justice to them.
Two communities: “I will start with the question of one, two or six or eight communities. It depends in what sense you are talking. In one sense or another the entire population of Northern Ireland lives in Northern Ireland and therefore is a community. Part of the difficulty we have had politically is that it has split those who were happy with that and those who were not, and that had profound political and social results because people lived so close together, people went to school together. So it is almost as if we live in this world in which what you mean by Northern Ireland depends on where you lived and who you were and of course that is all then splintered down by locality, by class, by all these different things. You can say that there are lots of exceptions to this, but one of the persistent facts about Northern Ireland is that politics created two political groups/tribes/communities within which the question was the very profound one ‘to be or not to be?’ and that was not the basis of the division anywhere else on these islands. It really wasn’t.
“There was never that depth of a discussion and once violence [erupts]… you have got into a place which was: “we can’t actually live beside these people or we won’t actually live beside them”. It was whatever combination of that ‘can’t and won’t’. It starts to feel like you are living in separate places, the thing you need to know is: is he one of them or one of us? So…you can say historically it is one political community divided into a “them” and “us”, or two political communities sharing the same space. …..
“Re Peter Shirlow’s book – he didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know before. He interprets it depressingly, I think…. But the point is that he is now seeing something else happening which is that there are working class poor people left behind deeply divided and middle class people forgetting about them.
“Another way of looking at what has happened in Northern Ireland is that the outcome in practical terms on a day-to-day basis is you are either in or you are not. …That is certainly true if you look at what is occurring in some of the urban areas. The way you live life in the city of Belfast now depends very much on your economic and class position, because the working class are stuck in the middle of it and the middle classes are walking away.
Colin Coulter: “What about Peter’s arguments … re rising house prices, which would be very familiar of course in this part of the world?
Duncan Morrow: “Somebody said to me in terms of house prices … that house prices are now rising so fast that what will really change is that the middle classes will have to buy houses on interfaces because it is all it is left with and that is what is going to transform us! Now, that may be true but I don’t know. I have to look at the economics of it.
Political heroes and criminals: “… I think that the reality of a divided society is that history turns into a story you tell yourself, and it is the story of all the awful things that happened to us and all the things that we did to defend ourselves. And at various levels of distance to that, heroes – the same people who would be more or less our heroes are the same people who are regarded as criminals on the other side. That is a real big problem that is happening now, because another thing that is emerging is as people memorialise the past, then that is becoming a way of physically locating community and territorialism even deeper than it ever was before.
Policing: “But one of the issues around policing, I suppose the big question around policing – and I totally accept the thrust of Esmond’s point which is that without an agreed behavioural code, without the rule of law, you cannot move forward here …. but we also need to move into institutions and policing which are owned by everyone and to which everyone buys in. So I think the key question is not whether Sinn Fein comes in. I very much hope they do, but the price that everybody pays to get there, that at the end of it, we have a really clear legal order, which then binds us all. So for me, the question is that engagement itself is not appeasement. The core question of bringing people in and finding a way to create a new law in fact is certainly a critical core to any possibility of a shared future, because we have to know the basis in which we meet each other.
Esmond Birnie: “Thank you for those questions. I am also going to have to struggle in a sense that there are a lot of strands interwoven there. How many communities? It is certainly clear it isn’t a simple bipolar Protestant/Catholic, unionist/nationalist structure. Arguably it was never as simple as that and certainly it isn’t as simple as that now, because of the growing and in many ways welcome increase in ethnic diversity of Northern Ireland, following migrant worker, immigration and a number of other changes.
Justification of violence: “You refer to the creation of heroes and I think that is an important point. If we are now moving from what was sadly a ‘shooting war’ we may now be in the phase of our politics where it is going to be a war of arguments and of course in some ways that is better because at least people aren’t being killed. But the war of argument will be very much about to what extent was the violence – both from a republican and from a loyalist source – to what extent was it justified.
“As somebody who believes very strongly in institutional and entirely democratic politics, I think it is very important that this debate …. is won by the side which will argue that the violence was never justified, but of course many people in the IRA and Sinn Fein and the loyalist movements will if only to try and psychologically maintain their self-esteem now, they are going to have to try and argue very desperately that what they did can’t be rationalised, almost as some sort of “just war” scenario. So that is a debate we have started to have and we will carry on having.
Churches: “The point about the leadership of the main churches, if I understood you, were you saying that they didn’t do enough to condemn. Is that what you were asking or stating?
Questioner (Gerry): “In the last two months there were three murders. Two of those were committed by migrant workers and the third one was obviously local … but we have had no condemnation, nothing, no support for any of the families. The churches have condemned sectarian but not race-related killings.
Esmond Birnie: “I am glad you said that because I didn’t really understand the point you were making. You are saying that whereas during the periods of the so-called ‘Troubles’ – which hopefully we are moving beyond (though there have been killings by the paramilitaries in the last year) – you are saying they were condemned but now that we have race related killings, they are not. I am not sure what the factual position is. It is quite possible that church leaders have made statements either at the province-wide level or indeed at the local level and the media has simply not covered that. This is an occupational hazard which politicians are also familiar with. You are often criticised for not speaking out about something and then you say to somebody, ‘well here are my press releases! There is a telephone book thickness of them!’ The number actually covered by any newspapers, often you know it is a tiny fraction. But I am sure you are right. More could be done. We are all moved by the concrete example given by Jeremy.
….Civic society groups and the political parties haven’t always done enough.
Policing: “Finally, your point about policing and the Chief Constable, Hugh Orde. My assessment for what it is worth is that Sinn Fein will join the Policing Board. It’s only a question of timing and obviously they are playing a game – just as to some extent the DUP are doing from their point of view in a different direction – to get the maximum reward for playing their final chips or cards into the game, the political game. Given that they are going to join anyway, certainly as you might expect from a unionist background, I would be very reluctant to see further concessions made. My view is that the Patten reforms, both good and bad, should be the line drawn under the reform of policing, except for any obvious managerial, efficiency and administrative changes which should happen from time to time. … I think everybody in Northern Ireland – like I am sure many people here in the Republic – have a deep worry about rising levels of crime. That should be an issue that the Chief Constable and other senior policing people need to address urgently. Thank you.
Jeremy Gardiner: “In regard to the churches’ involvement, I can only talk about it from my own perspective within the local Ballymena area, specifically about Shirley Finley who was the girl who was killed. A Polish guy has been charged with that in recent days. We were involved in that as a church. There were a number of churches involved in that and of speaking out in a local capacity but also helping with her father and foster mother and stuff like that.
“So we definitely had contact there. So maybe it has not reached national press but it has actually been said at some level. That is really all I can speak for.
Policing: “In regard to the policing aspect, I shouldn’t really speak about this as a church person. But I think we are going to have real problems in regard to policing because we have put it out that it is just Sinn Fein and republicanism that are the ones with the issue. But I think loyalism has also an issue with policing which is going to play out at a community level because they don’t trust them and that is the fact.
“I think the issue – what was said earlier about trust being credible – I think that is really what is going to happen. Hopefully, the new development announced today on the news in regard to community officers etc, maybe that is a way forward, I don’t know.
Colin Coulter: “It is quite startling to look at the Police Ombusdwoman’s report, the one that came out during the summer. There were substantially more complaints from people from unionist backgrounds than nationalist backgrounds. ….
Caroline Wilson: “In terms of the two communities I would like to just reiterate what Duncan said. Belfast City Council has to draft a good relations plan for the city under A Shared Future. One of the ideals that all of the parties have agreed on is this notion of a shared city which is moving beyond the two communities model. However that has to be balanced as well with people’s need for safety and what their experience of living in the city has been. It has not been a shared city. So it has to be done sensitively and it requires a change within civic leaders to start talking beyond the two communities model. One of the things that interests me about the ‘newcomers’ to the city of Belfast is that we have lots of groups who want to talk about racism now and they don’t want to talk about sectarianism because they see that as completely different, completely separate. Nor do they want to talk about travellers, because they see that again as completely different, completely separate to racism. So I am cautious as to how the new communities within Belfast are going to be the dynamic for change. Ultimately the root of sectarianism and the root of racism is the same. We have to address those whether it is about our Protestant neighbours or whether it is about our travelling neighbours.
Political heroes: “In terms of political heroes, I think this is just part of a conflict transformation process. In one of the projects that we supported recently, there was great discussion about an invitation being issued to an individual who had served time as an IRA bomber. It stimulated great discussion where people felt that he should not be invited whereas other people were saying, ‘well, he is a representative of a festival committee and therefore is a legitimate person to receive an invitation.’ I suppose for me it is a process of dialogue – that both of those feelings are valid within different communities and it is about enabling dialogue on that very, very sensitive issue.
Churches: “As for the churches, maybe at the visible level they haven’t been seen enough. But within the city there are innumerable projects where the churches have been involved in a very grassroots level building good relations. Maybe it isn’t as vocal as it should be and it may be because as Esmond said, it is just not picked up in the media. But some of the work has gone on in the Good Relations steering panel where we have representatives of the four main churches. Some of the work that goes on in local communities where they are working to rebuild relationships within communities, that is again all a process. …
Policing: “Going back to what Jeremy was saying, one of the projects that we have funded in the north of the city is looking at rebuilding relationships between loyalist young people and the police. It is a very gradual process and people are depositing this dilemma around policing with republican nationalists and it is also very, very alive within loyalist communities in Belfast.
Q.2. Arthur (Trim): “Assuming that there will be a settlement, we all hope there will be, will the Orange Order gel with the then situation? We hear very little lately since Drumcree quietened down. Will they gel with the new situation, or will they join with the Ancient Order of Hibernians and all march together?
Colin Coulter: “Can we have another couple of questions?
Q.3 Paul (Dunshaughlin): “I found your discussion very interesting, the points that were made, and thought-provoking. A couple of things came across. One is the concept of social engineering. It seems to be almost abhorrent to members of the panel, yet it strikes me that every law that every government ever produces before the statute books is an attempt at social engineering as they attempt to modify our behaviour when we are not free to modify it ourselves. I am wondering has the panel considered maybe a more aggressive way of considered social engineering/legislature programme to make it possible for people to have an environment where they can integrate? There is social precedence for this in the southern states [USA] where the Federal Government imposed conditions on federal money for housing projects unless they were on integrated projects and it has taken a long time. It does work.
“The second thing that I have thought about, what Duncan said earlier on, he described the alienation of the working class people and the poor people because they are not seeing the peace dividend and I just wondered, looking at the political structure today compared to what it was at the time the peace process was initiated, have the politicians in some way fed into that? Because we have seen the extremes of loyalism and republicanism where they have always tended to the extreme whether it is the DUP or Sinn Fein. The losers have been the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP …..Somebody else said, ‘well if the Shinners get something we will get something in place of that.’ It is playing into the extremist’s view. It would be interesting to hear your comments.
Colin Coulter: “Can we get a third one in there? We can run back in the opposite direction through the panel. Is there another? Anything else that anybody wants to ask?
Q.4. Geraldine Horgan (Dunsany) “I would be interested in hearing a little but about how Caroline and Duncan have worked together if at all.
Duncan Morrow: “Yes we work together!
Geraldine: “It strikes me that both of you are working on the same kind of issues and I would just be interested in hearing something about that.
Colin Coulter: “Ok thanks very much. We will start at the opposite end, alright?
Caroline Wilson: “In regard to social engineering, somebody accused me once of being a social engineer and I said, ‘yes, if it means engineering this society out of what it has been, then I am a social engineer and proud’. In terms of behaviours and attitudes – this is a kind of ongoing tension particularly within the City Council regarding the training and learning strategy we are looking at for all staff members. The underpinning question is what right does the Council have to change people who happen to work for them, to change their attitude? I suppose our starting point is about changing behaviour. If the behaviour is contrary to good relations then we will engage in training around that. I suppose we don’t have a right to change attitudes. My personal, individual hope would be that if the training is good enough it will ask people to reflect on their own attitudes and prejudices. But as a public authority we don’t have that responsibility. Politicians – that would be a P45 if I were to answer that question about politicians! … Politicians are often blamed as the reason that we have a segregated city. That simply is not true.
“Politicians do have a civic leadership responsibility. They are also of the community and of the city. They live amongst their constituents on a day on day basis. So I have a great deal of respect for politicians within the Council.
Community Relations Council: “In terms of the work that Duncan and I do together, Duncan sits on the Good Relations steering panel and the Community Relations Council would have been instrumental in a lot of the changes that Belfast City Council has gone through. The support in terms of policy development, the support in terms of additional funding – the work that we did with bonfires was funded through the Community Relations Council.
“A lot of the private dialogue work that I have just spoken about in terms of cultural symbolism, Duncan has had a key role in facilitating some of the dialogue that we have done. At the moment we are dialoguing about parading in the city. The loyal order parading in the city is one of the key community relations issues for the city. The Good Relations steering panel at the moment is doing some kind of ‘Chatham House’ discussions around what are the principles of cultural symbolism in the city. So, absolutely, the Community Relations Council has been key to our progress.
Jeremy Gardiner: “In regard to social engineering, I think it would be mad to think that it doesn’t happen. Even in regard to integrated education, it was a response wasn’t it? Even now in education, it has brought in citizenship as a programme that everybody in school has to go through, active citizenship. So politicians and everybody are responding and in a sense socially engineering what the outcomes going to ultimately be.
In Ballymena, because of the Michael McIlveen situation that happened earlier on this year, the nine post-primary schools, the headmasters and headmistresses of the schools, have come together to work together in collaborative learning specifically with fourth years. They share on cross-community issues and sectarianism, leadership, stuff like that. So again that is an element of social engineering.
In regard to the working class not seeing the dividends of the peace, I agree with that. There is no doubt about that. I know there is the issue in North Belfast right now – nine or ten guys who got issued with punishment beatings…. We were speaking to Fr. Troy about it. Again it is local issues. I go back to the coalface: local solutions to local problems. It is the only way forward in regard to community relations. It is not a ‘one size fits all’ strategy and unless we engage with the local issues, then we are not actually going to come up with local solutions to the problems.
Esmond Birnie: “I think there were two questions there. One about Orange marches, parades and the parades generally, and the other about social engineering. I should say to start off with that I am neither an Orangeman nor a member of the AOH. It would be an interesting solution if the two merged, but it’s not going to happen. That might be the sort of bland homogenisation policy which I don’t think anybody here is ultimately recommending and it won’t happen in any case. The figures – there are 3,000 parades every year in Northern Ireland of which roughly 1% are contentious. That is 30 out of 3,000! But of course those 30 cause great problems, and you referred to Drumcree which remains a running sore. What I would say is that the shared future which we should aim for – part of it should be that the public space which obviously should include roads should be available within certain broad limits for those who wish to express their civil and religious liberties by parading. Now it may seem a pretty quaint tradition to those who are not from that background. But those who are involved with it say that is part and parcel of who they are and indeed of ultimately their personal and religious identity. So there should be literally and metaphorically space for that.
Rights come with responsibilities: “But of course with rights in a properly functioning society come responsibilities. There are responsibilities on the Orange Order and I would not be uncritical of the policies they have adopted over the last dozen years or perhaps even before that, but notably over the last ten or so years with respect to Drumcree and so forth. I think quite literally they walked into a trap, a trap some degree engineered by Sinn Fein in terms of creating resident unease and then creating perpetual community unease, but the Orange Order should have used tactical flexibility and recognised that. What the responsibility on them is on certain occasions, whilst I believe they have a right to walk down public roads, perhaps they shouldn’t always exercise that right for the greater good.
Scottish experiences: “I had an interesting experience a month ago. I visited Scotland to investigate how various issues around sectarianism notably in the city of Glasgow are dealt with there, and we talked to the Orange Order in Scotland. In recent years they have greatly reduced the number of parades which they have, and indeed in many respects I wish that the leadership of the Orange Order in Ireland showed as much wisdom as their counterparts across the North Channel.
Social engineering and education: “Social engineering, now that is a fascinating question. It is really quite a question of political philosophy. You could be here all night. I would love to debate it. You are right to an extent but there is a crucial question of degree here. Probably today everybody in this room – there might be one or two exceptions – would accept social engineering in the form of government legislation to force us to wear safety belts in the car, seatbelts in the car, although when they came in they were controversial. Some people said, ‘this is an infringement of my liberty’. But I think there is a difference of degree between that and using state action to strongly direct people where they should live, who they should socialise with, what type of school should their children go to.
“You gave the example of the United States. Many of the American examples are quite fascinating. Obviously, yes, in the mid ‘50s the United States through the Federal Government did attempt to integrate their public or state-funded school system and indeed they used measures like bussing, use of the Federal guards, the United States Army etc., to enforce it. I really would argue most strongly that that is not the correct model for us to go down with respect to our schooling system. Northern Ireland has four different types of schools as you probably well know: State schools, Catholic Church schools, Irish language and of course the integrated school sector, the most recent. Whereas we probably all agree that it is immoral for schools to be segregated on racial grounds, I think we have to accept – and this is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – that it is a right for parents to determine the ethos of education of their children. Given that, whilst it is right for there to be an integrated school sector in Northern Ireland, and a considerable sum of money has been spent on developing it and starting it and providing it new buildings etc., the State also has an obligation to continue to provide for those parents who remain the majority at this time, and arguably will remain the majority for some considerable time to come – perhaps for many generations to come – who wish their children to be educated either in the State school sector or the Catholic Church school sector. So that is the case where I would see the limits to social engineering. Thank you.
Duncan Morrow: “Thank you very much. I will go through them in my own order here.
1) Politicians: “The first one is the politicians. You know one of the things after World War I was that because they made the German Liberals sign the deal, the people on the edge were able to say it was a ‘stab in the back’. There is something very important about getting the people who have led the view which is there is an alternative which is “we win” to the deal which says “we share”. So I don’t mind that. I also think it is fascinating that we are at the stage now where Dr. Paisley comes out and says ‘Ulster is at the cross-roads.’ I nearly died! This is about two days after he met [archbishop] Sean Brady. So it is over.
“It is also true that the big issue is: when are the IRA going to join up with the police? That’s a great problem to have now on the basis of them being the police rather than being the army/IRA! So I am very happy that these things are happening and looking at what people do, not what people say and let’s make a new community. There is a danger that it will only move glacially slowly, because everybody’s actual interest is to stop change. They are doing it. There is a great line which conservatives use… ‘for everything to stay the same everything has to change.’ So we have to go till we keep the same. So let us see. Anyway it is the same in a different way. I want to stay optimistic not pessimistic. I fairly much believe that maybe Sean Brady and joining the police were two things I wanted. So, hey, let us take them!
2) Parading: “On the issue of the Orange order, I also think you are hitting something very important which is a discussion on culture and where we will go with that in a shared future, this remains a ragged edge. I understand, because I have heard it many times, Esmond’s position, the liberal position which is that people should have a right …. and I understand that, but here is the other side: what it means is having ex-members of the Shankill Butchers walk down the Falls Road bashing drums on which there are images of people who shot people in Ardoyne. Now I don’t think that will do. That is what the Whiterock march looks like if you are Catholic. I don’t think it will do and I don’t think that the Orange Order can pretend that that is not part of their parade. It is the band bit, which is somebody else where responsibility is disowned. So for my money, there is something to be said about how we are in public together. There is a discussion about how we are and who we are in public together which is probably the most profound of the lot. I think we are in culture wars. I think you are right, and I think it has got to be resolved on a shared future basis and I think there’s a big discussion about parading to be had and to be sorted.
3) CRC and Belfast City Council: “The third one is co-working with Belfast City Council. If Caroline hadn’t said that I would have had to make that claim in the sense that they are one of our most important partners! Over the time we have developed a lot of different things. Caroline mentioned funding…. We can add a certain bit which takes it in the direction of good relations. For example on the bonfires, the political parties could take it as far as health and safety. We said, ‘ok it is more than health and safety. It is really about how do you take a tradition and stop it from being something which antagonizes and move it into something which is part of our tradition and our culture? How can we work on that theme?’ So we were able to do that together as a joint project with the Council leading up because I think in the long run it is important that the Council have the ownership, precisely because of the politicians. …
4) Politicians: “I agree with Caroline and Esmond – politicians represent their communities and they represent their communities’ fears and so when they articulate those fears, it is important somehow or other that they are worked through because what the community is looking for from their politicians is that they know that it is safe. So it is part of the negotiation that we have to do and work with.
5) Social engineering: ‘The final bit is on social engineering and I suppose I have two points to make on it. One is the word ‘engineering’ – it is too hard. It treats people as objects. People are people, but have no doubt whatsoever that the geography of Belfast is engineered by violence. Where people can live is not currently choice …. it is choice under threat. If there is no threat, I’ll tell you what will happen. People will move randomly into areas and we will get a much more mixed and variegated pattern of distribution of where people can live and do live. That will be the outcome. The current pattern of rigid segregation is rigidly enforced by gatekeepers and paramilitaries and violence. So anybody who believes that we have current free choice and I am an engineer, I absolutely reject. Number two. The issue about whether we put incentives in, which is different from force, whether we offer incentives and penalties on certain behaviours, I don’t think can be avoided. I think it is the question how far you go.
“But I do believe that ensuring that employment is equal has been useful in taking the workplace out of the issue in many ways. I do also think that we have choices here. We have huge redevelopment plans coming in. There is a redevelopment at Crumlin Road, I don’t know if any of you know that. It was a working class heartland which is an interface. The question is, do we try to do something which keeps it as an open space or do we just redesign the interface for millions? Now I am against redesigning the interface for millions because I think it is a waste of money. I am for trying to generate something new which drives a different economic future for north Belfast and a social future for north Belfast. I think those choices matter.
“To come back now to engineering. Sometimes it is about engineering. It is about bricks and mortar and how we build houses and those choices we take about houses put into stone where people are for generations. So you need to think very carefully about how you do your Titanic Quarter.
“Is it just going to be another blooming great lump or are we going to think and try to make that planning somehow turn it into a different type of a place? Because if we don’t think about it, it will happen.
6) Schools: “And the last one then, the very, very last one is that on schools: I don’t believe that you can bus or force. I am actually a diverse schooling person too. But I do believe that no school, no school in Northern Ireland, should be allowed to let any child leave who is not prepared for a diverse future and that means about how they are themselves and how they reflect on the culture they come from, but also how they relate to others in that society and that that needs to be planned. It needs to be planned in the curriculum. It needs to be looked at in structure and that needs to be ordered. Otherwise it does not happen.
“So I don’t know if that is called engineering. I actually think it is about recognising a problem and trying to use the resources appropriately and honestly and fairly to ensure that we don’t simply reproduce that problem…. And that is what a shared future is about actually. It’s about putting that at the front and saying ‘ok what does that look like?’ It looks like an experiment, and I will give you a final example of that. There are two schools in Fermanagh, a Protestant village school and a Catholic school, and they are not viable …. Now you have to shut one. You can bus them both eventually creating the residential pattern on the ground exactly, or you can create some kind of useful experimental model which allows the parental stuff and allows for parents to be able to bring their children up with whatever is important for them to be brought up. But it looks at experiment and change and that is why it is a step by step process so that fear is not in it and so that we actually take creativity as a positive possibility within a shared future rather than just simply a set of laws. Thanks”
Closing words and thanks: Canon John Clarke (Rector, Navan): “As a member of the Church of Ireland in our local area here, I spend most of my time on community relations in this area. So it falls upon me to say thank you to our panel this evening and I say a special thank you to Colin for chairing our meeting here this evening. I also thank Duncan and Esmond and Caroline and Jeremy. They have given us a wonderful evening here. We have not been disappointed. It has been wonderful, giving us a window into the work of a shared future, very valuable to us here. Finally I would just like to thank all of you very much for coming along. We need this sort of number attending our public talks. Anything less than this sort of number makes it very hard to have the enthusiasm of organising the public talks. So please keep the momentum going. We are at a very crucial time as expressed by our panellists here this evening in terms of the way forward and we don’t want to stop now. So please keep up the good attendance and thank you very, very much indeed for coming here this evening. Finally, I would like to thank the Columbans for their hospitality here and of course there is cup of tea available immediately afterwards as well. Thanks very much to the core committee for organising tonight and a special thank you to Julitta for pulling us all together and getting us here.
Meath Peace Group report 63 – 2006 ©Meath Peace Group
Taped by Judith Hamill and Jim Kealy. Transcribed by Julitta Clancy and Judith Hamill. Edited by Julitta Clancy
Biographical notes (in alphabetical order)
Esmond Birnie has been an MLA since 1998 (representing South Belfast for the UUP). He is currently Party spokesperson for Finance, Family and Children, North-South, British-Irish Council and Community Relations. During 1999-2002 he was chairman of the Assembly Committee for Employment and Learning. Prior to membership of the Assembly he was a Lecturer (later Senior Lecturer) in Economics at Queen’s Belfast. Educated at Ballymena Academy, Cambridge University and Queen’s Belfast. Married with 3 children. Esmond previously addressed a Meath Peace Group talk on April 10, 2000 when he appeared with the former Taoiseach, John Bruton, and others.
Colin Coulter is senior lecturer in the Dept of Sociology, NUI Maynooth. Originally from Belfast, Colin has published on various issues including Northern Irish society, social change in the Irish Republic, political conflict, social theory and popular culture. His publications include Contemporary Northern Irish Society: An Introduction (1999, Pluto) and The End of Irish History? Critical Reflections on the Celtic Tiger (2003, Manchester University Press). His forthcoming book Northern Ireland after the Troubles? A Society in Transition was co-edited with Michael Murray (Manchester University Press 2007). Colin has appeared regularly on television and radio and has been a contributor to various media debates on the Iraq war. He has also written on the issues surrounding the war in Iraq in a major report entitled ‘The Irish Republic, the United States and the Iraq War: A Critical Appraisal’.
Jeremy Gardiner is Community Relations Development Officer for Youthlink, an umbrella body representing and serving the four main churches (Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist and the Church of Ireland). He was formerly a Youth Pastor for High Kirk Presbyterian in Ballymena. Jeremy is also a committee member of Community Voice in Ballymena. ‘My work in Ballymena was focused on the young people within the church itself. However to effectively do this you had to understand the environment in which they grew up in. This lead to work in the local community and essentially stand up against issues such as sectarianism. My work now involves educating young people for youth work and community relations work.’
Duncan Morrow is the CEO of the NI Community Relations Council (CRC), the body with primary responsibility for funding and development of inter-community relations practice and policy in Northern Ireland. In recent years, the CRC has taken a leading role in promoting dialogue to underpin ‘A Shared Future’, the government’s long running strategy to promote improved relations in Northern Ireland. Previously, Duncan was active in many areas of community relations work as a member of Understanding Conflict and as Co-Director of Future Ways, a unique active learning agency within the University of Ulster. His interests included political education, organisational development work with public agencies and voluntary groups, community development, mediation and the facilitation of difficult conversations between people and groups in conflict. At the University of Ulster he was also a lecturer in politics with a particular interest in ethnic conflict, religion and violence. He has written numerous reports, books and articles including ‘A worthwhile Venture?’ (with Karin Eyben and Derick Wilson),’ Northern Ireland Politics’ (with Arthur Aughey) and ’Churches and Inter-community relationships.’ In 1998, he was appointed as a Northern Ireland Sentence Review Commissioner, the body responsible for implementing the early release of paramilitary prisoners agreed as part of the Good Friday Agreement. A native of Belfast, Duncan is married to Susie. They have three children.
Caroline Wilson is currently working as Good Relations Officer with Belfast City Council. She is responsible for the implementation of the Good Relations Strategy which aims to co-ordinate the Council’s work in the promotion of good community relations and the celebration of cultural diversity. Prior to this post, she worked with the Student Movement in Northern Ireland and a number of other youth organisations. Caroline is a Council Member of the Community Relations Council (CRC) and sits on their Victims and Survivors Core Funding Programme Committee. Belfast City Council Good Relations Unit: “Our vision is for a stable, tolerant, fair and pluralist society, where individuality is respected and diversity celebrated, in an inclusive manner.”
Both Caroline Wilson and Jeremy Gardiner visited Dunshaughlin Community College earlier in the day, to talk to 3 groups of transition year students as part of the Meath Peace Group peace education programme
Meath Peace Group Talk No. 63
Taped by Judith Hamill and Jim Kealy.
Transcribed by Julitta Clancy and Judith Hamill.
Edited by Julitta Clancy
Acknowledgments: Meath Peace Group would like to thank the speakers and guest chair for coming to address this public talk and for giving so generously of their time. A special thanks to all who came to the talk (some from long distances), those who took part in the discussion afterwards and all those who have given their continued support, encouragement and participation through the years. Thanks also to those who assisted in the planning, organisation, publicity and recording of the talk, to the Columban Fathers who have hosted most of our public talks, to the Dept. of Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund for financial assistance towards the running costs of the talks and school programmes, and to the staff and students of secondary schools who have taken part in our peace studies programmes
Meath Peace Group Committee: Julitta and John Clancy, Batterstown; Anne Nolan, (Treasurer), Gernonstown, Slane; Rev. Canon John Clarke, Navan; Judith Hamill, Ross, Dunsany; Philomena Boylan-Stewart, Longwood; Olive Kelly, Lismullen; Leonie Rennicks, Ardbraccan, Navan; Fr Vincent McDevitt, An Tobar, Ardbraccan
©Meath Peace Group (report no. 63)
Meath Peace Group Talks
No. 62 – “Irish Involvement in the Great War, 1914-1918’
Held in association with the Meath Archaeological and Historical Society
Monday 12th June, 2006
Ardboyne Hotel, Navan, Co. Meath
Speakers
Paul Bew (Professor of Irish Politics, Q.U.B.)
Tom Burke, MBE (Chair, Royal Dublin Fusiliers Association)
Chaired by
Cathal MacCoille (Journalist and broadcaster)
Vote of Thanks
Most Rev. Dr. Richard Clarke (Bishop of Meath and Kildare)
Contents:
Introduction: John Clancy
Opening words: Cathal MacCoille (Chair)
Paul Bew
Tom Burke
Questions and comments
Vote of thanks: Dr. Richard Clarke
Closing words: Cathal MacCoille
Biographical notes
Meath Peace Group 2006
Introduction and welcome: John Clancy (Meath Peace Group):“Good evening and welcome to tonight’s talk, the 62nd public talk organized by the Meath Peace Group. This is also the 2nd talk organized this year in association with the Meath Archaeological and Historical Society
Background to the talk: “This is a year for reflection, as we clearly understood when it was first announced that, on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the 1916, Rising, our Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, felt we should have a celebration. At the time of that announcement we were over in Rossnowlagh with the Guild of Uriel and we were discussing this, and we said we really had to address the totality of what happened in that period. And this is the second talk on this – we had Professor Charles Townshend’s talk on 1916 and the Insurrection [MPG talk 61, 24th April 2006] and we are now going to discuss that period where Ireland, and the people of the island of Ireland, participated in the Great War. In or about that time, in the Meath Archaeological and Historical Society, one of our colleagues from the Louth Historical Society came over with a book – The Unreturned Army – written by Donal Hall. It’s a very interesting book, it’s about those who fought in the war from Louth, but more particularly those that lost their lives. There are two statistics that struck me personally. According to the author, there were about 3,000 enlisted men from County Louth and of that, 814 lost their lives, which is an incredible statistic. And before I hand over to our distinguished chairman, Cathal MacCoille, who needs no introduction, I would just like to read the Foreword to this book … I thought the Foreword was rather apt. There are two parts, there’s what he says and then there’s a poem by Francis Ledwidge:
‘Many years have elapsed since the men and women listed in this book died. There has been much discussion over the years concerning the factors which motivated some men to participate in the war, and others to stay at home. This book remembers those who carried out their duty, whether in Flanders or in Ireland, and mourns the loss to their families and country of all of those who died.’
[from: Donal Hall, The Unreturned Army – County Louth Dead in the Great War 1914-1918. Dundalk, 2005, published by the Louth Historical Society]
The author then quotes from a poem by Francis Ledwidge, a Meath man whom we all admire. The author extracts a piece from a poem of his, The Soldier’s Grave, which I will quote, if I may:
‘Then in the lull of midnight, gentle arms
Lifted him slowly down the slopes of death,
Lest he should hear again the mad alarms
Of battle, dying moans, and painful breath.
And where the earth was soft for flowers we made
A grave for him that he might better rest,
So, Spring shall come and leave it sweet arrayed,
And there the lark shall turn her dewy nest.’
[Francis Ledwidge, A Soldier’s Grave]
“By way of introduction, I would ask you to read the biographies of the speakers in the handout [see end of this report] and the diary of events in the coming months. And now I would like to hand you over to our distinguished guest chair, Cathal MacCoille:
Chair – Cathal MacCoille (broadcaster and journalist)
“Thank you very much, John. It is a couple of weeks since I was here, it was at Dalgan Park at your last meeting when Charles Townshend lectured, and all that I heard afterwards reminded me yet again why people say this group – I am talking about the Meath Peace Group particularly – is special. So I am not going to take up any time before introducing the speakers to you, because what they have to say and what you have to ask them and what they have to say in reply is going to take time and I am really looking forward to it.
“We’re going to look at the wide focus first – of Irish involvement in the First World War – through historian Paul Bew, whose biography is very usefully and helpfully as always spelled out for you there in your yellow page of notes, and then the narrow focus – participation of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers – through the work of Tom Burke, and again his biographical details are here for you.
“So, I am not going to say anything more about either of the speakers, except about the first which is this: working on a morning radio programme is a bit like being at school because there is a job that you have to do and there is a job which you really shouldn’t be doing – by which I mean distraction – and one of the many pleasant distractions working on a morning radio programme is when you are getting ready to do three rounds with Enda Kenny or Brian Cowan or whoever, and in the meantime my colleague gets to do an interview with Paul Bew, at which stage it is very difficult for me to concentrate because you know that what Paul Bew is going to have to say is going to be first of all well worth while, well worth listening to, and also very very interesting. So, that’s enough of an introduction, Paul Bew:
1. Paul Bew (Professor of Irish Politics, Q.U.B.): ‘The political context of Irish involvement in the First World War’
“Thank you very much Cathal, that is very kind of you. I would also like to second what Cathal said about the Meath Peace Group, and I look forward to the question and answer session later, I’ve been at a number of the Meath Peace Group meetings and I have always felt a great debt to Julitta Clancy and all that she has put into organizing them……I am going to talk this evening about the politics – the domestic politics of Irish involvement in the First World War. The first thing is that I am very well aware of the fact that you’re actually on a loser once you get into questioning the origins of any nation state. You can make a very strong case, in the case of the United States of America for saying that had the Americans lost the war with the British state in the 18th century that all manner of civilized things would have happened – the Red Indians would have been treated much better, slavery would have ended much earlier… While those are very serious arguments – they’re almost certainly true – I guarantee you you would not be very popular round about July 4th in the United States of America if you attempt to advance this argument. In other words no nation, no state – and this is no exception – is particularly keen to re-examine its origins, and issues of controversy about origins. It’s always difficult. It always seems to be an act of self-hatred. And why would you make such an act of self-hatred or self-questioning when for most people an important aspect of their life is believing that ‘we’ve arrived here, we are as good as if not better than anywhere else?’
“So you’re going against the grain when you invite any group of people to say: ‘well, here are the origins of your national story. There are some problems, there are some difficulties, there are some things that are controversial and difficult and which probably ought to be faced up to’.
“And this country is no different, no better nor worse, than any other in this respect. And you cannot talk about Ireland in the First World War without actually facing that particular question.
Irish participation in the War – figures at time of Easter 1916: “By the time of the Easter Rising, just under 100, 000 Irishmen had joined British colours in the First World War, just under 100,000. It is disproportionately unionist and Protestant but Redmond thought about 45,000 of those were his supporters. And he couldn’t be too far out. Now the first thing to say about that is: that is more than the Irishmen who engaged in any of the insurrections of the 19th century put together – Emmet [1803], 1848 and 1867.
“That is the first thing to say. And you could talk about the number who died, and there is an argument as to how many died – 35,000 is now more likely to be accurate than 49,000 as talked about a few years ago and so on … but what there is no doubt about is that it is well beyond the numbers of Irishmen who engaged in nationalist and patriotic rebellions in the 19th century. There’s just no question about that. That gives you some kind of fix on the significance of that figure by Easter 1916.
Remembrance: “And it is obviously the case, nonetheless, that the people who actually are more remembered – until recent times almost exclusively remembered in Ireland – are the men of 1916, which is a tiny minority compared to that much larger group. And this inevitably involved among other things – among many people – quite indisputably the violation of aspects of their own family history. Because, one of the consequences of the relative success of 1916 – at least in the sense that it led to the foundation of the Irish state that we have, and indeed to the partition of the island that we have – is that nonetheless … it’s a going concern. And all going concerns, all winners, write their own history.
Sean Lemass: “And it wasn’t until Sean Lemass in the ‘60s started to talk about the fact that the Irishmen who were on the other side of the argument had claims to patriotism, that there began to be that change in attitude, and a greater growing interest in the question of the Irishmen who served in the First World War, which has developed ever since Sean Lemass made it permissible, as a Fianna Fấil Taoiseach, to say ‘well the actual history of this is a little bit more complicated than up to that point the State had considered it as being….’
“So those figures are there – they are blunt and raw, just working with them as to what they are and what they actually mean.
Democratic leadership of Irish nationalism: “What I wanted to do today is talk about the politics of this, and what we are talking about is the eclipse of the democratic leadership of Irish nationalism.
1916 – was Ireland a democracy?: “In the last few weeks we would have all seen the debate, contributed to by myself in various ways, about 1916. And one of the arguments that many people will have seen is: ‘well, was Ireland a democracy in 1916?’ And there are all kinds of arguments you could make about that: women didn’t have the vote, the Parliament had already extended its natural life in 1910 by a year because of the war, so strictly speaking the government in power had not refreshed itself by the normal electoral mandate in Britain.
“There are actually quite reasonable technical arguments which say that Ireland is not a democracy in 1916. I’m leaving out the argument which says it is not a democracy because it is part of the Union, which is by definition true for nationalism, and by definition not true for people who are not nationalist. I’m just leaving that argument to one side.
By-elections and the Irish Party: “But what there is nothing in dispute about, it seems to me, is where the democratic will of Irish people actually was. There are five by-elections between the outbreak of the First World War and the Easter Rising, in the south and west of Ireland and so on. All of them are won by John Redmond’s party. Throughout this period up to the eve of the Rising. They’are not actually particularly effective performances. I have a view about this. My own view is that in particular for farmers, the Irish Party had been a very important instrument in delivering victory for the land question, or reforms in the land question which the farmers wanted, but that was gradually coming to an end. And not only that, basically the Irish Party had delivered the land to the farmers of Ireland but it’s not just in Washington that the question is asked of politicians ‘what are you going to do for me tomorrow? Not what you did for me last year or in the years that are past’. And the Irish Party had been obviously successful in this respect but victories won in the past are just that and the world does move on. And the land issue was an issue which they mobilized on very effectively but was losing its salience.
Prosperity for famers: “And not only that but the First World War sees great prosperity for Irish farmers. Not for Dublin – which is one reason why there was a constituency in Dublin for the Rising – but a great boost in prosperity. Indeed, Cllr Jasper Tully, Irish Party MP, is quoted in the Roscommon Herald – ‘I told the farmers that their hens would effectively be laying golden eggs when the war with the Germans came, and their hens are now laying golden eggs.’ Prices go up. It was a very very prosperous time. But the prosperity is not attributed to the Party. For once, farmers’ prosperity has nothing to do with the party.
Irish Party won all the seats: “So there’s a certain lack of that ‘zing’ which would characterize the Irish Party, attendance at meetings and so on in the countryside, are not what it was, all that is true but the fact of the matter is that they won…. At certain points they were challenged, certainly people with greener views, more nationalist candidates, stood against them, yet they won all the seats. Now in that simple sense, Ireland is a democracy. There are open democratic tests of opinion between 1914 and 1915, right up to 1916, about the direction of policy. And the Irish people had the chance at five by-elections to repudiate if they so wished John Redmond’s leadership. And they most certainly do not do so. And I think it is very simple, because so much of what is said, it strikes me as missing that very basic and simple fact. There is no reason to believe anything other than that in 1916 Redmond had the support of the majority of Irish nationalists. We have no reason to believe other, and every reason to believe he did have that support, because of the results of the by-elections which are not very impressive but nonetheless he has that support. It’s solid enough, it’s a solid majority, certainly as good as was later gained by his opponents. So I think that is something that really has to be borne in mind. …
1914: Redmond considered things were working: “And, against what you understand, Redmond considered that things were working. I want to give two quotations to show this attitude. The first is at Vinegar hill in Wexford just a few months into the war:
‘People talk of the wrongs done to Ireland by England in the past. God knows, standing on this holy spot, it’s not likely that any of us can ever forget – though God grant we all may forgive – the wrongs done to our fathers 100 and 200 years ago. But do let us be a sensible and truthful people, do let us remember that we today of our generation are a free people, we have emancipated the farmer, we have housed the agricultural labourer, we have won religious liberty, we have won free education. We have laid broad and deep the foundations of national prosperity and, finally, we have won an Irish Parliament and an Executive responsible to it, and I say to Ireland that all these things are at stake in the war.’
“So that is Redmond’s definition of the situation as it exists in 1914. That, basically, the quarrel with England is over, that various instalments of justice had been made and self-government had been conceded. And that is why we have an interest in taking the same side as England in this war. It is very important to understand this. It is very important to understand that for Redmond Home Rule
is not a second best. It actually is the best, what is to be desired. It reflects the realities… . he would regard separatism as unrealistic, it does not as a policy reflect the actual connection that exists between the Irish and English people which had formed over centuries.
Social reforms and subsidization: “Above all, of course, with the coming of old age pensions under the first great liberal and social reformist government, Ireland is being subsidized, and that’s another major factor in this – for Redmond believing that continued links with Britain were desirable, because old age pensions and other social reforms are being paid for by the British taxpayer from 1908 onwards and these are reforms which it is unlikely Ireland could afford out of its own resources. And it turns out to be the case: when Irish independence comes old age pensions have to be cut. So he believes there are profound economic reasons, profound political reasons which reflect the fact that a moment in history has been reached, of rapprochement: a fair deal has been reached.
North: “There is the problem of the north. But don’t forget the understanding which he had reached in 1914: no Stormont parliament, direct rule. Don’t forget Redmond’s assumption that after Home Rule Irish MPs would stay in Westminster which means that nationalist MPs would be able to scrutinize the operation of direct rule in the North. Something like direct rule with a green tinge – which is exactly what was regarded as a great triumph when negotiated by Garret Fitzgerald in 1985, but was actually available in 1914/1915, before 1916 changed everything with respect to the northern settlement and led to the unionists getting a much better deal and northern Catholics getting a much worse deal than they would otherwise have got. That’s important, I think, to understand, where Redmond is coming from. And there is no sense in which Redmond is in any despair about how things are going.
Redmond disconnected from Dublin realities: “There is a very interesting patch in Emily Lawless and Michael McDonagh’sbook [Ireland],which gives you some sense of where Redmond thought things were. And I think there is a sense of course that Redmond was I think disconnected from Dublin realities. It’s not that he didn’t come back to Ireland, but his house in Dublin was boarded up, he didn’t live there, he had a small flat in London and he would go straight to Wicklow, to his own shooting lodge, where he would be surrounded by his own people. I think there was an awful lot going on in Dublin which he just quite literally never paid any attention to. He would go straight to Wicklow when he was in Ireland and he tended to stay there among people he trusted, a particular culture of its own, all very loyal to him, mostly speaking Irish most of the time, a world he was very relaxed in.What was bubbling away in Dublin was something which didn’t really catch his eye in a way it should have done actually.
“This is how Michael McDonagh who knew him well describes him on the eve of the Rising in 1916:
‘Redmond looked upon all that was going on – the apparent preparations for a Rising – as play-acting by nobodies, a manifestation of the histrionic side of the Irish character by persons of no consequence. He was without fear for his position in Ireland, had got his influence over the coalition, prevented the threatened disruption of Irish civil life by conscription, and had not the south and the west voluntarily joined the colours to the number of 45, 000? That indeed was a remarkable response, everything considered, and, looking to the future, Redmond saw the reconciliation of north and south and Home Rule established by general consent.’
Redmond’s calculation: “And Redmond thinks two things. One is he actually hopes that the war will bring north and south together, that fighting together on the same side will actually humanize the differences and reduce the differences. There is some evidence something of that happened before 1916 but you may say it is unrealistic. That’s not all he thinks about this, that is only a part of his thinking. The other part of his thinking is that you cannot actually argue for Home Rule as he and Parnell … had done and say to the British the crucial thing is that in any international conflict you can safely give us Home Rule because we will back you, and then not do it.
“You cannot say, as nationalism had been saying throughout the 19th century, ‘there is no strategic problem in giving us political freedom, no danger for your own security, we will be there for you when it comes to the crunch’, and not be there. That is critical. He believes that if the unionists are the only people to do that then there is absolutely no doubt that the divisions in Ireland will be deeper, that the unionist bargaining position at the end of the war will be stronger. As indeed it was because of 1916 and the Somme. The accommodation was much stronger than what it was at the beginning of the war. There was much greater emotional leverage over the British political establishment and the British state….
Redmond not a man in despair: “So it’s important to understand the calculations that were in Redmond’s mind for a settlement that was penciled in in legislation – direct rule with a green tinge, and all the politics of it. He is not a man in despair. For example, throughout 1915 the government is reconstituted. Everybody accepts it’s a bad moment with people like Carson coming into government, everybody accepts that there is going to be disdain in nationalist Ireland. Had not Carson been leading an illegal opposition to Home Rule before 1914? All perfectly good reasons why nationalists should be offended. But Redmond was not. It’s very important to understand this. It has been said that the unionists were offered a seat but Redmond wasn’t. He was offered a seat, he turned it down! There’s a bit of a comedy about it. They were sent down from the Castle, banged on the door of the shooting lodge, said ‘we are from the Castle’, and the cook said ‘get out Mr Redmond, they’ve come to arrest you.’ Actually what they had done is they had come down to offer him a place in the Cabinet! He said no because it was the position of all Parnellites and nationalists that until Home Rule is won you do not take office. His view was that once it was won, there was no reason why Irish politicians – those who remained in Westminster – didn’t play as great a role as was possible to them, as the Scots do today even though Home Rule has been granted to Scotland. That was his view, but not before, as it wasn’t in effect, he wasn’t going to do it. The very fact that he was offered a place in Cabinet gives a very strong sense of the leverage that he had over British policy – not always effective, not in terms of the proper recognition of Irish Brigades and so on, but pretty effective, and in a lot of what went on Redmond could always guarantee he would be taken at least seriously by the British state.
Easter Rising: “So that is the situation on the eve of 1916. This is why it is so important to actually get what’s at stake here, and what happens in 1916. I know Charles Townshend [Professor of History, Keele University] talked to you about whether or not 1916 is designed as a blood sacrifice or as a serious military operation [Meath Peace Group talk no. 61, 24 April 2006]. The truth is I believe you can separate these two things. It had to be serious enough, because if it is patently obvious that all you are doing is a blood sacrifice then that’s just not going to work with public opinion. It’s perfectly obvious to me that they actually had no sense of succeeding. If you look at the interviews, look at people who knew the leaders who survived, they knew they had no sense of succeeding. The fundamental thing was to do better than the Fenians had done in 1867, to do better than the Young Irelanders had done in 1848, and to do better than Emmett had done in 1803. And that’s what they do. And they do substantially better than that.
“And the second thing is that once it’s actually done, then you have to create a situation where you are not regarded by ordinary Irish people as crazies. And there’s an uneasy mood at first. Everybody knows this. Everybody knows that the initial reaction is very uneasy, a lot of ordinary Irish don’t know who these people are. ‘Who are these guys? We never heard of them, we never elected them to anything’, and so on. Their names are famous today, their names were not known to the great majority of Irish people in the Spring of 1916. What are they doing?
Badge of identity – Catholicism: “Which is why it is tremendously important that the whole badge of Catholicism has to be in this situation. Language is a badge but let’s be honest, most Irish people then and now do not speak Irish. It’s a political badge in other countries but most Irish people then and now don’t speak Irish. The badge is there, it is the emotional appeal in establishing: ‘we are your brothers and sisters, we are not crazies, ultra-leftists, Marxists, mad people’. That’s why Pearse is so relieved when Connolly – whose record as a Catholic was, to say the least, not perfect – when Connolly makes his peace with the Church. And why does Connolly do that? He asks his wife, as a Protestant, to convert. Now what does this tell you? This Marxist internationalist socialist proletariat knows how you have got to be seen by the plain people of Ireland. And they have to identify with you against the British, and the common link is religion. It is just so crucial to what happens here.
“All the most emotional accounts in the Catholic Bulletin and so on, by Fr Flanagan – effectively the unofficial priest of the Rising – stresses the bravery, the heroism, the non-drinking of the men involved, all of which is true, but above all that they are good Catholics. That is the message, and it has to be because it is the only way to reach out to the community as a whole. That they were good socialists and brave – that.would not have done it.
Exclusion:“The problem is that once you make that identification, a quarter of the people of the island of Ireland are going to be made even more cold and even more outside. That is one unavoidable consequence. Those people who are not Catholic are going to be outside this emotional drama that is established after the executions between those who participated in the Rising and the plain people of Ireland.
Executions change everything: “My view is that from the moment of the executions it’s over for Redmond. I know there are people who argue that later negotiations and so on might have led to Home Rule, my view is that the genie was out of the bottle and everything is changed. And if you actually look at what the men of 1916 say in their memoirs, they will say that ‘immediately after the Rising the people of Dublin were contemptuous of us but at the time we were taken off to Frongoch a few weeks later, after the executions, we were heroes’. And I think that everything changes. But it changes through that identification.
“And they knew it all along. Eamon Ceannt knew it, for example. Look at his letters to his wife. He tells her how she is to going to conduct herself as a leader of this new nation. He hasn’t the slightest doubt. He participated in a rising which has gone down to a heavy note of defeat and he doesn’t even have the slightest doubt in his letters that his wife is going to be one of the first ladies of the new independent Ireland. He doesn’t even have the slightest doubt! And look how he dies: clutching a crucifix, blood spattered all over the place. Everybody reads it. Can you imagine the emotional impact of that, the drama? And you can’t escape it. Can you imagine the profundity of that emotional impact?
“And that is why this thing then takes off, because they have established ‘we are yourselves, we are the neighbour’s children’, to use Nell McCafferty’s expression, ‘we are not weirdos, outsiders’. And most people do go with it on that basis. They cannot say no. They cannot reject people who have established themselves so clearly – by their actions and by their heroism – as basically Irish with the rightful claim to the support of Irish people, certainly as opposed to what – the British State in Ireland? British soldiers on the streets of Dublin? Opposed to that, there is no contest.
Redmondites weakened by participation in the war: “Now there might have been a contest with Redmondite Ireland but this is where you have your difficulty. Even on the eve of the Rising in Cork, the Redmondites on St Patrick’s Day were demonstrating and anti-Redmondites were demonstrating….. There were two demonstrations on the same day – something like 600-700 radicals, the sort of people who get involved in the Easter Rising, and something like about 400 Redmondites. They’re in the minority. They are carrying a banner saying ‘400 of us are at the Front’. One of the crucial things you have to understand is that the Redmondites are weakened by the fact that so many of their brave young men have gone, many of them never to return. It’s as simple as that. In every town, in every village in Ireland, what you can actually see from the police reports, what happened on the St Patrick’s Day demonstration in Cork in 1916 is reproduced. It’s a tremendously important thing to understand. This other grouping, it’s just not there, it’s gone.
Two worlds:“It affects things in certain ways. Some of you may well have read Sean MacBride’s memoirs. He talks about the day of Kevin Barry’s execution. Everybody knows the song, everybody knows the emotion – the ‘lad of eighteen summers’ – the British soldier he killed is actually younger. Is there a person on the island of Ireland who hasn’t heard the song? I don’t believe it. Thousands of Irish people have been moved by it, it is one of the great songs of the revolutionary period. MacBride says something, he says UCD medical school, where Kevin Barry was a young, not particularly active student, was totally ‘cold’. MacBride actually gets three or four, or five or six friends and puts together a little demonstration just to make the point because he couldn’t believe it. I’ll tell you why UCD medical school was totally cold. Do you know how many UCD doctors got Military Crosses in the British Army in the First World War? 47 Military Crosses alone from UCD medical school! And it is not an accident that in Kevin Barry’s own college – although not in the pubs of Ireland – for subsequent decades there is coldness, because it reflects the actual history of that particular place and the commitment of others. 47 from UCD medical school got Military Crosses. There are some actually who received more distinguished military honours.
“That is a very very substantial contribution, an entirely different culture, coming from an entirely different place, but it is something which is important to understand.
Internecine split: “To give you another example of this, where two worlds address each other. A chap who had been at school with De Valera in Blackrock – I’ll see if I can find the quote – there is a letter which appears in the Irish Independent [July 1917] saying ‘I notice that Eamon de Valera was commander in charge of Boland’s Mill garrison …what I want to remind him is’ – and this was a guy who was in school with him and who was in the British Army. He said: ‘I have just come back’ – and he describes a particular battle scene where four boys from Blackrock were carried across the battleground by British soldiers trying to save their lives, two of them didn’t make it. ‘We were all at school together’. You have to realize that this is an internecine kind of split within Catholic nationalist Ireland – of deep profundity – when you read that letter. ‘People we were in school with, Eamon, and look what you did.’ He was coming from a totally different perspective. There’s no reply to that letter addressing de Valera.
“But what I am trying to say is that what you are dealing with here, if you are talking about the Irish involvement in the war, you are talking about something which is deep and which has crucial implications for what subsequently happens within Ireland itself. And these are matters which until recently – but I have to say, that from the moment [Sean] Lemass uttered those words [in 1966] there has been a greater willingness to talk about and to open out these issues.
Redmond’s project defeated by Irish nationalists: “So what you have is the situation where in Ireland you have thousands of young men, in 1915/16, who wanted the adventure of war but they don’t want it on Britain’s terms. That’s actually a quote from Stephen Gwynn, the nationalist MP for Galway for ten years, and a loyal Redmondite, and the author of the book John Redmond’s Last Years. And when writing of Redmond’s last years, in 1921, what Gwynn says is this:
‘for all the opposition that he received from unionism, the Home Rule crisis and Carson and so on, the people who actually defeated Redmond’s project were Irish nationalists, not his erstwhile enemies.’
“Now that is something that when Gwynn argued this even in the Freeman’s Journal, which is more or less the nationalist paper at that time, there is actually shock: ‘how could you actually be saying that? We all know that sadly John Redmond went down, but it was all the unionists’ fault, the British fault’…. That was not Redmond’s own view of what actually happened. What Gwynn is saying is that he was actually defeated by other nationalists, people who share his ideal or objective of a self-governing Ireland.
Implications for the North: “But the consequences of this are so profound and so difficult to deal with that there is a need to actually put it in a corner and not actually debate and discuss these issues. The implications for the North are painfully obvious. The actual existence of a unionist state at all is a function of 1916 and of the return of violence to Irish politics. It is the next logical step. There is no discussion or argument before the war of actually establishing any form of unionist state. The existence of ‘B’ Specials and so on is a function of the violence introduced in 1916 and the introduction of the use of the gun into Irish politics. I have to say the unionists introduced the play for the gun between 1912 and 1914. That is a fact that cannot be avoided, but it is important to say that it is not actually used. But there is absolutely no question that many of the things we see as most deforming as a function of 20th century Ireland, particularly the circumstances of Belfast in the early 1920s and the formation of the unionist state, are all directly related to the events of 1916 and the way in which Ireland’s involvement in the war actually worked out. Exactly what Redmond feared came about, that Ireland at the end of war was not in the position to be able to say to Britain ‘in an international crisis, we will be standing by you.’ And in consequence, the unionists were able to get a far better deal – and a far more negative deal from the point of view of northern nationalists – than they would have got otherwise from the British establishment and the British State
Difficult questions: “So these are very difficult questions. They are difficult questions to raise. I started by saying that in any country in the world there is difficulty, unease and a reluctance to entirely understand or be bothered in actually looking at the roots of one’s own national existence, and the American example is not that bad a one.
Need for acknowledgment: “The truth of the matter is that all national states have their origins in the use of force, ambiguous and so on. The mature thing now – there is no question that this happened, there is no question that the Ireland we have is the Ireland we have, and it does flow very largely from 1916 and nothing is ever going to change that – the mature thing, though, is to acknowledge at least some of the downsides of a particular process. That I think is all that one could do here. To attempt to reconstruct, to play games of what might have been – a Home Rule Ireland or whatever, or a different development for Ireland – is really fruitless. It has happened, and we have the Ireland that we have, and we have all the circumstances that we have, but it doesn’t seem to be realistic to say that that means that therefore we shouldn’t consider some of the negativities and the downsides which have flowed from the 20th century, from the nature of Ireland’s involvement in the First World War and the political consequences that flowed from it. Thank you very much.”
Chair (Cathal Mac Coille): “Thank you very much, Paul. … you’ve been talking about something which, just listening to you, it occurred to me, that this was something we didn’t do, or it wasn’t done in this country in the ‘20s or ‘30s, or ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s, that particularly the side that you were talking about, the side of people who went to fight on the British side in the First World War, they almost went underground. I met some of these people – not people who fought in the First World War but who fought in the Second. But they became people who for one reason or another kept the head down. Now it wasn’t all the fault of the other side – we are in some ways dealing with a dialogue here of positions taken and decisions made by people to fight with one army or another army, or to fight on one military side or the other. And I wonder was there ever a dialogue between them? I doubt if there was…”
“As a journalist I had the privilege of meeting people who fought – for example I remember, at the time of the first IRA ceasefire in 1994, talking to people who had participated in D-Day and also speaking on various occasions as a journalist to people who had fought in UN service or who had served on UN duty. But one of the things that came through to me very strongly was the respect that these people had for each other: that this was not an argument that these people wanted to pursue, in fact there wasn’t any argument. They didn’t see a dichotomy in what they did and what someone else did – fighting or serving in either a British army or an Irish army. Of course there are differences, and what is fascinating about what Paul is writing about and talking about is that in some ways this is stuff that we just didn’t do. Unfortunately when these people were alive, they could have talked or they could have written, I don’t know. That letter you mentioned in the Irish Independent…?
Paul Bew: “Yes that was in July 1917…”
Cathal MacCoille: “…. We’re coming to this late. Anyway that’s the wide view, we are now going into the specifics and somebody … a glimpse of what brought Tom Burke to the work that he has done on the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, a fascinating story, the genesis of Tom Burke’s research, and he has built on that in ways that are very impressive as we are now going to hear….
2. Tom Burke (Chair, Royal Dublin Fusiliers Association): ‘The Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the Great War’ [illustrated talk]
“Thank you very much for having me here. … What I hope to do is to try and put a human face on what Paul was talking about earlier on. To bring a bit of humanity back into something that’s totally abstract. I mean history is in the past, it’s long ago, it’s far away. You can’t touch it. But we all have brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers. The loss of a loved one through accident, natural cause or conflict is painful. That pain is a commonality we share with that generation who went through the Great War because it gives us a feeling of what they went through and endured.
“Now Paul has spent the last 45 minutes giving us the picture about what happened from a political context. You cannot talk about the First World War and the history of Ireland in that period without linking the two together. I could summarise Paul’s debate with these two photographs here [slides]. The one on the left shows a Dublin Fusilier, we know by his cap badge. The other Dubliner is Sir Edward Carson. It’s interesting to note that the Dublin Fusilier was a member of the National Volunteers who wanted Home Rule, and Carson, as you know, did not.
Outbreak of war: “The debate about Home Rule in Ireland came to a head at a conference in Buckingham Palace on the 23rd of July 1914. And on the 24th, the day that the Buckingham Palace Conference failed, Herbert Asquith went into the House of Parliament and he informed the House that the conference on Irish Home Rule had failed and so too had the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia. On the 29th July 1914, the Austrians bombarded Belgrade.
“I am not going to discuss the origins of the Great War. In terms of Germany invading France, the real prize for the Germans was in fact Russia. Their thinking was that if they were going to fight a battle to control Europe, they couldn’t fight it on two sides. The first thing they had to do was to knock out the French, and then take on the Russians before their huge army could mobilise. To knock out the French – there was a plan devised in 1905 by the Chief of the Imperial Staff, Field Marshal Von Schlieffen. His plan was to sweep through Belgium, take Paris and take the French armies from behind.
British Expeditionary Force and 2nd Dublins: “The British response to the invasion of Belgium was to send an expeditionary force known as the BEF which was made up of about 100,000 men. Their plan, and again it was pre-planned, was to come in alongside the French and assemble at the village of Maubeuge in northern France. This initial expeditionary force sent to France contained every Irish regiment of the British Army other than the Dublin Fusiliers. The Dublin Fusiliers had two regular battalions at the outbreak of the Great War. The 1st Battalion (nicknamed ‘The Blue Caps’) was in Fort St George in Madras in India. The 2nd Battalion (nicknamed ‘The Old Toughs’) was at home, and home for the 2nd Dublin Fusiliers was in Bordon Barracks in Gravesend – it’s now a supermarket. They were kept at home because the British War Office feared that there would be a German invasion of Britain, so they were kept at home to defend Britain. For fear of being over-run by superior German firepower and infantry, the French 5th Army began to withdraw and for the same reasons on 24 August, the BEF began to retreat from the Belgian City of Mons. It was during this retreat that the 2nd Dublin Fusiliers, as part of the 4th Infantry Division, were brought over from England and placed around the town of Le Cateau. Their objective was to provide a rear guard force that would cover the retreating BEF.
Dublin casualties: “Now, the consequences of all the great intrigue and high political drama that occurred in Europe and Ireland over the past months and year filtered its way down to a side street off Dorset Street in Dublin.
Pte. John Boland: “Here’s a photograph of four Dublin Fusiliers [slide]: one chap in the photograph is Private John Boland. He came from No.18 Russell St which is just off Dorset St. Had he survived the war his next door neighbour would have been Brendan Behan who lived in No.20 Russell St. The house is gone. Before the war, John was a messenger boy in a little retail shop in Dorset St. In 1913, the year of the General Lockout, he lost his job and he joined the army. He was killed just outside the village of Le Cateau near Clary. John was 19 years of age when he died. I want you to remember that little French villageof Le Cateau because it has implications towards the end of this little talk.
“On the same day that John was killed, Matthew Sharkey from Corporation Buildings in Foley St., George Fraser from Pembroke St in Dublin, and a local man named Sgt. Joseph Lynch, aged 33, from Slane, Co. Meath was also killed. This is the last letter John wrote home to his mother [slide], from ‘ Bordon Barracks, 2nd Royal Dublin Fusiliers, Gravesend.’ … He could read, he could write. In his last lines, he talks about his friend Carney getting the handy job as an officer’s servant. He wrote. ‘ I’ll close now, will write soon, I remain your loving son, Jack’. That was his last letter sent home.
“Three things happened to the 2nd Dublins during that rear-guard fighting around Clary and Le Cateau: some were killed, some were taken prisoner, and some survived.
Prisoners of war – Limburg: “Those that were captured were put into a prisoner of war camp at Limburg. This is a photograph taken by Fr. Crotty who was sent up from Rome to act as chaplain to the Irish soldiers in Limburg. Limburg was a prisoner-of-war camp. It was the prisoner-of-war camp that Roger Casement went in to try and recruit a brigade. He went in to recruit a brigade of soldiers from a group of men who had come through utter hell with each other. They had seen their mates butchered and cut to ribbons by German machine-gun fire and shrapnel. These Irishmen had come through hell. They were not going to betray their fellow soldiers beside whom they had fought and died. Casement misjudged these Irishmen’s loyalty to each other. Out of 2,500 Irish soldiers who were congested in Limburg, Casement managed to recruit 40. One of them was a Dublin Fusilier.
Christopher McDonald: “One of the Dublin Fusiliers that spent the entire war in Limburg was Christopher McDonald. Before the war Christopher was a gardener, he was one of the first babies born in Holles St. Christopher was in the 2nd Dublins. He survived Limburg and came back to Ireland in what, as Professor Bew has told us, was a difficult time for British soldiers. He left Dublin and went to Glasgow, got a job on the railways and died in 1972.
Irish memorial at Limburg: “This little cross [slide] is a Celtic Cross put up in Limburg just after the war. Fr Crotty blessed it and it lists the Irishmen – I think there were about 45 Irishmen – who died in Limburg. That particular cross went into ruin over the years. However, recently the Taoiseach’s Office issued a grant to a group of local and Irish people to restore the cross.
Recruitment campaign: “Back in Ireland, a recruitment campaign was going on. The Secretary of State for War, General Kitchener, had no time for ‘political’ armies. In fairness to him he was consistent on this issue. Lloyd George wanted to set up the 38th (Welsh) Division and he wanted to recruit Welsh officers who spoke only Welsh. In Ireland, three infantry divisions were raised by voluntary recruitment.
Recruitment figures: “The recruits came from every section of Irish society. The Dublin and Wicklow Manure Company lost 200 to recruitment. UCD – 400 undergraduates volunteered, Trinity College Dublin – 869 undergraduates. Clongowes Wood College – 516 ex-students and 6 Jesuit priests who were members of staff. Derry National Volunteers – 600 joined, some of whom went into ‘C’ Company of the 6th Royal Irish Regiment. Approximately 500 Belfast nationalists enlisted, many of whom went into the 6th Battalion of the Connaught Rangers. What’s interesting is the rejection rates. Most of them were rejected because they had varicose veins and bad teeth!
Guinness’s: “Guinness brewery in Dublin – 645 members of staff enlisted. They and Jacobs’ employees who enlisted had the luxury of their job back if they were lucky enough to survive the war. 103Guinness employees were killed in the First World War. While away at the front, wives of married men received half their husband’s wages.
Pals’ units: “The recruitment people in Ireland used all kinds of interesting psychological techniques and touched on Irish sentiments such as Irish patriotism. Recruitment notices appeared in the Irish Times and other newspapers. The concept of a ‘Pals’ unit’ was born in the recruitment campaign in the Great War. Bring along a pal with you was the idea. One picture showed a group of Dublin Fusiliers who had a board beside them upon which was inscribed the words ‘everybody’s doing it’, i.e. enlisting.
Recruiting offices: “One of the biggest recruiting offices that existed on the island of Ireland was in Pearse St. – Great Brunswick St. then. And the interesting thing about the building is that it is still there today. The Pearse family stone works is next door to it! I often wondered what Patrick Pearse thought of having a big recruiting office next door to the family business.
Recruiting tram: “There was a recruiting tram that travelled through Rathmines, down through Harcourt St and down into the centre of Dublin. It stopped at Foster Place. The point was that if a potential recruit couldn’t get to the recruiting office, the recruiting office got to the recruit. So nobody was going to be left out. On the tram were the words, ‘Irish men enlist today’.
“Now back to war.
Western Front: “By the end of 1914, the Western Front as we know it today had essentially formed itself by default. The Germans withdrew back to the Marne, the French and British couldn’t get across the Marne so they went around it. And when they went around it, the Germans went round them, and then the British went around them again. What happened was a kind of outflanking movement of armies heading north until they got to the North Sea. That out-flanking movement was called the ‘Race to the Sea’. By the time the race ended, the British ended up around the city of Ypres in Flanders. On their left was the small Belgian army and on their right were the French.
Ypres: “The British had very logistical reasons to be in Ypres. The army was supplied from the ports of Dover and Southampton to Calais and Le Havre. They settled into this region of Flanders and by the end of 1914, the war of movement on the western front had stopped.
Christopher Rogers: “In the months leading up to Christmas 1914, many infantry battalions called up their reserves to replace the men who were killed or taken prisoner in the battle that took place along the Western Front in the previous months. These were men who had served their time in the regular army and went onto the army reserve list. One of these army reserve men was Christopher Rogers, a carpenter who lived with his wife and children in … Bishop Street, Dublin. He was called up and went to the 2nd Dublins who were near Armentieres in France. He wrote home to his wife telling her everything’s grand. And she wrote back to him saying, ‘you would be surprised to see the children, Mary Ellen is always watching the letter man for a letter from daddy, Christy is getting to run about’. Christopher Rogers was not long in France when he was killed by a sniper in Christmas week
Chemical weapons (1915): “By the beginning of 1915 the Western Front had been well established and the war of movement was going nowhere. Recruitment carried on with a pace back in Ireland. For the first time in the history of modern warfare the Germans introduced chemical weapons. To use the present-day term, they were indeed weapons of mass destruction. In April 1915, German chlorine gas released from cylinders, blew over the British lines just north of Ypres. It first hit Canadian troops and French-Nigerian, colonial troops. The killing was appalling and a gap appeared in the Canadian lines. In order to plug this gap, hundreds of troops were rushed northeast of Ypres to stop the German advance. Some of these troops were from the 2nd Dublins and 1st Royal Irish Fusiliers.
Pte. Hugh Lynch: “Private Hugh Lynch of the 2nd Dublins came from Railway St., Dublin. He lost his job as a messenger boy, in Amiens St., and at the age of nineteen he joined up in1913. According to family, he was a religious young fellow. The War Office in London wrote to Mrs Lynch and told her. ‘In reply to your letter of the 13th May, I am directed to tell you that the regimental number …. Hugh Lynch, 2nd Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers, has not appeared on our casualty lists.’
“His body was never found. The poor chap was blown to bits. His mother cut that little paper clipping of her son’s death and for years she kept wrapped up in a Sacred Heart scroll.
Dichotomy of Irish history – the Malone brothers: “The Germans never exploited the break in the line in the April gas attack. They launched a similar attack on the St. Julien line again in May 1915.It was during this attack on a Farm called ‘Mouse Trap Farm’ that Sgt. Willie Malone of the 2nd Dublin Fusiliers was killed. In April 1916 during the Easter Rising, his brother, Volunteer Michael Malone of the Irish Volunteers was killed at 25 Northumberland Road near Mount Street Bridge in Dublin. If there was ever a simpler example of the dichotomy of Irish history, it is the death of these two men. The interesting thing about Michael and Willie Malone was that their sister, Bridget Malone, married Dan Breen. William Malone was a carpenter before he joined up. On the wall of the house at 25 Northumberland Road, there’s a memorial to Volunteer Michael Malone, ‘C’ Company, Ốglaidh na hẾireann,. There will soon be a memorial at Mouse Trap farm to remember his brother, Willie Malone.
Tragedy of war – brothers killed: “A paper cutting from the Irish Independent dated May 1916 summarises what we have been talking about all night, the tragedy of war. The cutting records the deaths of three brothers and their mother asking the people of Dublin to pray for her three sons in the parish of St Nicholas of Myra, off Francis St. They were the McDonald brothers, Peter, Patrick and John, from Bride St. in Dublin. There are mothers in the audience tonight. One day you get a letter home telling you your son has been killed, your eldest son is dead. A week or two later, you get a second letter telling you your other two sons are dead. There is only a certain amount of grief that any human being can take. Bride St. was a tenement part of Dublin, it was poor, a no-hope part of Dublin’s inner city. They joined the army because perhaps there was nothing else for them to do.
Gallipoli: “Gallipoli is a little peninsula at the tip of the Dardanelles. The attack on Gallipoli was Churchill’s brainwave. His idea was to create a new front, draw German troops from the Western Front and supply the Russians with guns and ammunition. Having one of Germany’s allies, Turkey, out of the war would give the Allies a morale-boosting victory. Apparently the night before the Allies went in on D-Day in the Second World War, Churchill couldn’t sleep, worrying about what was going to happen – was the fiasco at Gallipoli going to happen all over again?
“In terms of the Dublin Fusiliers and the other Irish regiments: the 1st Battalion of the Dublins were in Fort St. George in Madras in India. They were sent back to England to re-train and re-fit and, as part of the 29th Infantry Division, to set sail for Gallipoli and attack the Turks. On 25 April 1915, they landed on the shores of Cape Helles at the southern tip of the Gallipoli peninsula. A beautiful old Byzantine fort stands above the beach on which they landed. Along with the Munster Fusiliers and the Royal Hampshire Regiment, they landed off a steam collier called the SS River Clyde. Sides had been cut out of the Clyde and the landing plan was for the men to run down galley planks onto pontoons that had been dragged near the shore alongside the ship. From the pontoons the men would jump onto the beach and advance inland to fight the Turks. A firing machine gun would cover the men coming ashore. The German commander advising with the Turks, General Von Sanders, knew that Cape Helles was a vitally important part of the peninsula to defend so he heavily defended it with barbed wire under the water, and along the ridge he placed more wire and machine-gun placements.
“The Dubs, Munsters and Hampshires did not stand a chance. Further round the coastal head, Australians and New Zealand forces tried to land as well. They too were held back by brave Turks.
Pte. Tom Errity: “One of the Dublin Fusiliers killed was Pte. Thomas Errity, aged seventeen from Newtownmountkennedy. He and his family of nine lived on a small farm. He joined up in 1913. The Roman Catholic Chaplain to the Dublin Fusiliers, Fr. Flynn, was killed giving absolution to a dying fusilier . Tom Errity is buried in a cemetery on the beach in Gallipoli. It was once called the ‘Dublins ‘ Cemetery’.
Joseph Berrils – youngest RDF casualty: “The youngest Dublin Fusilier to die in the entire war was a young fellow called Joseph Berrils from Drogheda, Co. Louth. He was only fifteen years of age when he died at Gallipoli. He should never have been there, a mere child.
Peter Byrne: “Peter Byrne joined up in 1912. He was shot in the lungs and was taken back to Ireland and spent the rest of the war in Leopardstown Park Hospital….. In May 1941, the Germans bombed North Strand in Dublin. Peter Byrne had a job with the Irish Independent and he was coming home the night the Germans bombed the North Strand and he had just gone over Annesley Bridge and the bomb went off. He looked back and he said. ‘Ye bastards, you missed me in the first one, you missed me in the second one and you’ll never get me now.’ Peter Byrne died in 1975.
Suvla Bay: “In terms of the objectives, the April attack on Cape Helles failed. In order to out-flank the Turkish defences, the Allies, which contained Australian and New Zealand divisions (ANZACs) attacked what they called Suvla Bay on the western side of the peninsula in early August 1915. The 10th (Irish) Division was used in this attack. These were the men both Kitchener and John Redmond had encouraged to enlist. These were the civilian volunteer soldiers.
‘Pals’ battalions: “As previously mentioned, Pals battalions were set up from groups of men who for example were from a football club, a factory or a town. They were bank clerks, insurance officials and salesmen. In Dublin, the Dublin Fusiliers set up their own Pals unit which was ‘D’ Company of the 7th Dublin Fusiliers who fought at Suvla Bay in August 1915. Rugby footballers from the various Dublin Clubs enlisted as a Pals unit. In September 1914, they assembled in Lansdowne Road and paraded through the streets of Dublin on their way to the Curragh for training. The President of the IRFU in August 1914, was Mr. F. Browning. He encouraged Rugby footballers to enlist. At the outbreak of the Easter Rising, Browning was killed by Irish Volunteers near Beggars Bush Barracks He was leading a group of what were called ‘gorgeous wrecks’, a group of elderly British ex-Servicemen, hence the name ‘gorgeous wrecks’ who went off on route marches at the weekend. They were coming back to Beggars Bush barrack when they got caught up in the rebellion near Mount St.
Ernest Julian: “Amongst their ranks was Ernest Julian, the Reid Professor of Criminal Law at Trinity College. He was from Birr, Co. Offaly. In 1998, when the Royal Dublin Fusiliers Association opened our first exhibition in Dublin’s Civic Museum, we presented President McAleese with a photograph of Ernest Julian. She knew all about Julian. Her predecessor, President Mary Robinson, was also Reid Professor of Criminal Law. Today Ivana Bacik currently holds the Chair. Sadly, Ernest Julian was killed as he landed at Suvla Bay with the 7th Dublins in August 1915. His body was never found.
Stanton family: “Examples of Dublin Fusiliers who came from the tenements of inner Dublin or from poor rural farming stock around Ireland have been given. Men – and indeed women – at the other end of the social spectrum came forward too and enlisted. One example of the latter was the Stanton family from Cork. Mr John Stanton ran a family law firm in Cork. The boys went to CBC and the girls to private ‘finishing schools’ in Cork and in England.
“Bob Stanton had graduated with an Honours degree in Law at Trinity College Dublin. He was the eldest in the family and when he graduated he went back to the family practice in Cork. He fell in love with a postmistress and wanted to marry her. His father forbade the marriage as he believed there was a history of TB in her family. In disgust, Bob left the law firm and went to Dublin where he enlisted into the 6th Battalion Dublin Fusiliers. Bob was killed at Suvla Bay. His brother, George Stanton, a medical graduate from Trinity College, also enlisted. He joined the Royal Army Medical Corps, went to France, was wounded on the first day of the Somme and sent back to England to recover. Sadly he died soon after surgery. His father and mother wanted his body brought home to Cork and the War office sent the family a bill to bring his body home to Cork. Tom Stanton joined up with the Royal Engineers, he was a Trinity engineering graduate and fought in Egypt. Luckily he survived the war.
Women – the ‘Roses of No Man’s Land’: “Alice Stanton enlisted as a VAD, Voluntary Aide Detachment, a volunteer medical assistant. She served as a VAD at a hospital in Arras. These VADs were, in my opinion, wonderful people. The VADs were mainly young women. These women of Ireland were once called the ‘Roses of No Man’s Land’. I cannot say enough about the Irish women who helped these men on the Western Front. They were incredible people. One of them, whom you all know was Mother Mary Martin. She came from the family of the well-known Dublin Builders providers, T and C Martins. Mary Martin volunteered as a VAD nurse in Gallipoli. Her two brothers enlisted as well. One enlisted in the Connaught Rangers and he was killed in Salonica, the other enlisted into the Dublin Fusiliers. Mary went to Malta and helped the wounded from the Gallipoli campaign.
When she came back to Ireland, she set up the Medical Missionaries of Mary and the hospital in Drogheda. She probably never would have set up the Medical Missionaries of Mary had she not gone to Gallipoli and witnessed the appalling suffering.
Stantons: “The rest of the Stanton family got on with their lives. The father died in 1919. Every father, every human being has a breaking point with grief.
Irish casualties in Gallipoli: “The Allies withdrew in January 1916. Kitchener came to visit the peninsula and believed the best solution to the stalemate that had developed was to simply get out. And what a price was paid for achieving a stalemate. There was young Joseph Berrils, he was fifteen years of age, from Drogheda. The three Donovan brothers from the parish of St.Anne’s in Cork lie together in Gallipoli. So too do the two Mallaghan brothers from Newry. In total 3, 411 were killed from the 10th (Irish) Division of which 830 were Dublin Fusiliers.
Salonica: “After Gallipoli, the 10th (Irish) Division went to Salonica. They went from the desert conditions of Gallipoli up to blizzard conditions of Macedonia. They remained there for several months through the winter and into the summer of 1916. Their main enemy was the dreadful swarms of mosquitoes and consequent malaria. Salonica marked the end of the 10th(Irish) Division. There is a Celtic Cross put up in Salonica similar to the one put up in Guillemont in France to commemorate the 16th(Irish) Division’s roll in the battle of the Somme, 1916. A couple of years ago, members of the Irish Defence Forces on UN service in Kosovo cleaned up the base of the cross.
Easter Rising – attitudes of Irish soldiers in France: “The first casualty of the rising was a Dublin Fusilier as he was killed in Westmoreland St. at 12.30 am on Easter Monday morning. He was in his uniform; he was shot and died in Mercer’s Hospital. There were about twelve Dublin Fusiliers killed in the Rising in Dublin. In terms of the Irish men fighting in France with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers and other Irish regiments of the British army, one of the more interesting questions was what was their attitude to the Rising in Dublin? By far their main feeling was one of disappointment. That disappointment ranged from sheer anger to indifference.
“There is a wonderful series of letters written by Dublin Fusiliers after the Easter Rising contained in the archive in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers Archive called the Monica Roberts collection in the Dublin City Archives. Many of these letters express the real sentiments some of the Dublin Fusiliers felt towards the rebels and ‘Sinn Feiners’ as they called them. Some of the Dublins believed the rebels should be shot, and as we now know, they were. In my opinion, I think the Easter Rising were the first shots in the Civil War in this country. 2nd Lieut. (later Captain) Richard (Dick) Burke served with the 3rd Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment who fought the Irish Volunteers in Moore Street. Dick was born in Dingle, Co. Kerry. His father was the manager of the National Bank in Dingle, he studied in St. Vincent’s College in Castleknock and worked with his father in the bank when the family moved to Kilrush. Dick enlisted in 1914 for a bit of adventure. He was delighted to think that his regiment had taken Moore St…..The interesting thing about the Easter Rising is that many of the Irish regiments, in the initial stages of it, took part in putting down the Easter Rising. The 10th Royal Dublin Fusiliers, who were training in Dublin at the Royal (Collins) Barracks fought the Irish Volunteers at the Mendicity Building and in fact arrested Seán Heuston.
National Volunteers: “The Easter Rising was a source of disappointment to the Irish soldiers in France, it’s well documented. The question is why? By 1916, approximately 24,000 National Volunteers had joined the British Army. These were nationalists, these were the men who supported John Redmond, to have a Home Rule Parliament. They, i.e. the National Volunteers who had enlisted, felt stabbed in the back.
Eugene Sheehy: “Just to conclude on the Easter Rising and the Irish regiments. Eugene Sheehy, was an officer in the 4th Dublins. His sister Mary Sheehy married Tom Kettle who was killed in the war in September 1916 fighting with the Dublins at Guillemont. Sheehy’s other sister, Hannah Sheehy, married Francis Skeffington. Eugene wrote about the Easter Rising [in 1951].
‘The Rising in Easter Week was a source of heartbreak to me and to the many tens of thousands of Irish nationalists who joined the British Army. We had done so at the request of our leaders who were the elected representatives of the people, and the vast majority of the nation applauded our action. The Rising was not even approved by the leaders of Sinn Fein.’
German posters: “The Germans knew all about the rising in Dublin. They put up a poster in front of the Munster Fusiliers which read “Irishmen! Heavy uproar in Ireland, English guns are firing on your wives and children.’
Irish Casualties in France in Easter Week: “During Easter Week the Germans launched another gas attack at a place called Hulloch. It is near Lens in northern France. John Redmond made a statement about this in the House of Parliament, describing the tragedy of Dubliners killing each other and Dubliners dying in France. There were six Louth men killed during that gas attack on 27 April 1916. It was the first major casualties suffered by the 16th (Irish) Division since they arrived in France back in December 1915.
Somme: “From a strategic perspective, the Somme was a failure. The tragic loss of life from the ranks of the 36th (Ulster) Division (5,500) should never be forgotten. These were our fellow Irishmen. Beside the Ulster Division was the 29th Division who had come from Gallipoli, which contained the 1st Battalion Dublin Fusiliers. There were men from the inner city of Dublin who died beside Ulstermen from Belfast’s Shankill Road. There were 19, 640 men killed in one day, 60,000 injured. The only positive to come out of the Battle of the Somme was the huge advancement up the learning curve of the British Army. But at the learning came at a terrible price in human lives.
Executions: “Pte Albert Rickman of the 1st Royal Dublin Fusiliers went missing on 1 July, the day his battalion attacked the Hawthorn Ridge. He was picked up a few weeks later and shot at dawn, in September 1916. If there wasn’t enough bloody killing going on! This poor fellow had to be shot for some obscure reason best known to those who condemned them. He was an Englishman, the son of a peasant farmer from Hampshire.
Tom Kettle, MP. “Tom Kettle was an Irish nationalist born in Artane, on the north side of Dublin. He was devoted to his men and he passionately believed that the cause he was fighting for was just and honourable. On 9 September 1916, he was killed when his 9th Dublins attacked Ginchy during the Somme campaign. He was a barrister, Member of Parliament and Professor of National Economics at UCD. What a terrible loss this man, and thousands like him, was to Ireland.
Meath brothers: “On the same day that Tom kettle was killed, there were two brothers from Curraha, Co. Meath, John and Christopher Mitchell, killed.
Sgt Bob Downie, VC: “Sgt. Bob Downie created a bit of regimental history with the Dublin Fusiliers, he won a Victoria Cross during the later campaigns in the Battle of the Somme. He took out a German machine gun post killing some and taking prisoners. As he ran at the guns he screamed in his broad Glaswegian accent, ‘Come on the Dubs.’ Downie was a Scot from Springburn in Glasgow. In fact one could call him an Irish Scot – his father came from Donegal to pick potatoes at the turn of the century. He was a very quiet man. When he came home to Glasgow to receive his VC from the King, he got a hero’s welcome. He was a member of the United Irishmen and they came out and presented him with a silver coin. He was an ardent Glasgow Celtic supporter. At the end of the war he was outside Celtic Park (Parkhead) queuing in the Veterans and Unemployed queue. The manager of Celtic recognised Downie in the queue and he asked him. ‘What are you doing? You won the Victoria Cross, why are you here?’ Downie replied. ‘Well, I am an unemployed veteran’. So the Celtic manager gave him a job as a grounds man in Celtic Park. He worked at Parkhead for the rest of his life. Bob Downie VC died in 1968. He lived long enough to see his beloved Celtic win the European Cup in 1967.
Paschendaele and after (1917): “The Third Battle of Ieper or Passchendaele which began in July 1917 with great hopes of a breakout from the stalemate in Flanders, ended in November 1917 at the village of Passchendaele. Its ending also marked the end of the volunteer battalions of many of the Irish regiments who went to France with the 16th (Irish) and 36th (Ulster) Divisions. They simply no longer existed. Their regular battalion regrouped and courageously survived the German offensive of March 1918 to go on to victory in 1918. The Redmondite volunteers, those that were left alive, returned to an Ireland, that had utterly changed. Redmond’s brand of Irish nationalism had died at Hulluch, Gallipoli, Salonika, the Somme, Wijtschate (Messines) and at Passchendaele. New heroes had been born in Ireland since they had left. In the years that followed, like the men themselves, their memory and place in Irish history died with them.
‘Remembered at last’: Stephen Gwynn was an officer in the Connaught Rangers and an MP of the Irish Nationalist Party. In thinking what lay ahead of these Irish veterans of the First World War, he hoped that one day in the future, Ireland would welcome these men home. And we did.
‘It may be, O Comrade, that Ireland, casting a backward glance on the road she has travelled, will turn and yearn in her heart for the valour she once rejected. ….Will cry to her own sick heart: ‘My faithful, my children, my lovers who never hurt me – you also are Ireland.’
“Go raibh mile mhaith agaibh”
QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS [Summary of main points]
Cathal MacCoille: “Thank you very much Tom. The floor is open, there are a host of questions there ….”
Q. 1. John Gavin (Vice-President of Meath Archaeological and Historical Society).
“It’s not really a question. I’m going to relate a short little story told by my mother. Along with her many school friends during the 1913 and 1914 period in Dublin, she was a Dublin girl, they used to go in the evening time to see the soldiers boarding the ships at the North Wall, and she used to relate a very interesting or neutral story. This evening there was this woman screeching up at her husband – he was on the deck of the ship – and she says ‘Goodbye Mickey, and I hope you beat the Germans the way you used to beat me!’ That’s only one of the stories.”
Q. 2 Michael Dowdall (Dundalk, Guild of Uriel): ‘I also have a story. A long time ago I lived in Dublin, and I lived with a … Private John McCormack, and he enlisted, and he used to say to me that he ended up in [a regiment] in Kent, and he was sent out to Gallipoli. And he said to me when they landed off the boats, when they jumped into the water there was barbed wire under the water and a shot rang out …and his best friend dropped dead beside him. And he ran up onto the beach, and he said the Turk, whoever the Turk was, saw him …… Anyway, he got malaria from the Dardanelles, and he survived the war and went to America for nearly forty years. But in 1968 when I met him he used to have bouts of malaria, and he would roar and scream and all sorts of problems, and his dear wife … would get the doctor and he would give quinine and he would calm down. And I happened to know someone working in the Department of Social Welfare in Merrion Square and we decided that maybe after all this time – because after the war when he was demobbed he went to America straight. He said the queue was too long to look for money, it was ‘a mile and a half long sonny and I wasn’t going to wait’. But we put in a claim in 1968 for compensation for war wounds and malaria, and the British Department assessed him and awarded him a lump sum of £280 for wounds and problems received fifty odd years previous. They didn’t really forget him.”
Q. 3. Patrick Lynch (Batterstown): “So far we’ve dealt with the human side of the story… There’s another side to the story which was that the British authorities at the time who knew that these young men like Mr Birrell were under-age and the Parliamentary Papers will show that they deliberately turned a blind eye, because there was a military necessity to have large numbers because technology had moved on from previous times and they needed this mass attack, this total war. They thought they were coming home for Christmas and they went out, as we would go to a rock concert or the World Cup, so the premise on which they went in was for smaller nations and someone else had a larger strategy and these were only small observers…..Maybe something should be said about that?”
Tom Burke: “…… There were people under age and indeed over age, if you look at the death casualties … but there is no doubt, and a certain time in the war when things were looking bad, they would have taken anybody. The age of recruitment was 18. So certainly that was overlooked in some cases.….
Member of the audience: “There was a young boy from Waterford who was 14.”
Tom Burke: “Yes, John Condon was 14, but there were plenty of John Condons’ killed in that terrible war…”
Patrick: “We also need to put on record that there were Chinese prisoners being forced and they were executed at the end, that it wasn’t just this glorious war…
Tom Burke: “War is not glorious, there is nothing glorious about war. I would like to find out what was the source of the Chinese being executed. ”
Patrick: “I’m saying that these young people did not know what they were getting themselves into and that woke them up, and it gave rise to a totally different perspective in Ireland and in Europe.”
Q.4. John Clancy (Batterstown): “Just a point, each generation that has the onus of going to war also goes through the same process as you put it, about discovering the reality and brutality of war. But I would like to go to that photograph there [Islandbridge War Memorial] and I would just like confirmation of the figures from Tom. That place is very near my work, and I walk there nearly every day, it’s a wonderful place if you ever get a chance to go… But on this circular space with the cross in the middle, it’s in memory of the 49,400 Irishmen that gave their lives in the Great War. And I think that’s something to ponder in terms of Irishmen on this island. And we’re part of that great tragedy that was the First World War that was the making of another war. Could you just confirm that that is the casualty figure, and what was the proportion between what we would describe as Ulster and the rest of the country in terms of casualties? …..”
Tom Burke: “…When the German bullets flew, they never distinguished between a Catholic and a Protestant, and I’m not going to either.”
John: “Hear hear.”
Tom Burke: “I do not get into the debate about how many Catholics versus how many Protestants were killed. When you give a statistic, it can be twisted into whatever agenda you like. These people were human beings, and I’ll leave it at that. As to the 49,000, yes, you can debate that. There have been several studies done. What you have to remember is that a lot of Irishmen served in British regiments other than Irish regiments. For example, take the Dublin Fusiliers: 28% of the Dublin Fusiliers who were killed were not Irish. There’s a paper I had published in the Irish Sword which breaks it down… but again, I go back to my old story. When the bullets flew, they didn’t distinguish. And I don’t intend to get into the argument of Protestant versus Catholic casualties. The most common number of Irish casualties regularly quoted is around the 32,000 mark.”
Q. 5. Ruth Lawler (Clonmellon): “What you said about the Irish who died in the First World War, you excluded the ones who fought in the Australian Army. You did mention New Zealand, but the ANZACs were Australian and New Zealand, and a good majority of them were Irish as well.
Tom Burke: ‘…. At Messines, when [William] Redmond was killed at Messines on the 7th June, 1917, there was a Book of Condolences opened up by General Hickie and the 5th or 6th name in it was a Private P. Ryan, VC. AIF. He was in the Australian Infantry. I looked him up in the lists of VCs and he was born in Tipperary. He went out to Australia, he worked on the railways and enlisted, came to Flander with the Australians and won the VC. He was a stretcher bearer and repeatedly pulled men in from No Man’s Land under heavy fire.”
Ruth: “There is a black and white film from years back which mentions 8 Irish VCs for Australia……….”
Q. 6. “Paul mentioned that when Redmond came back from London he stayed in the country lodge in Co. Wicklow. A lot of critics of Redmond say he was a recluse there. But I believe there was a railway station near there. Redmond was not a recluse, he could easily go to any part of the country from there.”
Paul Bew: “I’m following Stephen Gwynn who was very pro-Redmond. ….indeed he made a number of speeches around the country and I have quoted from one, but Gwynn, who is very pro-Redmond, goes out of his way to say that actually perhaps he just was too much into the private world he was comfortable with … and that was why all these guys, these fellows of 1916 like Connolly and Pearse, they really were for Redmond very serious weirdos… Redmond was convinced that Casement deserved to be executed – nothing to do with the Black Diaries, but because of his attempt to get those people to desert. … There was a whole kind of hubbub going on, a kind of cultural change on the island and so on that I think it is fair to say he was not sensitive to. That is different from saying he had lost out… because I think there is no question that he still remained the popular elected leader of Irish nationalism. The Sheehy family, Edward Sheehy was a Redmondite MP, this is the same family as David Sheehy and also the same family as Conor Cruise O’Brien… a major nationalist family, and would have a very strong sense of the strength of the democratic tradition of Irish nationalism.
Darkening of the heart – unleashing of demons: “What I am trying to say about this is that if you say, as Redmond did, ‘look, that’s it, we’re calling it quits … we can’t forgive but we’ll try and forget, we’ll put this behind us’, the point is that once you say ‘no no, sorry, it’s not the way I see it, I’m still angry, we’ve still got things to work out, the grievances of history are still sufficiently so great that I will go out into the streets and I will shoot RIC and other men …,’ once you do it, it’s a darkening of the heart, there’s no way to avoid it. You might say ‘Ireland is wonderful today … the Irish Army will be marching down O’Connell St.’ and so on. All that is true but it involves a darkening of the heart, the refusal to say ‘we’ve got to reach some compromise, we’ve got a step that we can work with, you just can’t go unleash demons.’ I think it avoids the fact that what happened in 1916 is an unleashing of demons, and some of those demons are actually still with us.
Modern Ireland – new discourse: “At the same time we are actually uncomfortable with the demons. So that even now … one of the things which is very interesting, if you listen to the Taoiseach for example, there is almost an equivalence of both sets of honest men now, in the official discourse of modern Ireland. And it’s very interesting… Certainly there is now no sense that somehow or other Germany was right in the First World War, still less in the Second. Widely held views by radical Irish nationalists in both cases….. To the men of 1916 they were the ‘gallant allies’. Now I’m not making a judgment about Germany, I’m just saying that nobody actually today talks about the ‘gallant allies’… But those people who made 1916, they meant that, they actually meant that. Again, it’s disappeared… It’s very interesting the new patriotism that is going on, and there is a reason….. And this is something Stephen Gwynn says. In the middle of the 1930s he says something like this.
‘They know in Russia, they know in Slovakia, and we know in Ireland, what it is to live in a country where there’s been a successful revolution motivated by hatred.’
“For a nationalist MP to write that: ‘they know what we know’ – that actually people are not comfortable with that. And that is why, at this point in the history of modern Ireland, people want to move away from it, that is why the Foreign Minister was saying ‘we cannot have two histories always in opposition.’
“This is actually a very very positive thing, that when people stare grimly into it, they want to move away from it, they want to say ‘there were both sets of brave men in 1916’ and so on. And it tells you something about what is actually going on, and a mutation of consciousness which is occurring in modern Ireland, which is actually very interesting and in my view a very positive mutation of consciousness. So what Gwynn said is very very striking, and that poem that you read is also very striking, that we know what it is to live in a country, like Slovakia, where there has been a successful revolution motivated by hatred….
Unionism and the British State: “And one final point, about the Somme, sometimes it is forgotten that you could hear the battle in Kent, you could actually hear it. So you get a relationship between the Ulster Unionists and the British State. …A leading writer in the early 1920s… comes and makes a speech in Belfast and says: ‘I will never forget, sitting in my garden in Kent, when the wind was blowing, the Ulstermen were there defending Kent.’ Now again, that is a relationship between unionism and the British State……. it’s something very very important to understand about the Irish involvement in the war, it changes the relationship between Ulster Unionism and the British State. A lot of people regarded Carson as boring and bigoted in 1912/1914. You could actually hear the Battle of the Somme in Kent, you could hear it, and that changes their relationship and gives them a leverage in the period after the war that they would not have had…”
Q. 7. Robin Bury (Dublin): “Regarding Redmond and 1916. I think I am right in saying .. that Stephen Gwynn said that the leaders of 1916 were really striking against Redmond and his party, as opposed to the British and the British presence in Ireland. Of course they obviously did that. But getting to the actual executions, it is said by quite a lot of people … if Maxwell had not executed the 15 and over a long period of time, very painstaking, that perhaps the 1916 leaders would have been a footnote in history?”
Paul Bew: “Well that was W.T. Cosgrave’s view [tape unclear] …. My own view for a long time, because I dislike simple explanations, and I would look at the land question in the countryside, social issues in Dublin, or the constitutional debates that go on between 1916 and 1917, and the Irish Convention, and I was very reluctant to accept the simple explanation that it was the executions. Having looked at all these things for years and all the other political reasons … I have now come to the explanation that yes, it was the executions, stupid. And, by the way, that was Gwynn’s view as well. That if they had been treated… We talk about it and it was disastrous from the point of view of British policy, the truth is, just looking at James Stephens’s Insurrection at Easter – Stephens has the advantage of being a very good writer who wrote at the moment, at the time, so it’s a particularly important memoir… and Stephens writes on the basis that he expects all [to be executed], his assumption the day after it happens is that there would be hundreds of executions. In fact 15 were executed… but nonetheless… the truth is that when you actually look at it, actual insurrectionaries – very few of them die, if you actually look at it. Lots of other people die, but they themselves are the smallest group of all the casualties. Soldiers die, ordinary Dubliners die … in the Easter Rising, the single smallest category is actually the insurrectionaries themselves, which is about 150 or thereabouts. And also the element of an alliance with Imperial Germany means that it’s not completely surprising that … but it is the executions that changed things, and every account … is the same thing: ‘when we were led away at the end of it, ordinary Dubliners sneered at us. Within a matter of weeks we were heroes.’ That really changed the story.”
Tom Burke: ‘Just one point on the executions. The British military command executed 306 of their own men for crimes that in their view were far less serious. The executions were a military decision. Maxwell was a General. I wonder if it were a political decision, would the executions have been carried out?
Paul Bew: “It was much less than James Stephens expected….”
Q. 8. Jim Nolan (Enniskillen, Guild of Uriel): “I come from north Roscommon originally. … I am very interested in Professor Bew talking about the five by-elections that the Nationalist Party had won. North Roscommon happened to be the first one, the turning point in 1917, which was won by Count Plunkett. And a local clergyman, the curate there, was Fr. O’Flanagan, and I am told by my parents that he used to say every Sunday, ‘why leave the gaiety all to the laity, why can’t the clergy be Irishmen too?’ And just thinking about the organizing of the Volunteers at the time, and the Citizens’ Army, and organizing for the Rising, where would you think the turning point came? … All those people were divided as well, you know MacNeill sent the countermanding order, they had a row in a flat in south Dublin about whether they would have the Rising on that particular day or not. Would you think that the Rising affected the change in the popular vote in 1917?
Paul Bew: “First of all, I think the divisions you are talking about – among those planning the Rising – actually probably disabled the authorities more than it disables the insurrectionaries. … … this organizational division ….was one reason why the British State did not believe that the serious thing was going to be attempted. They were aware of the countermanding orders, and so on. By the way, the UWC strike in 1974, is another example. There had been so many failed loyalist strikes, and cock-ups and imitations, and play-acting, that they didn’t actually expect them to come out, and once it’s bitten you’re too late, ‘oh God, they’re serious this time’. And 1916 is an example. Certainly by the chaos …. chaos has its advantages…
“One of the most important things about Fr. O’Flanagan of course is his deep commitment to what we call the ‘two nations theory’…. On the one hand a radical republican, and vice-President of Sinn Féin in 1917, but on the other hand deeply committed to the fact that any attempt to coerce the unionists would be wrong. He used to say: ‘the British have tried to coerce us for twenty years to give up our nationality, they failed and they deserved to fail. If we try to do this with the Ulster Unionists we will fail too and we will deserve to fail’. Another famous line is ‘a geographical entity is not necessarily a political entity. Spain and Portugal are two political entities but … the Iberian Peninsula is a geographical entity’, and so on. He was deeply committed to the idea that the two peoples in Ireland both had the right to self-determination. He could say that and be vice-President of Sinn Féin and it was not a problem in Roscommon. Which tells you how little the north is at issue in the rise of Sinn Féin. The vice-President of Sinn Fein …. was openly expressing these views throughout 1917, and it didn’t stop them winning in north Roscommon. In fact he was a key figure in them winning, he was very popular, very active on land issues as well.
1918 elections: “So if somebody says to you ‘well, 1918 was the democratic vote of the Irish people that the whole of Ireland – and the unionist North – must be included in an Irish State’, well Sinn Féin was led by somebody who was openly telling Irish people it was not on, it shouldn’t be done, and you shouldn’t do it. It wasn’t a problem. 1918 is not about the North. It’s a vote for the maximum possible political autonomy that could be achieved, even theoretically asking for a Republic, but it is not actually about the North, which is an important thing to understand. So I think that the Rising is important in changing opinions, all the executions, the threat of conscription and remaining land issues – and O’Flanagan is very important … there is going to be a need for the remaining grievance of the land question, and that is part of his significance in this period ……But a very very strong – what is called today a ‘two nations’ man.
Jim: “In a speech … in Co Cavan for Arthur Griffith, he seemed to direct most of his anger at Lloyd George….”
Paul Bew: “Yes, that would be O’Flanagan all right!”
Cathal Mac Coille: “I’m going to allow two more questions…”
Q. 9. James McGeever (Cavan): “The 1916 Proclamation speaks of ‘cherishing all the children of the nation equally’. I wonder does that put an obligation on us to uphold the Proclamation, to sympathetically understand not just the nationalists, but also the aristocracy and the gentry and the ordinary Anglo-Irish Protestants who fought in the Great War, doing – as they saw it – their duty?” …. James Connolly spoke of honouring and praying for all the brave men who did their duty according to their lights.”
Cathal: “I’ll take the two questions together….”
Q. 10. Sean Collins (Drogheda): “Just a couple of pointers. Firstly, to get back to the executions: recent work on the executions tells us that it was a political decision to stop it. Maxwell would have come in and shot all and sundry, as far as he was concerned, but when political pressure was brought to bear, that’s when he stopped, and that’s what the most recent work has told us…..This notion of these men going off to fill regiments to fight for Britain. Surely this was nothing new? There hasn’t been a study done on it as has been done on the Great War, as it was called. But the Great War I would believe was the first time that we really had proper records kept, and the media was opening the world, opening people’s minds. I have a recording of a man who was 90 years of age, relating a story his grandmother told him about how she baked brown bread and put it in two pillowcases and walked down to the Dublin Road in Drogheda to hand it to her sons who were going off to fight in the Crimea, leaving Dundalk Barracks, marching to Dublin to get the boat, never to be heard of again….So the notion of filling British regiments is nothing new.
“On the notion of the Rebels in Dublin betraying them, I was always of the opinion that the bulk of them went for jobs not for any great political ideal, and nearly everybody Tom mentioned tonight he told us how they lost their jobs so they joined the British Army. There’s questions to be asked there.
Respect: “The one thing that would concern me though is this, as a regular attender here for many years and many sessions, I felt the ideal of this organisation [Meath Peace Group] was to get a better understanding of people’s traditions and respect each other’s traditions. I really feel that that’s what peace is all about. And it’s not enough that we have problems with people in the North of Ireland and what their traditions might be, whether they are Orange or Green or Unionist or Nationalist, or Catholic or Protestant, or wherever they might be, but when we are bothered by the emblems that they erect in memory of each other, I really think we are on the road to trouble. We must learn to respect what people’s views are, whether their ancestors were in the GPO, whether they were signing the Ulster Covenant with Carson, or whether they were off fighting in Gallipoli or the Somme or wherever. We will never have the peace that the Meath Peace Group desire until people just respect each other’s traditions, and whether they are remembered on Mount St. Bridge, or not remembered on Mount St. Bridge, I really think that’s irrelevant.”
Tom Burke: “I think it is important that they are remembered – on Mount St. Bridge and in France. Because if you forget … There’s a point to be made about forgetfulness. Perhaps it was good for our own history to lose the memory of these men for eighty years, because now we can look back without an agenda. We can now look back with some kind of humanity, without any blinkers or an agenda. So I do think it is important that we do have some kind of respectful memory and memorials, whether it’s in Flanders or whether it’s in Dublin.
1916 Proclamation: “The second point, this gentleman raised about the Proclamation. …. ‘Our gallant allies in Europe’ and then ‘including all the children of the nation’. Now ‘our gallant allies in Europe’ – half the ‘children of the nation’ were fighting ‘our gallant allies’ in Europe. There’s a slight contradiction there in terms of the philosophy.
Paul Bew: “I very much agree with what you said, but I do think that the change in tone in official Ireland is very marked – it’s actually very very profound in its meaning, and it’s to do with an attempt to move away from traditional meanings……and by the way, lest I be misunderstood, it’s as much to do with unionist history as it is of nationalist history. And it’s to do with an attempt to move away, the underlying reason for it was to move away from that story, so what has happened in terms of … commemoration, the attempt to achieve a balance … it is tremendously important that that effort was actually made, to achieve a balance. It tells you something about what is happening in modern Ireland and it is actually a very good thing…”
Q. 11. Joan Leech (Navan): “I would hate not to make the point that Pearse, MacBride, Plunkett, all the signatories – they were not calculating politicians. They were poets, teachers and visionaries. They did what in their consciences they felt they had an opportunity to do. And also, we’re told that Francis Ledwidge, the Meath poet, wrote home to his brother Michael at one stage and said that if the Germans were coming up the path in front of his little house at home, he would not join up again. I’d love Professor Bew to comment on that.”
Paul Bew: “That is a perfectly understandable, perfectly reasonable reaction.”
Cathal MacCoille: “Just one thing …. re the reference to ‘our gallant allies in Europe’. Maybe this is the kind of thing a journalist would say. What kind of allies are gallant allies? Who ever had dodgy allies? Now, to propose the vote of thanks, since it is a meeting held in association with the Meath Archaeological and Historical Society, I’m going to call on one of the Society’s patrons, Dr. Richard Clarke, bishop of Meath and Kildare…”
Vote of thanks. Dr. Richard Clarke, Bishop of Meath and Kildare
(Dr Clarke is a patron of the Meath Archaeological and Historical Society):
“Thank you very much indeed, on behalf of both groups, both the Meath Archaeological and Historical Society and also the Meath Peace Group. I’d like to thank all our speakers tonight, and I’d like to thank Cathal MacCoille for his time-keeping and also for his refereeing. But particularly I want to thank our two speakers because I think they did indeed, in one sense, show us the broad sweep of the ambiguity of what it is to be Irish. The broad sweep of the political ambiguities of 1914-18 and the flesh and blood of people dying, and people who had grown up on the streets of Dublin going out to die elsewhere. And if we can’t treasure that essential ambiguity in what it is to be an Irish person then I think there is very little hope for the future.”
Poetry of the Great War: “There was a mention of Ledwidge just a minute ago. And Julitta, knowing my love of the poetry of the war, asked when I was concluding would I just briefly make a couple of references to the poetry of the Great War because I think here we all come face to face with not only the awfulness but also in a way with somehow whatever it is within people that can face life and death, and hatred and shame.
Francis Ledwidge: “And of course the greatest ambiguity of all is that of Ledwidge, who, as we know, was anti-Redmond and yet a couple of weeks later he volunteers to join the Enniskillen Fusiliers! He comes back in 1916 and writes that beautiful poem about his friend MacDonagh (for which he is best known) and then he goes back to the front, which he needn’t have done.
“He goes back to the war. He could have got away with it, he goes back and he still writes poetry of a remarkable kind.
“But the poem of his that I want to read is actually one written early in the war, in Serbia. We spoke about Gallipoli earlier on, and in Serbia, literally hundreds of people died of frostbite. And he writes somehow a vision of the end of time. He wrote to [Lord] Dunsany and said ‘this is what I imagine it would be like at the end of the Book of Revelation, the end of time’ and he writes in this strange, wistful way, about what has been lost and what is there. It’s the poem ‘When Love and Beauty Wander Away’.
‘When love and beauty wander away
And there’s no more hearts to be sought and won
When the old earth limps through the dreary day
And the work of seasons cry undone
And what shall we do, the song to sing?
You have known beauty and love and Spring
When love and beauty wander away
And a pale fear lies on the cheeks of youth
When there’s no more gold to strive for and pray
And we live at the end of the world’s untruth:
Ah what shall you do for a heart to prove
Who’ve known beauty and Spring and love?
[Francis Ledwidge: ‘When Love and Beauty Wander Away’]
“An extraordinary poem from that amazing ambiguity.”
Charles Sorley: “I’m just going to finish with one short sonnet, from someone you probably won’t know as well as our Meath man Ledwidge. Someone from a totally different background, a person I have enormous interest in. This time it is a Scot, an aristocratic Scot, a cousin of Rab Butler, a man called Charles Sorley who went to an English public school, who died at the age of 20, killed by a sniper at the battle of Loos in 1915. He comes from a pious religious background, and in fact was, in some senses, a religious poet. And the reason I choose to finish with this? We have to ask not only what does the Great War tell us of what it is to be Irish, but also what does the Great War tell us of what it is to be a human being? Because there were two things in the last century – the trenches of the First World War and Auschwitz – and after either of those, you can never look in the same way again not only at what it is to be Irish, but also what it is to be a human being.
“And Charles Sorley was a person of piety, a religious poet who died at the age of 20 and whom Masefield said was actually one of the great losses to poetry. Some of the others could never been anything other than war poets, but probably Sorley would. He dies at the age of twenty. A couple of weeks before he has written some beautiful religious poetry, and this is what war does to people, when he can also write like this:
‘When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your