New Gate In Interface Wall In Belfast, Northern Ireland

Did you know the installation of a new gate in Belfast, Northern Ireland is very important?

Let's start with some basics.

Do you know Belfast is a divided City?

Most people outside Ireland who are old enough can associate the phrase, "The Troubles" with the conflict in Ireland, and mostly in Northern Ireland.

What many people around the world do not know is that in Belfast and Derry there are walls to separate those perceived as in favor of Ireland being a republic independent of Britain (Nationalists/Republicans) who mostly are members of the Roman Catholic branch of the Christian religion from those perceived as in favor of Ireland remaining in the United Kingdom (Unionists/Loyalists) who are mostly members of the Protestant branch of the Christian religion.

The communities are separated by 21 miles of walls in Belfast. These walls, which some have dubbed interface walls, are seriously impenetrable concrete, steel, and razor wire monstrosities with limited gates which are mostly closed at night.  The interface walls work from two respects.  They complicate matters for those who wish to riot or otherwise hurl insults and missiles at what they perceive to be the other side.  On the other hand, those who are more concerned with being harmed, than with doing harm, feel safer knowing the walls are there. These non-aggressors think they are safer than if the walls and gates did not exist.

The negative side effects are numerous.  Among them are the lack of interaction of the two communities. Most of the neighborhoods are not specifically mixed and have been either side of the interface walls for two generations. Approximately 91 percent of the primary schools are religiously affiliated. As a result the children play different sports and thus have no cause to mix even in athletic competition.

Of course, church attendance is segregated.  However, some vanguards of peace and understanding have made a point of crossing that line by intentionally attending the services and gatherings of their opposite faith and by forming friendships which crossed the line.

While historically segregated, workplaces have been subjected to a series of laws and monitoring so that integration of the two communities is strongest at places of employment.

However, in regard to the darker and more hidden side of the conflict, in 2012/13 there were 411 cases of individuals and families who informed the Northern Ireland Housing Executive that they were homeless because they had been intimidated into leaving their properties.  This is probably the tip of an even larger iceburg because the individual or family must name any paramilitary groups involved in their intimidation and the police must agree.


Now comes this development where a new gate was installed in the interface wall at Workman Avenue near the Springfield Road.  Here is a view of the former gate:

Here is a view of the new gate under construction:

The gate is see through and everything else about it is the result of cross-community consultations.  The community selected the brown color.  The community members asked for decorative golden balls on the top of the tines so that it would look more like the gate to a formal garden.

Sometimes change comes in increments.  While this gate might not seem like enough change to some, it is a vast change to those who live there.  And it came about with consultation with the people who live there.

Now the two sides can see into the other neighborhood and that change might make it easier to realize the people who live on the other side are neighbors.

Here is a link to an article in Belfast Live where you can see the completed gate:

http://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/belfast-news/barrier-sectarian-interface-replaced-less-8969840#ICID=sharebar_twitter

Vincent Salafia: Victory on Slane Bypass, Then Teaching

In the last blog entry, Vincent had just described how the court asked for more information on from the NRA and the Meath County Council.

Question:What decision did the court reach:

Of course months later, which was last year, the decision came down that the planning authorities had refused permission for the Slane bypass. 

That was nice end to the whole odyssey, having had such heartbreaking, I suppose, defeats at both Carrickmines and at Tara, along the way.

Question: Did the recession help with the decision?

You would have to wonder. From a legal perspective, it shouldn’t have had any effect on the planning authorities’ decision because economic issues usually are outside the planning concerns. However, the main issue they determined was that the authorities had not looked at all of the alternatives. One of the alternatives that had been proposed, and indeed was promised to be delivered, was a ban on HGVs in the village. Funding had been taken away from the bypass because of economic issues and they were going to put in this HGV ban because the locals had been calling for 20 years for either a bypass or a HGV ban. In 2007, 2008 when things were already getting bad economically, Fine Fail announced that they were going to go ahead with the bypass and the locals were delighted. Then six months or a year later, the NRA announced that they didn’t have the money. The government said they would do the HGV ban. Minister Noel Dempsey, the local TD, who was also the Minister for Transport promised they would put in this HGV ban. But they didn’t do that and then after the visit by the Taoiseach, all of a sudden there was funding for the bypass. So this went back and forth. At the end of the day no effort was made.

What actually happened was the County Council came out with this outrageous report saying an HGV ban actually couldn’t be implemented in the village. They said they would be sued if they put it in there and that it would be impossible to implement. They even said it would affect international trade. This was all brought up in the course of the hearing. I think the planning authorities saw what was going on there, that this was public money being used not only to get votes, but even the design was so grandiose. Engineers who worked on the National Development Plan saying this is gold plated infrastructure and it should be a much further scaled down version.

The decision came back they hadn’t looked enough at alternatives. There was obviously a route to the west. The economic issues probably played a part but I think An Bord Plenala saw how they had been taken for a ride by the Council and the engineers at Brú na Bóinne. The same thing had happened at Tara. I think they saw that at Tara and they realized at both situations that they hadn’t been given all the information. They hadn’t been apprised of the full information on heritage. The proposers had assumed the authorities didn’t care. I think by the time of the Slane bypass they wanted to make up for past bad decisions, as well.

Question: Where does your teaching tie in to your development?

This is my fourth year teaching at Queens University at Belfast. Just before the Slane bypass issue appeared, I had received an email from the Irish law list, one of their usual emails, and it mentioned that Queens University was looking for someone to teach a class in environmental legislation. Because I’d been in a tough situation in Ireland where my Juris Doctorate degree from the United States is not recognized here in Ireland, I haven’t been able to go into the Four Courts and get registered as a barrister. I realized my best chance here was to take the academic route. To be honest, I was never anxious to be a litigator my whole life and I liked the idea of more of an academic approach to things. So I was delighted when I saw this opportunity because I figured this was something I would be fully qualified for. There aren’t a lot of openings for environmental law here in Ireland. I went up for the interview at the Management School at Queens. They hired me pretty much on the spot which was great.
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Next Post: Vincent Salafia: Teaching to Making Sustainable Development Constitutional


Previous Post: Vincent Salafia: Brú na Bóinne Achieves Progress 

A Quarter Million Signatures Provides New Clues on Pre-Great Hunger Ireland

Deb and I went to the Victorian Stroll in Troy this past Sunday.  We went to the Greens Show at the Rensselaer County Historical Society which is put on by the Van Rensselaer Garden Club. At the entrance, the Troy Irish Genealogy Society had a table.

That got me thinking about this article I saw on Irish Central News about a petition in the form of a scroll which was signed by thousands of Irish in approximately 1841.

Over 250,000 signatures cover 652 sheets of paper that were glued to a linen cloth.

Those signing were in support of English Lord Morpeth, George Howard, the chief secretary of Ireland, in 1841. He belonged to the Whig party and he opposed religious discrimination.

Morpeth's family kept the scroll for almost 170 years in the basement of Castle Howard, Yorkshire, England.

Many of the signatures seem to be grouped by region, so researchers of particular families might be given clues of where to look once some of the more well known names are used to orient which regions tend to be signed where.

Reportedly, the scroll itself will start a tour from National University of Ireland at Maynooth beginning in February through Farmleigh house in Dublin, Derrynane in Kerry, Kilkenny, Clonmel and Belfast.

Ancestry.com is digitizing it.

Maybe someday I'll find a relative signed the scroll.

Will you?

Thoughts of an American on the Walls in Belfast

Thoughts on "the wall" in Belfast by an American:

For those who don't already know, there are walls in Belfast and other Northern Irish cities and towns.

The Interface Walls demarcate the separated housing of the Protestant-Unionist- Loyalist community from the Catholic-Republican-Nationalist community.  The walls grew out of the barriers of debris that were established during the height of the Troubles in 1969 when both sides wanted to keep those from the other side who were bent on violence from entering their communities. These debris walls were originally reinforced by barb wire by the British military units which came into Northern Ireland. The government calls them Peace Walls to emphasize the security the walls impose.

The walls vary in size and construction material. They are all substantial and do block movement. The tallest ones prevent bottles, stones, etc. from being thrown over.

These walls cut off many streets that formerly were complete. There are large metal gates at certain larger streets which are sometimes open during the day and closed at night.  There are other streets where there are both large metal gates and narrower pedestrian gates.  Most days the pedestrian gates are open to foot traffic, but have restricted and crooked paths through the openings which prevent motorcycles and scooters from speeding through so those devices cannot be used for quick getaways from assassinations or other violence.

The large metal gates at certain locations can be opened for parades which celebrate victories of one community over the other, in battles centuries ago.

Where there isn't a physical wall such as out in the rural areas, there are invisible but clearly known lines between the communities.

Approximately 1,300 families or individuals were forced to move in Belfast in 2009 because of threats, intimidation, and violence for living too close or within an area where one side or the other thought they shouldn't live.

Rather than walls being taken down over the decades, more walls were constructed until as late as 2010. Politicians used wall construction to garner good will and votes from the community they support.

Both communities have community safety as their prime concern, but there are empty properties on the Protestant-Unionist-Loyalist side in Belfast and every property is occupied in the Catholic-Republican-Nationalist side.  Many from the Catholic-Republican-Nationalist community are on wait lists for housing.

Some residents we spoke with said many residents don't feel the walls are necessary except during the marching season.  Tensions escalate during marching season, and people feel the walls prevent gangs of one community or the other from venturing into the opposite community bent on intimidation or violence, especially at night.

Our Volunteers In Mission group experienced the aggravating side of the gates and walls when we stayed past 9 PM at a Protestant church. visiting after a service.  The gate we wanted to use to get back to our hotel, which essentially is in a Catholic area, was closed and we had to walk to another gate which was still open.

At the session about the five decades affected by the Troubles, we were told about a family that owned a house which was on the interface early in the development of the walls. They used to let their friends from the opposite community through the "wall" by having them pass through the house. So there have always been those who understood the separation of communities was unnatural.

Thinking about all the aspects of the walls, from the perspecitive of an American and as a practical person with an idealistic bent, it has been easy for me to focus on how the walls need to be removed as part of the reconciliation process.  Still, the walls are also a manifestation of the deeper problems.

One of the youth workers at the Forthspring Community Center said something which put my attitude and the entire problem in a new perspective. He said, "If we could magically remove the physical walls in the city, it likely wouldn't solve anything, until the walls in peoples hearts are dissolved."

Over the Pond

I am returning to Belfast to learn from and help those in Belfast overcome and put into perspective generations of conflict. This is my second trip to Belfast with a Volunteer In Mission group.

Several of the people going today were on the trip two years ago, so I look forward to catching up with my friends. The "new" volunteers have interesting and committed lives, too, so I look forward to getting to know them and working with them.

Traveling starts out with concerns, from grand to mundane.

I hope this isn't too much information, but my packing has evolved. My friend Dave told me years ago to put a change of clothes in a plastic bag for each day. I haven't done that exactly, but I have packed most things in clear plastic bags. Our leaders Mike and Pat pointed out packing in plastic bags, especially with zip closures, makes the potential search and repack at the airport go well, with less chance of things getting lost or torn by the bag zipper, and helps keep stuff cleaner with regard to the counter where a million bags are dumped and repacked every week. If I like dealing with the bags at the other end, I'll air the bags out and save them for next time. It should save on pawing through my entire bag to find a clean item, right? Just have to find the right bag.

An odd worry is the accents. My "ear" for the language takes a bit to kick in, and I'm pretty good with unfamiliar accents. I'm talking about English being spoken, not Irish or Gaelic. There is that saying about Britain and America being divided by a common tongue. I was going to ascribe that as a quote, but it turns out the saying can't actually be ascribed to anyone in that exact form. Still, the American accents and the Northern Irish accent are quite different. The accent there is heavily influenced by Scottish to my mind.

I am wondering how they are getting on with reconciliation. The Great Recession is worse in Europe than in the US at this point. There are a lot of low income people in Belfast and I wonder if the cutbacks in spending on social aid and charitable donations are fanning the fires of resentment and pain. Soon, I'll hear.

Don't forget to check out the Volunteer In Mission group blog at: http://bpp2012.blogspot.com/

The Titanic and the Irish

When I was in Ireland in 2010, there was a T-shirt for sale in the trinket shops in Belfast that said, "The Titanic: Built by the Irish, but Sunk by the English" or others that said, "Titanic – she was alright when she left us.”

Of course, such joking is only possible 100 years from the event and after all the survivors have died. The relationship of the Irish with the Titanic is more complicated than Brit bashing humor.

There are stories galore.

Addergoole in North Mayo had 14 of its residents on the maiden voyage of the Titanic and 11 of those perished. They started an annual bell ringing ceremony to commemorate that tragic loss of their brethren.

Annie McGowan, only 15 years of age at the time, was one of the few third class passengers to survive. Despite the loss of 11 of her fellow emigrants from Addergoole, and though without funds on arrival in New York, she survived and settled in Chicago. Her story is amazing.

When I was in Belfast in 2010, someone pointed out the tall yellow cranes with the initials "H & W" on them down at the docks. I was told the initials stood for Harland and Wolff. Although they didn't literally hold the Titanic until its launch, as they were constructed subsequently, they are in approximately the same area. I was also told the pair of gantry cranes were known as "Samson and Goliath," names which were derived from the bible, of course, and showed the colorful streak of the Irish. They were were constructed in 1974 and 1969 respectively. The residents of Belfast have grown attached to them and protested their proposed removal in recent times.

Also, in 2010 people were saying some sort of exhibition was already under construction which would serve as a museum to the ill fated ship.

The Titanic Visitor Center was completed in time for the centenary and it appears to be quite something, which you can learn about here.

A Letter to Ireland

A Letter to Ireland

Ireland,
the world doesn't know
of the divisions in Belfast,

of your walls
of concrete and brick,
ribbed thick metal and razor wire,
anti-climb paint on tri-prong picket tops,

of your black, solid-steel gates
closed fast every night
holding in hearts
as much as holding out assassins,

of barriers assaulted
by rocks, stones, and broken concrete shards,
by bottles of gasoline
with flaming rag fuses
flung by garbage bag slings,
of any garbage handy,
even a scuffed filthy mannequin
flung over to a church yard
as an incongruous missile of hate.

The world doesn't know
of the centuries old fight,
where even language and names
are not spared,
where Derry/Londonderry,
that proud old town
has come to be called,
“Slash.”

Outsiders don't know
of the invisible interfaces
which snake across the land
immutably dividing
republican-catholic
from
loyalist-protestant
in otherwise suburban and rural
quaint countryside.

When will your walls fall?
Will they chip away
in the wind and rain?
Will the graffiti covered blankness
be knocked down
by celebrating crowds?
Will the demarcations outlast
their physical selves?

How many generations
of your children will grow up
stunted by misunderstanding and fear?
When will no one care
the religious and cultural affiliation
of their neighbors?

When will you hear
the whispering of the dead
to let love drive out hate?




Copyright 2012
Rodney L. Aldrich

9/11 In Ireland: The Tenth Anniversary

Sunday, 11 September 2011

Crowds gathered to pay their respects outside City Hall in Belfast, and at the RDS Concert Hall in Dublin.

The City of Belfast in Northern Ireland joined with those New York and around the world by observing 1:46PM, the time it was in Ireland when ten years ago the first passenger jet slammed into north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City.

The Belfast Telegraph reported Isobel Gallagher from New Jersey and her sister Geraldine McGeown from Belfast, at the city hall memorial, recalled the death of their cousin Jean Andrucki.

Isobel related, "She was in the Port Authority building,"Her mother phoned her to tell her to get the heck out. She said she just had to get two older ladies on to the stairwell and then she was going to leave. But it turned out the stairwell was full of smoke. That was the last time her mother talked to her."

Niall O Donnghaile, the Mayor of Belfast said: "We are not strangers to the circumstances where a loved one leaves the house for work and never returns home again. There are so many people in this city and across Ireland who live with that experience every day of their lives. So we share a common bond of hurt, of bewilderment, of loss between the people of New York, and across America, and Belfast."

A recorded message from the Fire Department of New York's Edward Kilduff was broadcast to those assembled. He thanked the people of Belfast and the emergency services in Northern Ireland for their support.

Mary McAleese, the President of the Republic of Ireland, spoke at the ceremony at the RDS Concert Hall in Dublin, and said, "The television pictures are etched on our minds and the tide of grief has never ebbed.

Ireland stood then, as we stand today, shoulder to shoulder with our friends and family in the United States.

We share our remembering as an act of solidarity with all those who were bereaved or injured and with all those who gave their lives or sacrificed their health in order to help, for if terrorism manifested the meticulously planned worst of human nature that day, there were surely so many others who with no more than a heartbeat to decide, displayed a selfless generosity and spontaneous courage of astounding depth."

She ended with a plea. “May love triumph always.”

Whiterock Parade in Belfast

I've been informed through a personal report, and media coverage, the Whiterock Parade in West Belfast went off peacefully on Saturday, June 26, 2011. This was in contrast to during the 2005 Whiterock Parade when Molotov cocktails and blast bombs were thrown at police.

In the intervening years, the Whiterock parade has remained contentious between the Orangemen marchers and nationalist residents of the Springfield Road. The Parades Commission had placed restrictions on the route. Approximately 50 Orangemen, consisting of Orange Order No. 9 district officers and members of the Whiterock lodge, were allowed to cross the interface wall on Workman Avenue to march on to the mainly nationalist Springfield Road.

The other approximately 850 march participants were re-routed through the former Mackies Factory site to join the Springfield Road at West Circular Road and proceeded back to West Belfast Orange hall.

Reportedly, approximately 80 nationalist residents and protestors held a peaceful protest as the parade passed by on the Springfield Road. Signs saying “Loyalist threats work” and “Nationalists have a right to protest outside their own homes” were held by the nationalists, however there was no violence.

Police praised marchers and protesters for their responsible approach.

Assistant Chief Constable Alistair Finlay said, "The parade passed off without serious incident and that is largely due to a lot of hard work that went on beforehand behind the scenes."

Regarding the overall mood, many of both the republicans and nationists were very upset with the recent violence in Belfast and Derry (or Londonderry) which they felt was brought about by gangs. In general people were not going to allow the gangs to continue. There seems to be a sense of more cooperation from both sides.
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Rory McIlroy Says Northern Ireland Deserves Peace

Rory McIlroy Says Northern Ireland Deserves Peace

Rory McIlroy, the 2011 winner of the US Open Golf Tournament, is saddened by the recent violence in East Belfast, not far from his home in Holywood, Northern Ireland.

On June 21 and 22, loyalists and republicans battled in the Lower Newtownards Road and Short Strand areas. The police became involved when they came between the two sides. Rocks were thrown. Sledge hammers were taken to police vehicles. Molotov cocktails were hurled. At least three shots were fired and Niall Carson, a Press Association photographer, was wounded on June 22 in the leg by one shot. His condition was reported as stable.

A 20-year-old woman was arrested on a weapons charge. Two people were injured by gunfire the prior night.

The violence became so pitched water cannons were used to disperse the crowds.

Rory McIlroy commented, ""It's sad to see what's happened the last couple of nights. I know that 99.9% of the population don't want to see that.

And if I can just be a little bit of positivity in the news then that's great.

I think everyone just wants to live in peaceful times, and I think Northern Ireland deserves it."

The government is responding with an action plan that will likely involve an interfaith task force. Specifically, Peter Robinson, First Miniser of Northern Ireland and and his Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness have instructed a government official to interact with community leaders in the Newtownards Road and Short Strand areas of Belfast.

In a joint statement Robinson and McGuinness said, “We would ask everyone to give the official the time and space to conduct this work.

The official has been asked to bring back a report promptly and make recommendations as to how problems in the area can be addressed. By working with local communities and agencies, we want to ensure that interface issues are tackled across Belfast.”

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Bomb Kills Policeman In Northern Ireland

500 Pound Bomb Found in Northern Ireland

Financial Crisis in Ireland

I have only been to Ireland twice and know only a handful of people there.

So, I do not have many special insights into the recent news that Ireland is facing a financial crisis of immense proportions. Sure, when Greece got really bad last spring, Ireland was mentioned, along with Spain.

What is the perspective of the average Irish person about this economic crisis:

• spitting with rage (In Ireland, The Death Of 'The Celtic Tiger' Leads To Anger, Populist Uproarby Philip Reeves)
  


• "Ireland needs a new credit rating agency: Moody & Poor!" - Colm O'Regan, a former IT consultant, now comedian (Comedians Feast On Ireland's Whopping Debt Crisis
  by The Associated Press)


• "Indeed, nobody asked why is it worse to allow banks to collapse than to allow societies to collapse or why it is worse to allow banks to be broken than to allow lives to be broken. "(Vincent Browne, The Irish Times - Wednesday, December 1, 2010)


• "The decision of Fianna Fáil/NRA to desecrate Tara’s immediate landscape, the Gabhra Valley, in July 2007 was a bad judgment. The M3 opened this year. We have lost our sovereignty. What did we unleash?" (Dr Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin, Irish Examiner Saturday, December 04, 2010)

Now keep in mind, this discussion is about the Republic of Ireland. The North is facing it's own issues, which are tied into the belt tightening of the United Kingdom.

I know in 2005, houses in Dublin, which, of course, is in the Republic, were millions of euro each. Mortgages were 50 years or more to make the payments somewhat affordable. But the streets were jammed with vehicles, the stores were packed with people, and the skyline was filled with cranes. Basics were high cost and the exchange rate made me feel like the US was a struggling nation. Lots of eastern European immigrants or foreign workers were working in Dublin.

If the Irish have to bail out the banks, the estimate for that alone is: €50 billion.

There are 4.5 million people in the Republic.

That's 11,111 euro per man, woman, and child, just to keep the banks from tanking. Or in USA dollars: $15,331 per man, woman, and child.

That's a lot of doing without to scrape up enough to pay back that amount of debt, eh?

What about the basic fairness of supporting the Irish banks?

With the government having made a commitment to the banks, all the taxpayers are keeping the bank's investors afloat, while those investors are not being asked to "take a haircut" as the phrase goes for incurring a loss on a bad investment. And the banks don't have to close down, or fire anyone as far as I've been able to determine.

This “take a haircut” concept was contemplated in a way as you can read about here.

Why would any investor do this? Reduced risk, I suppose. Getting out of a situation now rather than face disaster later, or a long period of uncertainty and stagnation. The article notes that Standard and Poors has downgraded the four big Irish banks' long term credit ratings.

But the 85 billion euro bailout package for Ireland which was approved by Europe’s finance ministers has been described as not requiring banks or bondholders to “take haircuts”.

Are the european leaders unwilling to spread the hit to any investors? Are they afraid investors would bring down the economies of Portugal and Spain in a flash?

I wonder.

Randall Parker (But Who Caused Irish Financial Crisis? 2010 November 24 Wednesday) has tracked who the bondholders are in Irelands banks:

British banks provided

$42bn,

German banks provided

$46bn,

US banks

$25bn and

French banks

$21bn.

Total lending of
non-Irish banks
to Irish banks is approximately

$170bn

So these non-Irish banks invested in the Irish property boom, I mean bubble, and now, rather than take any loss, even when the interest rate was higher than for non-risky loans, the Irish taxpayers must pay all these other countries back because their government and now the IMF are insisting the government must make good on all these bonds.

Why don't they tell the truth? They are hoping to stave off a greater collapse

Here's a link to more about the money side of Ireland's problems:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131215410&ft=1&f=1004

I know last spring (May 2010) as many of the eastern European workers had left as could afford to leave - there were no new jobs in Ireland.

Apparently now, the Irish themselves are leaving to find work, reminiscent of hundreds of years of colonial rule and the majority of the period of the Free State and the Republic.

Here's a link to a story about the Irish looking elsewhere for work:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130317598&ps=rs

I wonder if they will send money to their former home? The Irish government better hope so!

Belfast At Last

A lot has happened in the past few days.

Originally, I thought I would give you my impressions sequentially, but I am not sure such a recitation would be helpful.

I am going through culture shock on a daily basis. Starting with Americans and Irish are separated by a common language. Our accents are very, very different. I had experience with some accents in the Republic of Ireland, but the Belfast accent is harder for me to understand. Belfast residents speak fast to each other, the vowels are swallowed differently, and the word structures are different than the ones we use in the States. Some use "All right" as a hello. Something done right of your own initiative gets the reaction/lable, "fair play". The trunk of a car is the "boot". Lumber comes in "four by two" or "six by two" dimensions. And a ton of other small things are said differently.

The people are courteous and friendly and love a good laugh. Drivers will blink their headlights to let someone coming toward them turn across their path. Yah, they actually slow down or even stop to let the other person turn. Everyone wants to know how we are "getting on here" and what we think.

Some of the people are peace makers. Some in little ways, and some in large ways.

To understand what has gone on here let me divide the recent history in three parts. Pre Good Friday Accords, Post Good Friday Accords, and Recent Years, like the last three years, maybe.

The Pre Good Friday Accords generally have been called "The Troubles". This was a time of assassinations, attacks using automatic weapons and mortars, kidnappings and tortures. All sides were victimized and all sides committed violence. This is the part the American media covered fairly heavily. How did it start up? Some say the Catholics saw the peaceful protests in the American civil rights struggle, they tried to copy those protests, and for a variety of reasons, probably including the length and depth of the prior conflict, the violence escalated rather than resolved.

Various politicians take credit for the Good Friday Accords, but the regular people tell me the regular people became tired of civil war and didn't want another generation of children to be raised in such horrendous conditions. Also, the clergy transmitted this grass roots ground swell from the people to the politicians. The clergy and other peacemakers took real risks to press for non-violence.

After the Good Friday Accords were signed the level of violence decreased bit by bit. But certain features have stubbornly remained. The people live in different areas with people of their own economic means and religion. We think of the conflict as religious but there is a whole social class component.

Then comes the most recent period, which again is filled with contrasts. There are huge walls that chop up and separate these neighborhoods. People cross through gates, but the gates often close at night. Some people choose to live in intentionally mixed religion areas, but this has just created another group that is shunned by the polar opposite groups.

In the last 2 or 3 years, people are walking on the street. Kids can walk home from school without being picked up by their parents. Kids can play outside and do not spend all of their time indoors. There are young people who didn't directly experience "The Troubles" during the period of their lives which they can remember.

On the other hand, people stay or in their own areas and if they go to a neutral or mixed area, they walk on the side of the street which is "correct" for Protestants or Catholics, depending on which they are. Teenagers text one another to get together at preplanned locations for "recreational rioting" which involve taunting, serious stone throwing, and more.

I guess one of the strangest things is what the government calls "The Peace Wall". Our little group saw it in multiple locations. It is high and impenetrable. Last night my Volunteer In Mission group signed the wall with magic markers and left our messages of peace. I can't believe our media in America ignores this wall and doesn't have the time to help ensure hatred on both sides decreases to the point such a wall isn't needed.