After we left Glencree it was off to Galway for a much less academic few days. We spent a day exploring Galway independently, and then boarded a ferry for Inis Mor, the largest of the Aran Islands off the Western Coast of Ireland. Aran is a Gaeltacht area and is known as "the window to Europe". It is a most beautiful place with wonderfully friendly people. We were not even off the bus to our hostel before a man was telling me all the good pubs, and explaining that one has no closing time, depending on which one of the two police officers on the island is on duty.
The next morning we were off on a marathon walk around Inis Mor which is 9 miles long and 2 miles wide. Previously I thought the Antrim Coast was the most scenic area of Ireland, but Inis Mor is now in close competition in my book. The ground on Inis Mor, and Connacht in general, is a bed of solid limestone, and there was a plethora of rock walls to nowhere all over the island. The coast is dotted with remnants of old forts and churches, some having been built, and some having been destroyed by Cromwellian invaders. The walk along the cliffs with our guide, a native of Inis Mor was certainly what people vision when they think of Ireland. Drastic cliffs and the odd cow or goat were the constant of our journey, and the sun was beating down on us, reflecting off the waves and limestone rock resulting in a bit of a sunburn (I didn't know it was possible to get a sunburn in Ireland).
We stopped for lunch in an ancient circular fort, and lounged around in the sun while our guide told us anecdotes and facts about Aran. Throughout the semester I have avoided the stereotype of the "plastic paddy", an American who has some romantic vision of Ireland, and somewhat corny feelings towards his or her ancestors, however I could avoid it no longer. I began thinking of my own ancestors from Connacht, and how they must have lived in dwellings much like this one. I thought it amazing that they, like our group had stopped for lunch and a conversation while exploring their own surroundings, maybe in a similar fort. Our guide told us about the history of Co. Galway and how his own clann, the O'Flahertys, were banished by the 12 tribes because of their ferociousness. He told us how many people from Galway have dark skin and hair and almost North African features, and similarly a tribe in North Africa has the odd red head. He spoke of vibrant clothing worn in ancient times, brought in through the ports from Spain and Greece. He also talked a lot about myths and how they can coexist alongside science. I really like this thought and have grown to love the bountiful mythology of the nation.
We spent the last night of the program in Galway and were treated to something special, courtesy of our school. The program director and assistant collected us and took us a surprise location for a final dinner. They probably could have told us where it was to be held and we would have never believed them. We pulled up in a van in front of an old castle and there was a look of disbelief all around. Upon walking through the door we were greeted as "My Lord" or "My Lady" and given a goblet of meade. It was a fun night and a great way to end the semester.
I'm currently on a bus back to Dublin to wait for my parents and Brendan, and hopefully they were able to get here in spite of the volcano. It's funny, after having a walking tour of Inis Mor filled with talk of myths and legends and meanwhile man's mighty creations are being proved useless in the face of a volcano. It is no wonder people made up stories to explain things they didn't, and still don't understand.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Frisbee and Farsi
We ended the program by going back to Glencree to present our papers. I think everyone was relieved to be done with our academic work, and also happy to be seeing their families soon. While at Glencree we were lucky enough, that through a strange stroke of luck, a group of community workers from Afghanistan were able to talk to us and have a conversation. They had been at Glencree for a few days, and because of the volcano going off, could not return to Afghanistan. Apparently it is extremely hard to get a travel visa for Afghani's and they had to now find another plane that would take them back via Germany, or else they would have to apply for new visas. They made the best of this unfortunate situation, and were happy to talk to our group. The Afghans spoke different languages amongst themselves, and only some of them were conversational in English. One of the men, Shareef, translated, and as we found out later, it wasn't because of his English skills, but because he is very politically motivated and usually takes charge of the group.
The most odd thing had happened before the meeting when a group of us were playing frisbee out on the lawn to occupy our time. The Afghans came over and joined in on our strange American game and I really wish I could have gotten a picture of this group of American students and Afghan civil society workers laughing and enjoying a game, without even speaking the same language. The women in the group had a fun time tossing it to all of us and doing their best to catch the disk, while the men focused on seeing who could launch the frisbee the furthest.
It was a little bit of a confrontational meeting between the two groups and there was a strange tension in the air. This mood was added to by the fact that all of the Americans were sitting on one side of the room, and all the Afghans on the other. Shareef started off the questions by asking why would a group of Americans study conflict? (with a noticeable smirk on his face) It was no-nonsense questions like this that made some people uneasy and no doubt, resentful off Shareef, but I feel that he can ask me whatever questions he wants, however vague or loaded they are, I think after his life of experience with Americans I owe him this. Shareef also ended the conversation with an interesting pun that made some of our group, and also some of his own a little uneasy. He talked about how he was glad he could talk with us and he thought us to be good people, but unfortunatley if we came to Afghanistan and a Taliban fighter saw us, he would shoot us dead without the thought that we could possibly be good. He knows us now, and knows that students are good people with "big hearts", "but (he is) also talib". This little bit of humor was lost on us for a while, because we thought he was saying that he was a member of a group that would shoot us dead without a second thought. However the word talib simply means student, so he was actually saying how much we are not unlike each other.
I thought the conversation went well, and I was glad to see everyday people from Afghanistan. Not the images of Taliban fighters or corrupt politicians that plague the country, and American news sources, but instead local people finding local resolutions to local issues within Afghanistan.
The most odd thing had happened before the meeting when a group of us were playing frisbee out on the lawn to occupy our time. The Afghans came over and joined in on our strange American game and I really wish I could have gotten a picture of this group of American students and Afghan civil society workers laughing and enjoying a game, without even speaking the same language. The women in the group had a fun time tossing it to all of us and doing their best to catch the disk, while the men focused on seeing who could launch the frisbee the furthest.
It was a little bit of a confrontational meeting between the two groups and there was a strange tension in the air. This mood was added to by the fact that all of the Americans were sitting on one side of the room, and all the Afghans on the other. Shareef started off the questions by asking why would a group of Americans study conflict? (with a noticeable smirk on his face) It was no-nonsense questions like this that made some people uneasy and no doubt, resentful off Shareef, but I feel that he can ask me whatever questions he wants, however vague or loaded they are, I think after his life of experience with Americans I owe him this. Shareef also ended the conversation with an interesting pun that made some of our group, and also some of his own a little uneasy. He talked about how he was glad he could talk with us and he thought us to be good people, but unfortunatley if we came to Afghanistan and a Taliban fighter saw us, he would shoot us dead without the thought that we could possibly be good. He knows us now, and knows that students are good people with "big hearts", "but (he is) also talib". This little bit of humor was lost on us for a while, because we thought he was saying that he was a member of a group that would shoot us dead without a second thought. However the word talib simply means student, so he was actually saying how much we are not unlike each other.
I thought the conversation went well, and I was glad to see everyday people from Afghanistan. Not the images of Taliban fighters or corrupt politicians that plague the country, and American news sources, but instead local people finding local resolutions to local issues within Afghanistan.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Policing WITH the community: Community Policing in the Heartland of Irish Republicanism
So right now I'm successfully procrastinating finishing my final independent study project and I figure I'd give everyone home a little taste of what I had been researching. This is basically the culmination of my whole trip and I got a chance to do real field work and interview some fascinating people.
My research had to do with the new Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and how when they were reformed from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) the Patten Report said that the ultimate goal of the PSNI should be to "police WITH the community". Community policing has been something of recent interest to me back home, and there are few issues on the island of Ireland that have been as divisive over the years than policing. The old RUC was seen as the armed wing of Unionism and at certain points in its history was 98% Protestant when the community it was policing is only a little over 50% Protestant. The RUC also collaborated on many occasions with Loyalist paramilitaries to kill Republicans and sometimes innocent Catholics. On one occasion, Pat Finnucane, a human rights lawyer who defended many accused IRA men and women was murdered by the UDA at his dinner table in front of his wife and children. Pat NEVER was a member of the IRA, but he was a human rights lawyer who fought against the emergency legislation and abuse used against political prisoners. Much evidence suggests that those UDA men were given information about Pat by the RUC after they were held for questioning and the RUC suggested to them he may be a IRA volunteer. This is only one instance where collusion is so very evident in Northern Ireland and no action has been taken to hold power accountable. So the long and short, Police, in any uniform, under any name, represent oppression and a political police force, rather than a police service. I set out to gather the perceptions of community workers in West Belfast (known for it's heavy Catholic/Nationalist/Republican community) of the PSNI, and perceptions of the community held by the PSNI. My research was informative and inspiring and I met many people from the PSNI and community groups who want nothing more than to bring peace and some semblance of "normality" to their troubled country.
One community activist told me that the way he sees it, reforming policing in NI from the RUC to the PSNI is like reforming the KKK. Now of course that seems like an outlandish statement, and even upon research of policing in NI it is still far more radical of a viewpoint than I would take, but that particular activist's experience with policing has NEVER been a positive one. I first needed to realize he doesn't see police the way I see them. He didn't have people like Officer Bowen and Officer Barry teaching him about "the 8 ways to say no" and "stranger danger", he simply doesn't see the police as a service, but as a force. He is part of a group called Eirigi ("rise up" in Irish) that is a non-violent political campaign group against the peace process in NI. Non-violent and against the peace process, how can that be? I'd describe it as they're not against the peace part, but rather they are against the particular process towards peace and the way decisions continue to be made at an elite level. Eirigi is compromised of hard line Socialist Republicans who have walked away from Sinn Fein and would see people like Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams as sell outs, doing nothing more than administering British Rule where it doesn't belong. The group started out of a need to organize Republicans who no longer identified with Sinn Fein, but did not wish to join the Continuity IRA or Real IRA (the CIRA and RIRA are splinter groups of the Provisional IRA who fought during the troubles and have not decommissioned or stopped fighting and the RIRA has become increasingly active in a pointless bombing campaign) who insist on dragging everyone back to needless violence. Eirigi is an interesting group, and I anticipate them having a big impact on the island (they are actually based out of Dublin and are an all Ireland Party/campaign) in the coming years. When I asked this representative, if Eirigi won the revolution they seek, and tomorrow we woke up in Eirigi's Socialist Republic, what would policing look like? He replied that they wish to make the debate about community policing wider than simply about policing, but about our societal frameworks as whole. I agreed with him whole heartedly. I don't think we can simply debate that we need to make policing more effective at making people safe in their community when there are societal problems all around us that are causing crime to appear. When things like education and social programing are consistently put on a back burner, and things like anti social behavior, drugs, domestic violence, and other crime are everywhere, policing is not the issue to be concerned with. If we bring about "normality" and "equality" in policing and "normality" and "equality" in Northern Ireland, within the Capitalist framework, we have brought about the normalization of marginalization and an equal opportunity to be poor and neglected. In my opinion the RUC did need to be reformed, and there have been small successes, but society as a whole needs to change a lot more.
Another person I met with was a woman who represented the Falls Community Council (The Falls refers to Falls Road, the main road in west Belfast, it is usually identified with its working class Catholic population)and she also is representative of the West Belfast Community Safety Forum. The Falls Council advises people when they have a certain issue and they simply don't know which statutory body to go to for help. In this way they hold these bodies (including the PSNI) accountable and track complaints made to them about non response by these bodies to use statistical data to display neglect of this extremely marginalized community. The Council is somewhat of an umbrella organization and her specialty is the West Belfast Community Safety Forum. The WBCSF started out of an "absence of police". In 2006 a man from the Falls area was murdered in the middle of the street, with multiple witnesses. Days after the murder, the police had not taken witness statements, had not sealed of the crime scene (the street had footprints in blood up and down the sidewalks because it was never forensically analyzed or cleaned up), and although everyone knew who was guilty, no one had been arrested or questioned. This was the reality in which the people of West Belfast were living in. This was in 2006! The Patten Report that held the reforms of the police force came out in 1999 and the so called, reformed PSNI came about in 2001! The WBCSF began joining community groups from around West Belfast to hold these people to account and have so far done a good job. I asked her if the recent devolution of Policing and Justice powers (April 10) from Westminster in England to David Ford, who sits locally in the Northern Ireland Assembly will make any difference on a grass roots level. Her response made me laugh a little and inspired me an incredible amount. She said "Well it better. Because all it takes is for me to get a whole bus load of angry people showing up at David Ford's office, saying hey, we wanna talk to you for a minute."
I also talked to representatives from Suffolk Lenadoon Interface Group. SLIG is a group made up of community workers from the Protestant Suffolk neighborhood and the Catholic Lenadoon neighborhood. Suffolk is just about the only Protestant neighborhood in West Belfast (in terms of where the policing districts are drawn up) and the dialogue between these two communities is encouraging. One issue we talked about was parades. I had talked in an earlier post about the Orange Order and their parades celebrating the defeat of Catholic King James by Protestant King William. During marching season this area has the potential to be the epicenter of rioting and sectarianism. But it isn't. Why? Dialogue and cooperation, that's why. The Protestants still have their march and their bonfire rages within a 360 degree view of the Catholic neighborhoods Suffolk is surrounded by, and while sectarian violence is not absent, it is much lower than other areas. When I had spoken to the PSNI earlier in my research they held this area up as a success story and even downplayed their own role in keeping it safe, referring to how the community polices it themselves. This interface area has come a long way considering it is where the first IRA cease fire in the 70's broke down, and used to be a breeding ground for paramilitaries on both sides of the conflict.
I also interviewed a representative of Community Restorative Justice Ireland, a community organization that solves crime in local communities using restorative methods rather than punitive methods. CRJ is based in Brehon Law, laws written during Ireland's "golden age" before colonialism. It operates in Republican areas, and they do have a healthy working relationship with the PSNI, and have to report any cases they get when there is an element of real criminality. Their founders were academics, activists, and former IRA volunteers, who knew the local community and identified with the issues facing it much better than the police. Their motto is from Brehon Law and it reads, "ceart dom, ceart duit" which means, what is right for me, is right for you, but it is loosely translated to be the golden rule.
And of course the best for last, the PSNI. After all my leftist ranting I guess I owe the PSNI a little respect for certain successes, because they have had successes. I met many officers, and some of them did little to remove my prejudice of them being little more than sectarian bigots in uniform. However, one officer who was the highest ranking one I spoke with was incredibly insightful and encouraging. I asked him if it is hard to work with a community so heavily associated with the IRA, who throughout the armed conflict targeted officers of the RUC (which he is a former member of) as "legitimate targets". He first told me some back story of his career and how he used to work in Newry, a town close to the border. I had read a book written by an IRA volunteer who was arrested for the mortar attack on this certain station, and I could see where he was going with this. 9 officers were killed, and this officer described how if he still worked their he would find it extremely hard to work with former members of the IRA while engaging with the community, whom he would have known as the ones responsible for his co-workers and friends being killed. However working in Belfast has given him a chance to distance himself with that and he told me just that morning he had a man in his office from the Falls area who had been convicted of killing two British Military soldiers. He consults with this man on a regular basis and although he will never agree with what he has done, he must RESPECT this man. He also must RESPECT the community he polices. Because without RESPECT, we're right back in 1966 with a two tiered police force and we might as well start killing each other again. I may be extremely critical of the PSNI as a body, but certain officers such as this guy, they're all right in my book.
I couldn't help but think back to my middle school days when he started telling this story and recall Officer Bowen, our DARE officer. It seems funny that in the middle of a project dealing with an extremely violent and bloody sectarian conflict I would realize that all I really needed to know about successfully reforming the PSNI, I learned from my DARE officer. I remember he used to come in everyday to class and ask "What's the word?" and the class would respond, "RESPECT". I guess that is what successful community policing is really all about, respect.
A music video from Ciaran Murphy "They'll Awlays be the RUC to me"
not exactly a statement I agree with, but it's worth a look
A Catholic PSNI Officer talks about the dangers posed by dissident Republicans who want to disrupt the path towards peace
Eirig denied their right to protest by PSNI
My research had to do with the new Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and how when they were reformed from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) the Patten Report said that the ultimate goal of the PSNI should be to "police WITH the community". Community policing has been something of recent interest to me back home, and there are few issues on the island of Ireland that have been as divisive over the years than policing. The old RUC was seen as the armed wing of Unionism and at certain points in its history was 98% Protestant when the community it was policing is only a little over 50% Protestant. The RUC also collaborated on many occasions with Loyalist paramilitaries to kill Republicans and sometimes innocent Catholics. On one occasion, Pat Finnucane, a human rights lawyer who defended many accused IRA men and women was murdered by the UDA at his dinner table in front of his wife and children. Pat NEVER was a member of the IRA, but he was a human rights lawyer who fought against the emergency legislation and abuse used against political prisoners. Much evidence suggests that those UDA men were given information about Pat by the RUC after they were held for questioning and the RUC suggested to them he may be a IRA volunteer. This is only one instance where collusion is so very evident in Northern Ireland and no action has been taken to hold power accountable. So the long and short, Police, in any uniform, under any name, represent oppression and a political police force, rather than a police service. I set out to gather the perceptions of community workers in West Belfast (known for it's heavy Catholic/Nationalist/Republican community) of the PSNI, and perceptions of the community held by the PSNI. My research was informative and inspiring and I met many people from the PSNI and community groups who want nothing more than to bring peace and some semblance of "normality" to their troubled country.
One community activist told me that the way he sees it, reforming policing in NI from the RUC to the PSNI is like reforming the KKK. Now of course that seems like an outlandish statement, and even upon research of policing in NI it is still far more radical of a viewpoint than I would take, but that particular activist's experience with policing has NEVER been a positive one. I first needed to realize he doesn't see police the way I see them. He didn't have people like Officer Bowen and Officer Barry teaching him about "the 8 ways to say no" and "stranger danger", he simply doesn't see the police as a service, but as a force. He is part of a group called Eirigi ("rise up" in Irish) that is a non-violent political campaign group against the peace process in NI. Non-violent and against the peace process, how can that be? I'd describe it as they're not against the peace part, but rather they are against the particular process towards peace and the way decisions continue to be made at an elite level. Eirigi is compromised of hard line Socialist Republicans who have walked away from Sinn Fein and would see people like Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams as sell outs, doing nothing more than administering British Rule where it doesn't belong. The group started out of a need to organize Republicans who no longer identified with Sinn Fein, but did not wish to join the Continuity IRA or Real IRA (the CIRA and RIRA are splinter groups of the Provisional IRA who fought during the troubles and have not decommissioned or stopped fighting and the RIRA has become increasingly active in a pointless bombing campaign) who insist on dragging everyone back to needless violence. Eirigi is an interesting group, and I anticipate them having a big impact on the island (they are actually based out of Dublin and are an all Ireland Party/campaign) in the coming years. When I asked this representative, if Eirigi won the revolution they seek, and tomorrow we woke up in Eirigi's Socialist Republic, what would policing look like? He replied that they wish to make the debate about community policing wider than simply about policing, but about our societal frameworks as whole. I agreed with him whole heartedly. I don't think we can simply debate that we need to make policing more effective at making people safe in their community when there are societal problems all around us that are causing crime to appear. When things like education and social programing are consistently put on a back burner, and things like anti social behavior, drugs, domestic violence, and other crime are everywhere, policing is not the issue to be concerned with. If we bring about "normality" and "equality" in policing and "normality" and "equality" in Northern Ireland, within the Capitalist framework, we have brought about the normalization of marginalization and an equal opportunity to be poor and neglected. In my opinion the RUC did need to be reformed, and there have been small successes, but society as a whole needs to change a lot more.
Another person I met with was a woman who represented the Falls Community Council (The Falls refers to Falls Road, the main road in west Belfast, it is usually identified with its working class Catholic population)and she also is representative of the West Belfast Community Safety Forum. The Falls Council advises people when they have a certain issue and they simply don't know which statutory body to go to for help. In this way they hold these bodies (including the PSNI) accountable and track complaints made to them about non response by these bodies to use statistical data to display neglect of this extremely marginalized community. The Council is somewhat of an umbrella organization and her specialty is the West Belfast Community Safety Forum. The WBCSF started out of an "absence of police". In 2006 a man from the Falls area was murdered in the middle of the street, with multiple witnesses. Days after the murder, the police had not taken witness statements, had not sealed of the crime scene (the street had footprints in blood up and down the sidewalks because it was never forensically analyzed or cleaned up), and although everyone knew who was guilty, no one had been arrested or questioned. This was the reality in which the people of West Belfast were living in. This was in 2006! The Patten Report that held the reforms of the police force came out in 1999 and the so called, reformed PSNI came about in 2001! The WBCSF began joining community groups from around West Belfast to hold these people to account and have so far done a good job. I asked her if the recent devolution of Policing and Justice powers (April 10) from Westminster in England to David Ford, who sits locally in the Northern Ireland Assembly will make any difference on a grass roots level. Her response made me laugh a little and inspired me an incredible amount. She said "Well it better. Because all it takes is for me to get a whole bus load of angry people showing up at David Ford's office, saying hey, we wanna talk to you for a minute."
I also talked to representatives from Suffolk Lenadoon Interface Group. SLIG is a group made up of community workers from the Protestant Suffolk neighborhood and the Catholic Lenadoon neighborhood. Suffolk is just about the only Protestant neighborhood in West Belfast (in terms of where the policing districts are drawn up) and the dialogue between these two communities is encouraging. One issue we talked about was parades. I had talked in an earlier post about the Orange Order and their parades celebrating the defeat of Catholic King James by Protestant King William. During marching season this area has the potential to be the epicenter of rioting and sectarianism. But it isn't. Why? Dialogue and cooperation, that's why. The Protestants still have their march and their bonfire rages within a 360 degree view of the Catholic neighborhoods Suffolk is surrounded by, and while sectarian violence is not absent, it is much lower than other areas. When I had spoken to the PSNI earlier in my research they held this area up as a success story and even downplayed their own role in keeping it safe, referring to how the community polices it themselves. This interface area has come a long way considering it is where the first IRA cease fire in the 70's broke down, and used to be a breeding ground for paramilitaries on both sides of the conflict.
I also interviewed a representative of Community Restorative Justice Ireland, a community organization that solves crime in local communities using restorative methods rather than punitive methods. CRJ is based in Brehon Law, laws written during Ireland's "golden age" before colonialism. It operates in Republican areas, and they do have a healthy working relationship with the PSNI, and have to report any cases they get when there is an element of real criminality. Their founders were academics, activists, and former IRA volunteers, who knew the local community and identified with the issues facing it much better than the police. Their motto is from Brehon Law and it reads, "ceart dom, ceart duit" which means, what is right for me, is right for you, but it is loosely translated to be the golden rule.
And of course the best for last, the PSNI. After all my leftist ranting I guess I owe the PSNI a little respect for certain successes, because they have had successes. I met many officers, and some of them did little to remove my prejudice of them being little more than sectarian bigots in uniform. However, one officer who was the highest ranking one I spoke with was incredibly insightful and encouraging. I asked him if it is hard to work with a community so heavily associated with the IRA, who throughout the armed conflict targeted officers of the RUC (which he is a former member of) as "legitimate targets". He first told me some back story of his career and how he used to work in Newry, a town close to the border. I had read a book written by an IRA volunteer who was arrested for the mortar attack on this certain station, and I could see where he was going with this. 9 officers were killed, and this officer described how if he still worked their he would find it extremely hard to work with former members of the IRA while engaging with the community, whom he would have known as the ones responsible for his co-workers and friends being killed. However working in Belfast has given him a chance to distance himself with that and he told me just that morning he had a man in his office from the Falls area who had been convicted of killing two British Military soldiers. He consults with this man on a regular basis and although he will never agree with what he has done, he must RESPECT this man. He also must RESPECT the community he polices. Because without RESPECT, we're right back in 1966 with a two tiered police force and we might as well start killing each other again. I may be extremely critical of the PSNI as a body, but certain officers such as this guy, they're all right in my book.
I couldn't help but think back to my middle school days when he started telling this story and recall Officer Bowen, our DARE officer. It seems funny that in the middle of a project dealing with an extremely violent and bloody sectarian conflict I would realize that all I really needed to know about successfully reforming the PSNI, I learned from my DARE officer. I remember he used to come in everyday to class and ask "What's the word?" and the class would respond, "RESPECT". I guess that is what successful community policing is really all about, respect.
A music video from Ciaran Murphy "They'll Awlays be the RUC to me"
not exactly a statement I agree with, but it's worth a look
A Catholic PSNI Officer talks about the dangers posed by dissident Republicans who want to disrupt the path towards peace
Eirig denied their right to protest by PSNI
Monday, April 19, 2010
Irish Hospitality: My trip to St. Johns GAA Club
I am now in Belfast for my independent study portion of my program. I have decided to research whether or not the Police Service of Northern Ireland is really "policing with the community" as they say they are. I am focusing on West Belfast, a heavily Catholic and Republican area. Honestly, it would be a pretty boring post if I wrote about that, and if i hear the term "community policing" or any variation of it one more time I may go insane. So instead I'll write about a more entertaining experience over the last few weeks.
Last week myself and a classmate, John, traveled to the Falls Rd. in West Belfast for a hurling match at St. Johns Gaelic Athletic Club. John is studying the function of sports as political machinery, and the GAA is a great example of that. The Gaelic Athletic Association was founded by Nationalists to preserve Gaelic culture in Ireland. Gaelic games are hurling, Gaelic football, and comogie (female hurling, i find it a little ridiculous that they give the women's game a whole different name). John and I have very little knowledge of the actual games themselves, but if I could describe the hurling match we went to I would describe it as a fight to the death with large wooden clubs in which a ball somehow got thrown into the middle. Although it is incredibly rough, it is also skillful. It was really entertaining to watch someone being battered by his opponent, running full speed, and hitting a tiny ball, on the fly, precisley through the uprights. I guess what I'm trying to say is that even if you don't know the rules, it's a great game to watch.
John wanted to speak with some people who run the club to get information for his project and we ended up meeting an older man, Jim, who seemed to be the jack of all trades behind the scenes at St. John's. He was more than happy to speak with us and give us a tour at halftime. He showed us pictures of St. John's teams from the early 1900's when the club was founded and told us stories of his brothers' GAA careers. He told us all about the mission of the GAA as to not just promote Irish sports, but also the Irish language, music, dancing, and value system. There were posters all over the clubhouse/bar about Irish music performances and dancing events, and a lot of the signs around the building were written in Gaelic. The scoreboard also read, Naomh Eoin (pornounced nom von) instead of St. John's. As for promoting the value system and these people's Irish identity there were two values that stuck out to me.
The first was defiance. It is pretty evident through looking at Irish History that the Irish people do not act as push overs. I think the mere fact that this Gaelic club exists in Belfast, or Beal Feirste, the capital of the occupied six counties is defiant in itself. The whole idea for the GAA is to not allow the Irish identity to be Anglicanized and whitewashed away. It is through grassroots community efforts like St. John's that this is achieved. Jim also told us about how Gery Adams' son Gerrard plays on one of their football teams, and many Irish Republicans have been St. John's supporters since it is situated on the Falls Road, the heartland of Republicanism in the North.
The second value I was extremely aware of was hospitality. Coming into this experience I did not know what to expect. I assumed everyone at the game would know each other since it is in a tight knit community, and John and I would be seen as outsiders, this was not the case. Jim made us feel extremely at home and when he realized there were 2 Americans at the club, with an interest in learning about St. John's, he jumped at the opportunity to show us around, buy us a Guiness at the clubhouse, and even gave us souvenier records of some old club theme songs which he had made in the 70's.
The game was very entertaining and I also got the chance to learn a lot about the GAA and its supporters. One thing is clear, sports like hurling and Gaelic football are more than just a game.
Gaelic football
hurling
Last week myself and a classmate, John, traveled to the Falls Rd. in West Belfast for a hurling match at St. Johns Gaelic Athletic Club. John is studying the function of sports as political machinery, and the GAA is a great example of that. The Gaelic Athletic Association was founded by Nationalists to preserve Gaelic culture in Ireland. Gaelic games are hurling, Gaelic football, and comogie (female hurling, i find it a little ridiculous that they give the women's game a whole different name). John and I have very little knowledge of the actual games themselves, but if I could describe the hurling match we went to I would describe it as a fight to the death with large wooden clubs in which a ball somehow got thrown into the middle. Although it is incredibly rough, it is also skillful. It was really entertaining to watch someone being battered by his opponent, running full speed, and hitting a tiny ball, on the fly, precisley through the uprights. I guess what I'm trying to say is that even if you don't know the rules, it's a great game to watch.
John wanted to speak with some people who run the club to get information for his project and we ended up meeting an older man, Jim, who seemed to be the jack of all trades behind the scenes at St. John's. He was more than happy to speak with us and give us a tour at halftime. He showed us pictures of St. John's teams from the early 1900's when the club was founded and told us stories of his brothers' GAA careers. He told us all about the mission of the GAA as to not just promote Irish sports, but also the Irish language, music, dancing, and value system. There were posters all over the clubhouse/bar about Irish music performances and dancing events, and a lot of the signs around the building were written in Gaelic. The scoreboard also read, Naomh Eoin (pornounced nom von) instead of St. John's. As for promoting the value system and these people's Irish identity there were two values that stuck out to me.
The first was defiance. It is pretty evident through looking at Irish History that the Irish people do not act as push overs. I think the mere fact that this Gaelic club exists in Belfast, or Beal Feirste, the capital of the occupied six counties is defiant in itself. The whole idea for the GAA is to not allow the Irish identity to be Anglicanized and whitewashed away. It is through grassroots community efforts like St. John's that this is achieved. Jim also told us about how Gery Adams' son Gerrard plays on one of their football teams, and many Irish Republicans have been St. John's supporters since it is situated on the Falls Road, the heartland of Republicanism in the North.
The second value I was extremely aware of was hospitality. Coming into this experience I did not know what to expect. I assumed everyone at the game would know each other since it is in a tight knit community, and John and I would be seen as outsiders, this was not the case. Jim made us feel extremely at home and when he realized there were 2 Americans at the club, with an interest in learning about St. John's, he jumped at the opportunity to show us around, buy us a Guiness at the clubhouse, and even gave us souvenier records of some old club theme songs which he had made in the 70's.
The game was very entertaining and I also got the chance to learn a lot about the GAA and its supporters. One thing is clear, sports like hurling and Gaelic football are more than just a game.
Gaelic football
hurling
Friday, April 9, 2010
"Twas down the glenn one Easter morn' to a city fair rode I"
My Easter experience in Dublin could probably best be described as diverse. Easter is a very big deal in Ireland for 2 reasons, 1)it is an overwhelmingly Christian country 2) Easter is the high holiday for Irish Republicanism. In 1916 an event known as the Easter Rising took place in Dublin. A coalition of groups including the IRA and James Connolly's Irish Citizen's Army rose up against the Crown Forces in an attempt at independence. The strange thing about this rebellion being so important to Republicans is that they lost. Independence would not be won for another 5 years, but when the 16 leaders of the rebellion were rounded up and executed it changed public opinion among the Irish citizens. Most of the citizens in Ireland thought these men were simply loony romantics and wished they had never staged the rebellion. The men themselves were not militarily trained and were poets, actors, trade unionist, and Padraig Pearse, the leader was a schoolmaster. But when the British government executed them the people felt this was far too harsh a punishment. For example James Connolly who had been severely wounded in the fighting was brought to Killmainham Gaol on the day of his execution by an ambulance and since he was not well enough to stand on his own two feet he was tied to a chair, and shot by a firing squad. It was events like this that inspired the next generation of Rebels to carry on the fight and eventually gain independence. When historians look back on the events of Easter 1916 they sometimes hypothesize that the leaders knew they would not be successful, but they were staging a blood sacrifice for the cause of Irish freedom.
So back to the way my Easter was pretty diverse. I went to the Adelaide Road Church in Dublin with the Mitchells (my host family) for an Easter service. This is a Presbyterian church, and I was going more as an observer than a worshiper which made me feel a little strange. I also was excited to try my first non-transubstantiated communion, sadly there was no communion at the service (i know, bummer). It was a very different atmosphere than I was used to from Catholic mass that I have grown up with. The homily was about how the resurrection is not a parable, but rather what literally happened and the Bible is proof that it happened. I sort of expected that message because of Presbyterianism's evangelical tradition. I was impressed and very much enjoyed the relaxed nature of the service. No gaudy ornaments adorning the building, no fancy robes for the preacher, not really an pomp except for simple flower arrangements around the building. I felt like this was much more the way that Christianity is meant to be celebrated, with humility. I also noticed that as the minister went on preaching in his thick Belfast accent, there was a young girl who couldn't have been more than 2 climbing and playing on the altar steps. I found myself thinking about what would happen if this went on at St. Francis where my family goes to church in Weymouth. Luckily no one swept her away to the "crying room" and she was allowed to play freely and amuse the parishioners, because let's face it, who can pay attention to an entire sermon anyway? I also got to meet David's (the father of my host family) Mother who also attended the service, and we went back to the Mitchell's house for coffee and conversation. Now I say my Easter was diverse because I am pretty sure that I am the only person in Dublin who attended a Presbyterian service in the morning and then headed to my next event of the day.
At about 3pm I gathered at the Garden of Remembrance on the North-side of Dublin. I was surrounded by banners commemorating fallen Volunteers of the cause of Irish freedom. I had arrived at Sinn Fein's Easter Commemoration. Sinn Fein is a very small party in the Republic of Ireland despite being the second largest in the North, this being said I was impressed at the crowd of Dubliners they were able to draw. Every year on Easter, Sinn Fein holds marches and rallies in all 32 counties of Ireland. In the past they have been extremely militant, with salutes by gunfire to fallen comrades and men in balaclavas, and although this one still had elements of the militants tradition of the party such as Ogra Sinn Fein, Sinn Fein's youth wing (which used to be called Fianna Eireann, but that group actually became outlawed as an illegal terrorist group, also seeing kids dressed in berets and combat boots is pretty shocking), and bands and color guards were in abundance celebrating the banners of all four provinces of Ireland.
The ceremonies got kicked off by a member of Ogra Sinn Fein playing and singing a great rendition of "Come out Ye Black and Tans", an anthem of Republicanism, and with that the organized groups began marching down O'Connell Street and towards the center of the city. What I wasn't ready for was what happened next. As the groups began marching everyone that had gathered at the garden to watch began joining in. I decided that my promise to myself at the beginning of my study abroad experience to "say no to nothing" had to be kept and joined in myself. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that a party whose slogan is "Creating an Ireland of Equals" wouldn't carry out an exclusive parade. We marched down through Parnell Square and O'Connell Street and past the General post Office, where the Easter Proclamation of the Irish Republic was read 94 years ago. People were lined up along the street some cheering, some visibly annoyed.
I began thinking about how 94 years ago people were annoyed by Sinn Fein's actions as well, but at this present time, I think they are proud to live in a free country with national sovereignty and self determination. I think reflection about this aspect of Easter 1916 is essential considering the present state of Ireland and the world. Fianna Fail (a so called Republican party- I'm not buying it), the majority party in the Republic, along with the big banks have and continued to steal from the working people of Ireland. The introduction of NAMA, a a sort of economic recovery plan has caused outrage throughout the nation, but no one is doing anything about it. Sinn Fein is and has always been committed to the working people of the island of Ireland, and wouldn't it be something if members of other parties such as Fianna Gael and Labour, despite their vast differences, joined in the Easter ceremonies in support of Republicanism, that although has a connotation of violence is really just about being representative of the people. I guess after listening to the speakers outside the GPO reading the Proclamtion of the Republic, speeches by Gerry Kelly about his role in the armed struggle and continuing political struggle, and the chanting down of Fianna Fail to "Get off the workers back" I was left a little dismayed about the state of "Irish Freedom", and freedom in any area of the world. Ireland's situation present day reminds me a lot of the founding fathers of the US. I think the politicians in Ireland need to reflect on something as well as the politicians in the US. I think they need to decide if they really are creating nations of democratic representation. The reflection I wish they would make is this: Did we defeat tyranny and oppression, or did we simply overthrow a foreign oppressor in favor of a domestic one? Should bankers that exploited the people of our countries be able to keep fat bonus checks or be punished for their reckless pursuit of currency. I don't feel like I really articulated this last point all that well, but i can sum it up with a quote from James Connolly, a leader of 1916 and one of the founders of Irish trade unions :
"If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs."
A great song about Easter 1916 performed by the Dubliners.
Ogra Sinn Fein
A wreath laid at the GPO, I'm assuming it was put there by "dissident Republicans" unhappy with Sinn Fein's leadership and decision to "administer British rule" by going into government and abandon the armed struggle.
Color Guard
Anti Fianna Fail posters put up by Sinn Fein. The bananas are there because Sinn Fein has coined the term "BaNAMA Republic" for Fianna Falls NAMA plan.
Easter Monday commemoration with the North Inner City Folklore Project, this guy was awesome. His flag says Irish Republican Army Dublin Brigade, he stood their stone faced through the whole ceremony and then began barking out orders as soon as we began my 2nd march of the weekend.
Reading of the Easter Proclamation outside the GPO just like Padraig Pearse did 94 years ago.
Sinn Fein march down O'Connell St.
Terry Fagan, I have written about hi before in my post "Going on a Tour Where no Tourist Goes". He runs the North Inner City Folklore Project and organized their Easter Monday ceremony that focused on Connolly and the Irish Citizen's Army.
Irish immigrant group from Liverpool. Liverpool is home to many Irish immigrants, a few of The Beatles were actually children of Irish immigrants.
Statue of James Connolly. The quote on either side of him reads, "The cause of labour is the cause of Ireland. The cause of Ireland is the cause of labour." The Starry Plough behind him, (known in the US as the Big Dipper) is a symbol of a united Irish Socialist Republic, Connolly said its significance was that Ireland should control its own destiny from the plow to the stars.
Connolly's great grandson speaking on Easter Monday
Color Guard on Easter Monday. Dublin Fire Department sent their Union's color guard to accompany the march.
So back to the way my Easter was pretty diverse. I went to the Adelaide Road Church in Dublin with the Mitchells (my host family) for an Easter service. This is a Presbyterian church, and I was going more as an observer than a worshiper which made me feel a little strange. I also was excited to try my first non-transubstantiated communion, sadly there was no communion at the service (i know, bummer). It was a very different atmosphere than I was used to from Catholic mass that I have grown up with. The homily was about how the resurrection is not a parable, but rather what literally happened and the Bible is proof that it happened. I sort of expected that message because of Presbyterianism's evangelical tradition. I was impressed and very much enjoyed the relaxed nature of the service. No gaudy ornaments adorning the building, no fancy robes for the preacher, not really an pomp except for simple flower arrangements around the building. I felt like this was much more the way that Christianity is meant to be celebrated, with humility. I also noticed that as the minister went on preaching in his thick Belfast accent, there was a young girl who couldn't have been more than 2 climbing and playing on the altar steps. I found myself thinking about what would happen if this went on at St. Francis where my family goes to church in Weymouth. Luckily no one swept her away to the "crying room" and she was allowed to play freely and amuse the parishioners, because let's face it, who can pay attention to an entire sermon anyway? I also got to meet David's (the father of my host family) Mother who also attended the service, and we went back to the Mitchell's house for coffee and conversation. Now I say my Easter was diverse because I am pretty sure that I am the only person in Dublin who attended a Presbyterian service in the morning and then headed to my next event of the day.
At about 3pm I gathered at the Garden of Remembrance on the North-side of Dublin. I was surrounded by banners commemorating fallen Volunteers of the cause of Irish freedom. I had arrived at Sinn Fein's Easter Commemoration. Sinn Fein is a very small party in the Republic of Ireland despite being the second largest in the North, this being said I was impressed at the crowd of Dubliners they were able to draw. Every year on Easter, Sinn Fein holds marches and rallies in all 32 counties of Ireland. In the past they have been extremely militant, with salutes by gunfire to fallen comrades and men in balaclavas, and although this one still had elements of the militants tradition of the party such as Ogra Sinn Fein, Sinn Fein's youth wing (which used to be called Fianna Eireann, but that group actually became outlawed as an illegal terrorist group, also seeing kids dressed in berets and combat boots is pretty shocking), and bands and color guards were in abundance celebrating the banners of all four provinces of Ireland.
The ceremonies got kicked off by a member of Ogra Sinn Fein playing and singing a great rendition of "Come out Ye Black and Tans", an anthem of Republicanism, and with that the organized groups began marching down O'Connell Street and towards the center of the city. What I wasn't ready for was what happened next. As the groups began marching everyone that had gathered at the garden to watch began joining in. I decided that my promise to myself at the beginning of my study abroad experience to "say no to nothing" had to be kept and joined in myself. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that a party whose slogan is "Creating an Ireland of Equals" wouldn't carry out an exclusive parade. We marched down through Parnell Square and O'Connell Street and past the General post Office, where the Easter Proclamation of the Irish Republic was read 94 years ago. People were lined up along the street some cheering, some visibly annoyed.
I began thinking about how 94 years ago people were annoyed by Sinn Fein's actions as well, but at this present time, I think they are proud to live in a free country with national sovereignty and self determination. I think reflection about this aspect of Easter 1916 is essential considering the present state of Ireland and the world. Fianna Fail (a so called Republican party- I'm not buying it), the majority party in the Republic, along with the big banks have and continued to steal from the working people of Ireland. The introduction of NAMA, a a sort of economic recovery plan has caused outrage throughout the nation, but no one is doing anything about it. Sinn Fein is and has always been committed to the working people of the island of Ireland, and wouldn't it be something if members of other parties such as Fianna Gael and Labour, despite their vast differences, joined in the Easter ceremonies in support of Republicanism, that although has a connotation of violence is really just about being representative of the people. I guess after listening to the speakers outside the GPO reading the Proclamtion of the Republic, speeches by Gerry Kelly about his role in the armed struggle and continuing political struggle, and the chanting down of Fianna Fail to "Get off the workers back" I was left a little dismayed about the state of "Irish Freedom", and freedom in any area of the world. Ireland's situation present day reminds me a lot of the founding fathers of the US. I think the politicians in Ireland need to reflect on something as well as the politicians in the US. I think they need to decide if they really are creating nations of democratic representation. The reflection I wish they would make is this: Did we defeat tyranny and oppression, or did we simply overthrow a foreign oppressor in favor of a domestic one? Should bankers that exploited the people of our countries be able to keep fat bonus checks or be punished for their reckless pursuit of currency. I don't feel like I really articulated this last point all that well, but i can sum it up with a quote from James Connolly, a leader of 1916 and one of the founders of Irish trade unions :
"If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs."
A great song about Easter 1916 performed by the Dubliners.
Ogra Sinn Fein
A wreath laid at the GPO, I'm assuming it was put there by "dissident Republicans" unhappy with Sinn Fein's leadership and decision to "administer British rule" by going into government and abandon the armed struggle.
Color Guard
Anti Fianna Fail posters put up by Sinn Fein. The bananas are there because Sinn Fein has coined the term "BaNAMA Republic" for Fianna Falls NAMA plan.
Easter Monday commemoration with the North Inner City Folklore Project, this guy was awesome. His flag says Irish Republican Army Dublin Brigade, he stood their stone faced through the whole ceremony and then began barking out orders as soon as we began my 2nd march of the weekend.
Reading of the Easter Proclamation outside the GPO just like Padraig Pearse did 94 years ago.
Sinn Fein march down O'Connell St.
Terry Fagan, I have written about hi before in my post "Going on a Tour Where no Tourist Goes". He runs the North Inner City Folklore Project and organized their Easter Monday ceremony that focused on Connolly and the Irish Citizen's Army.
Irish immigrant group from Liverpool. Liverpool is home to many Irish immigrants, a few of The Beatles were actually children of Irish immigrants.
Statue of James Connolly. The quote on either side of him reads, "The cause of labour is the cause of Ireland. The cause of Ireland is the cause of labour." The Starry Plough behind him, (known in the US as the Big Dipper) is a symbol of a united Irish Socialist Republic, Connolly said its significance was that Ireland should control its own destiny from the plow to the stars.
Connolly's great grandson speaking on Easter Monday
Color Guard on Easter Monday. Dublin Fire Department sent their Union's color guard to accompany the march.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Antrim and Derry
Antrim
After our week in Belfast was over we headed for the Antrim Coast to Corymeela. Corymeela is an organization much like Glencree that provides safe space for victims and perpetrators to heal. I really enjoyed the weekend we spent there, beautiful scenery, caring people, and no more murals of men in balaclavas with automatic weapons like we had seen for the past week.
I think the best way to describe Corymeela is through a story we were told on the first day we were there. It is a Presbyterian organization and had some detractors because of their openness to people of different faith's and political viewpoints, most notably of these detractors, the Reverend Ian Paisley. If you don't know who Ian Paisley is, you're better off. He is a member of British Parliament, a member of the NI Assembly, and a local counselor in Antrim as well as the former leader of the Democratic Unionist Party. He is also a minister in the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster (a sect he made up after leaving the Presbyterian Church). He is famous for his "Ulster says NO" campaign against accommodations for the Nationalist/Republican community of Northern Ireland (funny enough I have heard many people in the news over here comparing this to the GOP's recent strategy of non-cooperation at the cost of the American citizen). He was also described by a UUP politician that we met at Stormont as a "gay-bashing" and "anti-Catholic" (this politician was also a Unionist, but even he thinks Paisley is nuts). Anyways back to Corymeela. Paisley was staunchly against what these Presbyterians were doing and said they were betraying their faith. He stood at the bottom of the hill below Corymeela with a loud speaker spouting off hateful garbage, and the person who told us the story stressed that he never actually came onto the premises and talked to anyone or saw what was going on. I honestly think that is the only way someone could ever find fault with the Corymeela Community, if they never really knew what they were about. I couldn't tell you Corymeela's mission statement, or an exact definition of the work they do, but I could tell you that the whole time I was there I felt welcomed, safe, and surrounded by sincerity. If Paisley had taken the time to actually communicate with these people he would have been proud to see what his fellow Christians were doing in his community.
Derry
While in Derry we stayed with host families for a week. Myself and another student stayed with a single father of 2 who's daughters were both living outside Ireland. His name was Shaun and he told us a little bit about what it was like in his old neighborhood, Creggan, a former "no-go" area for British Police and Army. It was called a "no-go" area because if the British security forces stepped foot inside, they would be attacked. This was because the Provisional IRA saw itself as defending this Nationalist ghetto from a sectarian state. In all fairness they may have been correct. This was a community that had seen Bloody Sunday where 13 men and teenage boys were murdered by British Army Paratroopers during a civil rights march. They also lived with the horror of internment without trial, where their family members would be arrested, interrogated (usually beaten), and left in a cell for years on end without a charge brought against them.
I can not imagine what it was like for Shaun to live in a climate like that, but amazingly, he is a normal guy. He doesn't possess hatred in his heart for the British state, and was a quite enjoyable person to strike up a conversation with throughout the week. He told us the first night that he was "not political". Either that was a joke or he has a different perception of what is political. Every conversation we had got back around to politics, and he most definitely had an opinion. I guess for a guy coming from an epicenter of the Troubles, being political has a much different meaning.
We also met a man Leo Coyle, who was interned without trial in the 60s/70s. He gave us a tour of Derry along the infamous city walls that are prevalent in the story of William of Orange vs. King James. Leo was in jail for 11 years without being charged for a crime, and while he freely admits his IRA membership, he was not in the organization before being interned. He went to jail when he was 17 years old and was only released for a few hours until he was 28. The few hours he was released in between that time he described to us in vivid detail, they were hours that changed the course of his life. While in jail his mother passed away, and he was allowed to go to the funeral. After the funeral of his mother, who he had not been able to spend time with as she took sick and died, he went to visit his old friends and see what was going on. He was walking by Free Derry Corner, the entrance to the Bogside where he lived, and another "no-go" area. All of a sudden he heard a sniper's gunfire from on top of the city walls where the British Army had a post. He looked around to see who it hit and saw a 14 year old boy struck by a bullet laying in front of him. He told us how he held the boy as he died and he was never the same again. What hope was there in Leo's life at this point for a non-violent end to the conflict? Here he was jailed because he was a young, male, Catholic, living in Northern Ireland, who just witnessed an innocent boy murdered in cold blood by the British Army.
I think it is far to easy to sit back, far away from real life situations that people face around the world like this one, and say that violence is never the answer. But if you were Leo Coyle, what would you have done? Taken part in non-violent struggle and waited for the next sniper's bullet to kill you or someone you love? Some people did experience what Leo experienced and did pursue equality through non violent means, and that is commendable, but you also cannot blame Leo for joining the IRA when he was finally released from prison. Leo makes no apologies for his decision to join the IRA but also said he was part of an organization that at some points hurt innocent people. He know makes it his life's work as a youth worker and counselor to reconcile the hurt he may have caused.
Leo's story is a powerful one, and most definitely one I will never forget. He was an interesting guy and myself and another student had the opportunity to sit down and talk more in depth with him over lunch at the community center he frequents. He shared a funny story with us which he amazingly tied into a moral lesson. When he was in jail, him and his cell mate dug a tunnel for a year and a half. He described how he was so close to being free, then the rain came. The rain collapsed the tunnel and it led straight to his cell. The two men were beaten and punished severely for what they had done. After laughing about his unfortunate break of bad luck, he tied it into his words of wisdom for us. He said that if he was imprisoned now you could bet he wouldn't be able to dig any tunnel's, moral of the story: take advantage of being young.
Antrim Coast
Why you would ever chose to build a castle on a narrow cliff that is hard to get to under any circumstances is beyond me.
Giant's Causeway
Ian Paisley disrupts the European Parliament by shouting at Pope John Paul II, "I denounce you Antichrist! I refuse you as Christ's enemy and Antichrist with all your false doctrine."
Free Derry Corner
Countdown untill the Bloody Sunday Inquiry comes out. Bloody Sunday was in 1972, the inquiry was supposed to come out last month, the victims' families still have not recieved the findings.
I forget this guy's name, but he was a reverend during the Siege of Derry who inspired the Protestants to reject Catholic King James. The city of Derry erected this statue and it used to sit on the city wall overlooking the Bogside (the Catholic ghetto) with a bible in one hand and a sword in the other pointing at the Catholic houses. They eventually moved it and put it inside gates because the IRA blew it up so many times.
Behind the graffiti is a mural for a few Nobel Peace Prize winners, Mother Theresa, Mandela, King, and Derry's own John Hume
Bloody Sunday memorial that reads, "Their epitaph is in the continuing struggle for Democracy."
Real IRA- "dissident Republicans" who split from the Provisional IRA after the Provisional leadership agreed to the cease fire without achieving Irish Unity. The day we were leaving the Real IRA hijacked a few cars and held people at gunpoint while planting 4 fake explosives. I'm not sure how that brings them closer to a United Ireland than doing what the Provisionals did and entering government.
"Derry will be free" written on the wall of an old fort in Donegal.
A youth club in a Loyalist neighborhood that said they started to keep kids from joining the UVF and UDA, but if you look all the way to the left they have a UDA mural on the wall. The woman who runs it tried to tell me why she keeps it up there (bullshit).
This bar got its name because it was the last place people would get a drink before they left Ireland for America.
Mural for the victims of Bloody Sunday, some as young as 17. And a boycott Israeli goods poster.
After our week in Belfast was over we headed for the Antrim Coast to Corymeela. Corymeela is an organization much like Glencree that provides safe space for victims and perpetrators to heal. I really enjoyed the weekend we spent there, beautiful scenery, caring people, and no more murals of men in balaclavas with automatic weapons like we had seen for the past week.
I think the best way to describe Corymeela is through a story we were told on the first day we were there. It is a Presbyterian organization and had some detractors because of their openness to people of different faith's and political viewpoints, most notably of these detractors, the Reverend Ian Paisley. If you don't know who Ian Paisley is, you're better off. He is a member of British Parliament, a member of the NI Assembly, and a local counselor in Antrim as well as the former leader of the Democratic Unionist Party. He is also a minister in the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster (a sect he made up after leaving the Presbyterian Church). He is famous for his "Ulster says NO" campaign against accommodations for the Nationalist/Republican community of Northern Ireland (funny enough I have heard many people in the news over here comparing this to the GOP's recent strategy of non-cooperation at the cost of the American citizen). He was also described by a UUP politician that we met at Stormont as a "gay-bashing" and "anti-Catholic" (this politician was also a Unionist, but even he thinks Paisley is nuts). Anyways back to Corymeela. Paisley was staunchly against what these Presbyterians were doing and said they were betraying their faith. He stood at the bottom of the hill below Corymeela with a loud speaker spouting off hateful garbage, and the person who told us the story stressed that he never actually came onto the premises and talked to anyone or saw what was going on. I honestly think that is the only way someone could ever find fault with the Corymeela Community, if they never really knew what they were about. I couldn't tell you Corymeela's mission statement, or an exact definition of the work they do, but I could tell you that the whole time I was there I felt welcomed, safe, and surrounded by sincerity. If Paisley had taken the time to actually communicate with these people he would have been proud to see what his fellow Christians were doing in his community.
Derry
While in Derry we stayed with host families for a week. Myself and another student stayed with a single father of 2 who's daughters were both living outside Ireland. His name was Shaun and he told us a little bit about what it was like in his old neighborhood, Creggan, a former "no-go" area for British Police and Army. It was called a "no-go" area because if the British security forces stepped foot inside, they would be attacked. This was because the Provisional IRA saw itself as defending this Nationalist ghetto from a sectarian state. In all fairness they may have been correct. This was a community that had seen Bloody Sunday where 13 men and teenage boys were murdered by British Army Paratroopers during a civil rights march. They also lived with the horror of internment without trial, where their family members would be arrested, interrogated (usually beaten), and left in a cell for years on end without a charge brought against them.
I can not imagine what it was like for Shaun to live in a climate like that, but amazingly, he is a normal guy. He doesn't possess hatred in his heart for the British state, and was a quite enjoyable person to strike up a conversation with throughout the week. He told us the first night that he was "not political". Either that was a joke or he has a different perception of what is political. Every conversation we had got back around to politics, and he most definitely had an opinion. I guess for a guy coming from an epicenter of the Troubles, being political has a much different meaning.
We also met a man Leo Coyle, who was interned without trial in the 60s/70s. He gave us a tour of Derry along the infamous city walls that are prevalent in the story of William of Orange vs. King James. Leo was in jail for 11 years without being charged for a crime, and while he freely admits his IRA membership, he was not in the organization before being interned. He went to jail when he was 17 years old and was only released for a few hours until he was 28. The few hours he was released in between that time he described to us in vivid detail, they were hours that changed the course of his life. While in jail his mother passed away, and he was allowed to go to the funeral. After the funeral of his mother, who he had not been able to spend time with as she took sick and died, he went to visit his old friends and see what was going on. He was walking by Free Derry Corner, the entrance to the Bogside where he lived, and another "no-go" area. All of a sudden he heard a sniper's gunfire from on top of the city walls where the British Army had a post. He looked around to see who it hit and saw a 14 year old boy struck by a bullet laying in front of him. He told us how he held the boy as he died and he was never the same again. What hope was there in Leo's life at this point for a non-violent end to the conflict? Here he was jailed because he was a young, male, Catholic, living in Northern Ireland, who just witnessed an innocent boy murdered in cold blood by the British Army.
I think it is far to easy to sit back, far away from real life situations that people face around the world like this one, and say that violence is never the answer. But if you were Leo Coyle, what would you have done? Taken part in non-violent struggle and waited for the next sniper's bullet to kill you or someone you love? Some people did experience what Leo experienced and did pursue equality through non violent means, and that is commendable, but you also cannot blame Leo for joining the IRA when he was finally released from prison. Leo makes no apologies for his decision to join the IRA but also said he was part of an organization that at some points hurt innocent people. He know makes it his life's work as a youth worker and counselor to reconcile the hurt he may have caused.
Leo's story is a powerful one, and most definitely one I will never forget. He was an interesting guy and myself and another student had the opportunity to sit down and talk more in depth with him over lunch at the community center he frequents. He shared a funny story with us which he amazingly tied into a moral lesson. When he was in jail, him and his cell mate dug a tunnel for a year and a half. He described how he was so close to being free, then the rain came. The rain collapsed the tunnel and it led straight to his cell. The two men were beaten and punished severely for what they had done. After laughing about his unfortunate break of bad luck, he tied it into his words of wisdom for us. He said that if he was imprisoned now you could bet he wouldn't be able to dig any tunnel's, moral of the story: take advantage of being young.
Antrim Coast
Why you would ever chose to build a castle on a narrow cliff that is hard to get to under any circumstances is beyond me.
Giant's Causeway
Ian Paisley disrupts the European Parliament by shouting at Pope John Paul II, "I denounce you Antichrist! I refuse you as Christ's enemy and Antichrist with all your false doctrine."
Free Derry Corner
Countdown untill the Bloody Sunday Inquiry comes out. Bloody Sunday was in 1972, the inquiry was supposed to come out last month, the victims' families still have not recieved the findings.
I forget this guy's name, but he was a reverend during the Siege of Derry who inspired the Protestants to reject Catholic King James. The city of Derry erected this statue and it used to sit on the city wall overlooking the Bogside (the Catholic ghetto) with a bible in one hand and a sword in the other pointing at the Catholic houses. They eventually moved it and put it inside gates because the IRA blew it up so many times.
Behind the graffiti is a mural for a few Nobel Peace Prize winners, Mother Theresa, Mandela, King, and Derry's own John Hume
Bloody Sunday memorial that reads, "Their epitaph is in the continuing struggle for Democracy."
Real IRA- "dissident Republicans" who split from the Provisional IRA after the Provisional leadership agreed to the cease fire without achieving Irish Unity. The day we were leaving the Real IRA hijacked a few cars and held people at gunpoint while planting 4 fake explosives. I'm not sure how that brings them closer to a United Ireland than doing what the Provisionals did and entering government.
"Derry will be free" written on the wall of an old fort in Donegal.
A youth club in a Loyalist neighborhood that said they started to keep kids from joining the UVF and UDA, but if you look all the way to the left they have a UDA mural on the wall. The woman who runs it tried to tell me why she keeps it up there (bullshit).
This bar got its name because it was the last place people would get a drink before they left Ireland for America.
Mural for the victims of Bloody Sunday, some as young as 17. And a boycott Israeli goods poster.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
By the Lagan Side
We arrived in Belfast and settled into our dorm rooms at Stranmillis College. The next day we visited the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont. Stormont houses the government of Northern Ireland, and has been dissolved in the past during times of trouble in Northern Ireland and was ruled directly from Westminster. We took a tour of the building which is quite an impressive place, and then got to meet with representatives from the Alliance Party, the Green Party, SDLP, Sinn Fein, and the Ulster Unionist Party. It was interesting to be able to hear about the current debate over choosing a minister for Police and Justice, especially because Alliance and SDLP are in a bitter feud over the position. That morning SDLP released an e-mail a member had accidentally received from Alliance party leader and favorite for Police and Justice Minister, David Ford. In the e-mail he called the Bloody Sunday enquiry “pointless”. He said it is pointless not because he doesn’t care about the victims and families of Bloody Sunday, but because he thinks the British State will doctor it up so much that the diluted version they receive will be worthless. His comments still sound very callous, but even more callous was what the Alliance MLA we met with pointed out. SDLP had received this e-mail 4 months prior and waited to release it when it was of political use to them. It is really disheartening when a party born out of the civil rights movement uses people they have sworn to protect as political weapons, and if they truly cared about Ford’s comments they should have released the e-mail immediately so that the families of those lost on Bloody Sunday could here what Ford had to say about an enquiry in search of closure for their loss.
Also on a side not when I asked a guy who worked at the Free Derry Museum (a museum focusing on Derry’s involvement in Civil Rights and the Troubles and run by many Bloody Sunday victims family members) what he thought of David Ford’s comments about the Bloody Sunday Enquiry being pointless he referred to them as “pointless comments made by a pointless politician.” So I don’t think they were as upset as the SDLP thought they would be.
Another poignant moment at Stormont was during our talks with SF and UUP representatives. I was amazed at the consensus between these two parties. Now when I say consensus I mean consensus on approach rather than their vision for the future of Northern Ireland. People throw around the phrase “shared future” a lot in the North, but I don’t really know how you can have a shared future when you have two groups working for completely opposite ends. The SF rep we met said that they were first and foremost dedicated to uniting with the Republic of Ireland and getting rid of British presence in Ireland, but added, we can not do this without finding accommodation for Unionists. The UUP MLA we met said that if SF wants to create a united Ireland, then being the only all Ireland party (they have seats in the Dail of the Republic and Stormont in the North) they need to make the Republic a more appealing place to live. In my opinion it already is a more appealing place because it isn’t part of one of the most brutal empires to ever exist, but the fact that Ireland’s biggest export is people, and they traditionally have a poor economy are more practical arguments for the Union. Anyway, I was impressed at the understanding and ability for open dialogue both men possessed.
While in Belfast we also took tours of West Belfast with former political prisoners. West Belfast consists mostly of two neighborhoods, The Falls which is a Republican stronghold, and houses Sinn Fein’s headquarters, and the Shankill, the epicenter of Loyalism. We met our former IRA tour guide, Joe, outside Divis Tower on Falls Road and he talked to us about his role in the conflict. He was in prison during the 1981 hunger strikes and was in the cell next to Bobby Sands, the first hunger striker that Margaret Thatcher allowed to die rather than grant political status. It was very moving to hear Joe talk about his friend, “Sandsy”, and how the world would be better off he was still alive today. It was definitely an experience I simply couldn’t have gained reading a book about the H-Block Hunger Strike, and gave the people involved a very real and human face. Joe spoke about how the prisoners were not just common criminals and the British Government was way out of line to treat them that way. They were prisoners because they belonged to an armed political movement and should have been treated as such. The fact that Thatcher allowed 10 men to die of starvation rather than allow them the 5 demands they asked for, some as simple as wearing their own clothes is appalling to me (1) the right not to wear a prison uniform 2) The right not to do prison work 3) The right to free association with other prisoners for recreational and educational purposes 4) The right to one visit, one letter, and one parcel per week 5) Full restoration of remission lost through the protest). Joe described the IRA members in jail at that time as never have been in jail before the conflict and never being in jail after the conflict, they simply were not common criminals. Thatcher had to say on this topic, “There is no such thing as political murder, political bombing or political violence. There is only criminal murder, criminal bombing and criminal violence. We will not compromise on this. There will be no political status.” My question for Thatcher would be; was it criminal murder when you allowed 10 people to die rather than even negotiate with them?
On a lighter not Joe showed us the restaurant where Bill Clinton and Gerry Adams shared a hamburger. He talked about how stupid it looked when they tried to act like it wasn’t planned. A convoy of black limos rolled up and out jumps Bill Clinton and who happens to be out for a stroll and also in search of a hamburger? Gerry Adams.
We walked from the Falls neighborhood towards the “Peace” Wall. Belfast is divided by many walls which separate sectarian areas of the city in order to maintain peace. I don’t really have a good grasp on this subject, but in my opinion, there is nothing peaceful about a wall. These are structures that dominate the landscape of Belfast and segregate its people. I hope that I can see the day when there is no such thing as a “Peace” Wall.
Joe left us at the wall and greeted our former UVF tour guide Paul. Paul is a native of the Shankill area, and is very proud of where he comes from. Shankill is the most disadvantaged area of NI and being a community worker, Paul is extremely passionate about changing that. He showed us deserted and desolate blocks of housing that the Housing Authority will not knock down because they claim that they are historic and charming. Although I am very opposed to a lot of Paul’s political views, he struck me as a very funny guy, and I had to agree when he suggested that maybe the members of the Housing Authority should come live in this shanty area and the people of the Shankill could have their cozy estates in South Belfast.
A lot of the deprivation in the Shankill is because with the Civil Rights movement for equal treatment of Catholics came a neglect of the Protestant working class that was also disadvantaged at the time. Another reason for this that Paul didn’t bring up, but many other community workers in the Shankill over our stay in Belfast brought up is that if a Catholic kid from the Falls gets a degree and a profession, he/she will get married, have kids, and live in the Falls the rest of their life and invest in the community. This is the opposite of Protestants in the Shankill, many kids end up leaving as soon as they get the chance, and then their neighborhood never sees a return on its investment of education and resources.
One thing I found particularly sad about Paul’s tour was that he talked about how when ex-combatants came out of jail, they could be a taxi driver, or a community worker. The Loyalist/Unionist community usually looks down on former prisoners, while the Republican/Nationalist glorifies them, and gives them prominent roles in the community. For example Joe from the Falls is a teacher. Not to say Paul’s position of a community worker is not as important and prominent as a teacher, but the fact he is limited in careers within the community he once took up arms to defend is really unfortunate.
Another thing I noticed about the two communities is that if you take away the in-your-face murals of masked men with automatic weapons, deceased combatant’s memorials, and paramilitary insignias, by looking at the Falls and the Shankill, you could still tell they would be high crime areas. That is because they are both inhabited by a neglected working class, and couple this with a political and sectarian conflict, and it is no wonder that the two areas were hot beds of violence during the troubles. Belfast was a truly interesting city and I could go on and on about it but I’m sure no one really wants to read too much more. I will most likely be returning their to do my independent study project and look at the role ex-combatants play in their community now that the armed struggle is over.
Stormont
Sandy Row
the International Wall on the Falls Rd
More of the International Wall, Republicans use a lot of images of solidarity with Palestine and Latin America
another Republican mural on the Falls
Bobby Sands memorial on the side of Sinn Fein HQ, Sands was the first hunger striker to die
"love should know no boundaries" written on the "Peace" Wall
Loyalist UVF mural
our tour guide in front of a UVF mural
Loyalist UDA/UFF mural
Republican mural
mural about the "Peace" Wall, on the "Peace" Wall
such a peaceful wall (sarcasm)
Also on a side not when I asked a guy who worked at the Free Derry Museum (a museum focusing on Derry’s involvement in Civil Rights and the Troubles and run by many Bloody Sunday victims family members) what he thought of David Ford’s comments about the Bloody Sunday Enquiry being pointless he referred to them as “pointless comments made by a pointless politician.” So I don’t think they were as upset as the SDLP thought they would be.
Another poignant moment at Stormont was during our talks with SF and UUP representatives. I was amazed at the consensus between these two parties. Now when I say consensus I mean consensus on approach rather than their vision for the future of Northern Ireland. People throw around the phrase “shared future” a lot in the North, but I don’t really know how you can have a shared future when you have two groups working for completely opposite ends. The SF rep we met said that they were first and foremost dedicated to uniting with the Republic of Ireland and getting rid of British presence in Ireland, but added, we can not do this without finding accommodation for Unionists. The UUP MLA we met said that if SF wants to create a united Ireland, then being the only all Ireland party (they have seats in the Dail of the Republic and Stormont in the North) they need to make the Republic a more appealing place to live. In my opinion it already is a more appealing place because it isn’t part of one of the most brutal empires to ever exist, but the fact that Ireland’s biggest export is people, and they traditionally have a poor economy are more practical arguments for the Union. Anyway, I was impressed at the understanding and ability for open dialogue both men possessed.
While in Belfast we also took tours of West Belfast with former political prisoners. West Belfast consists mostly of two neighborhoods, The Falls which is a Republican stronghold, and houses Sinn Fein’s headquarters, and the Shankill, the epicenter of Loyalism. We met our former IRA tour guide, Joe, outside Divis Tower on Falls Road and he talked to us about his role in the conflict. He was in prison during the 1981 hunger strikes and was in the cell next to Bobby Sands, the first hunger striker that Margaret Thatcher allowed to die rather than grant political status. It was very moving to hear Joe talk about his friend, “Sandsy”, and how the world would be better off he was still alive today. It was definitely an experience I simply couldn’t have gained reading a book about the H-Block Hunger Strike, and gave the people involved a very real and human face. Joe spoke about how the prisoners were not just common criminals and the British Government was way out of line to treat them that way. They were prisoners because they belonged to an armed political movement and should have been treated as such. The fact that Thatcher allowed 10 men to die of starvation rather than allow them the 5 demands they asked for, some as simple as wearing their own clothes is appalling to me (1) the right not to wear a prison uniform 2) The right not to do prison work 3) The right to free association with other prisoners for recreational and educational purposes 4) The right to one visit, one letter, and one parcel per week 5) Full restoration of remission lost through the protest). Joe described the IRA members in jail at that time as never have been in jail before the conflict and never being in jail after the conflict, they simply were not common criminals. Thatcher had to say on this topic, “There is no such thing as political murder, political bombing or political violence. There is only criminal murder, criminal bombing and criminal violence. We will not compromise on this. There will be no political status.” My question for Thatcher would be; was it criminal murder when you allowed 10 people to die rather than even negotiate with them?
On a lighter not Joe showed us the restaurant where Bill Clinton and Gerry Adams shared a hamburger. He talked about how stupid it looked when they tried to act like it wasn’t planned. A convoy of black limos rolled up and out jumps Bill Clinton and who happens to be out for a stroll and also in search of a hamburger? Gerry Adams.
We walked from the Falls neighborhood towards the “Peace” Wall. Belfast is divided by many walls which separate sectarian areas of the city in order to maintain peace. I don’t really have a good grasp on this subject, but in my opinion, there is nothing peaceful about a wall. These are structures that dominate the landscape of Belfast and segregate its people. I hope that I can see the day when there is no such thing as a “Peace” Wall.
Joe left us at the wall and greeted our former UVF tour guide Paul. Paul is a native of the Shankill area, and is very proud of where he comes from. Shankill is the most disadvantaged area of NI and being a community worker, Paul is extremely passionate about changing that. He showed us deserted and desolate blocks of housing that the Housing Authority will not knock down because they claim that they are historic and charming. Although I am very opposed to a lot of Paul’s political views, he struck me as a very funny guy, and I had to agree when he suggested that maybe the members of the Housing Authority should come live in this shanty area and the people of the Shankill could have their cozy estates in South Belfast.
A lot of the deprivation in the Shankill is because with the Civil Rights movement for equal treatment of Catholics came a neglect of the Protestant working class that was also disadvantaged at the time. Another reason for this that Paul didn’t bring up, but many other community workers in the Shankill over our stay in Belfast brought up is that if a Catholic kid from the Falls gets a degree and a profession, he/she will get married, have kids, and live in the Falls the rest of their life and invest in the community. This is the opposite of Protestants in the Shankill, many kids end up leaving as soon as they get the chance, and then their neighborhood never sees a return on its investment of education and resources.
One thing I found particularly sad about Paul’s tour was that he talked about how when ex-combatants came out of jail, they could be a taxi driver, or a community worker. The Loyalist/Unionist community usually looks down on former prisoners, while the Republican/Nationalist glorifies them, and gives them prominent roles in the community. For example Joe from the Falls is a teacher. Not to say Paul’s position of a community worker is not as important and prominent as a teacher, but the fact he is limited in careers within the community he once took up arms to defend is really unfortunate.
Another thing I noticed about the two communities is that if you take away the in-your-face murals of masked men with automatic weapons, deceased combatant’s memorials, and paramilitary insignias, by looking at the Falls and the Shankill, you could still tell they would be high crime areas. That is because they are both inhabited by a neglected working class, and couple this with a political and sectarian conflict, and it is no wonder that the two areas were hot beds of violence during the troubles. Belfast was a truly interesting city and I could go on and on about it but I’m sure no one really wants to read too much more. I will most likely be returning their to do my independent study project and look at the role ex-combatants play in their community now that the armed struggle is over.
Stormont
Sandy Row
the International Wall on the Falls Rd
More of the International Wall, Republicans use a lot of images of solidarity with Palestine and Latin America
another Republican mural on the Falls
Bobby Sands memorial on the side of Sinn Fein HQ, Sands was the first hunger striker to die
"love should know no boundaries" written on the "Peace" Wall
Loyalist UVF mural
our tour guide in front of a UVF mural
Loyalist UDA/UFF mural
Republican mural
mural about the "Peace" Wall, on the "Peace" Wall
such a peaceful wall (sarcasm)
Friday, March 5, 2010
"Bandit Country"- South Armagh
On Tuesday we left Dublin by train and arrived in Dundalk just before the Republic of Ireland/ Northern Ireland border. We were met by former Sinn Fein MLA Jim McAlister who would be our tour guide for the day. Jim was an enthusiastic local of the border area and told us a little bit about himself while we took the short bus ride over the border to South Armagh, an area known for smuggling, and steeped in ancient mythology. It is here that the warrior Cuchulain was said to have defended Ulster from rival tribes, and notorious bandits like Redmond O'Hanlon made life hell for their British colonizers.
Armagh is also a very interesting place to study the political conflict in NI. It is a heavily Republican area, especially in the southern part, and the British Army used to prefer to travel anywhere in South Armagh by helicopter during the Troubles. The reason for this is because of the strength of the South Armagh IRA cell, and anytime they would travel somewhere on the ground, their vehicle would be bombed. This being said it is also the founding place of the Orange Order, a Protestant all-boys club that celebrates dominance over the Catholics of Ireland. So the population in this county is quite diverse and rich in history.
Crossmaglen is a city in S Armagh where the British Army had its headquarters during the troubles. Jim told us there would be fire fights here weekly between Republicans and the British, and sometimes the sight of the "barracks buster" bomb being hurled over the barracks wall. The Army has withdrawn troops from NI, and now a Republican monument of a warrior and pheonix stands facing the sight of the old military base, with clenched fists.
Jim told us the other day he had a substitute teacher for a class he is taking, and he recognized the man. The reason was because he used to be a British Paratrooper in Crossmaglen, and I'm assuming the two men had had a few run ins with each other. The former paratrooper said he came to Crossmaglen a paratrooper in Her Majesty's Army, and left a Republican. I don't exactly know why he had this change of heart, but I suspect it was the way they arrested (without charge) and abused the citizens of this largely Catholic population. Jim recalled being arrested one time and helicoptered away to the Army base just a day after the IRA shot down a helicopter. He recited a poem that he wrote about the experience which basically said that if they shot at the helicopter he was in, not knowing he was in it, at least he would die in the place he called home and the British soldiers around him would die in a foreign land that was simply a coordinate on a map. It is hard to imagine how the people of South Armagh could ever have a normal life after their experience during the Troubles, but somehow they have pulled through and maintain a warm community.
We also met the Quinn family. Their son, Paul, was murdered by Republicans for speaking out against their activities in the area. We were told about how Paul would not allow himself to be bullied by the South Armagh IRA, and this was what lead to his brutal death. Sinn Fein claims that Paul was a part of a criminal fuel smuggling ring, and the IRA beat him up to show him a lesson (even though Republicans themselves in this area are notorious for smuggling activities). Jim McAlister, our tour guide for the day, and former Sinn Fein MLA, is now the spokesperson for the Paul Quinn Support Group. The group puts pressure on the government to find out who murdered Paul, in order for the Quinn family to find closure.
This issue seemed to be one reason why Jim is no longer tied to SF, and he seemed quite disillusioned by their behavior over Paul's murder. When our program director asked him to talk about being SF's chief orator a while back, he responded, "More like nonsense talker and bullshitter." He also spoke a lot about how it wouldn't be right if you didn't change your mind as you grew older, and the most important thing to learn is the phrase, "I was wrong". I think a lot of the issues I have with the Republican movement in NI have to do with some of their hypocrisy in community vigilance. They say they killed Paul Quinn because he was a smuggler, but Jim said that most of the wealth in this community comes from smuggling. Therefore I'd assume there would be a higher level smuggler to "teach a lesson to" than a 21 year old kid. It was clearly a politically motivated murder. This was demonstrated further when the day after we left Armagh, a billboard advocating justice for the Quinn family was burned to the ground. Also a dissident Republican group that refuses to recognize the peace process recently murdered a drug dealer outside Derry city. This sounds like a way to cleanse their community from drugs and other poisons, however if you look closely at the Republican movement, you'd realize that selling drugs is one way they raised money. So one has to ask did this group murder this father of one to rid their community of drugs, or just drugs that they don't see a profit from?
Next it was on to Armagh City, where we saw the Church of Ireland's St. Patrick's Cathedral, and the Catholic Church's cathedral in Armagh, and guess what it's named? St. Patrick's. Both the Protestant and Catholic faiths lay a claim to Patrick, and rightfully so. He came to Ireland hundreds of years before the reformation and spread Christianity, not Catholicism.
We also went to the founding place of the Orange Order (named after William of Orange). I hate to even waste time writing about this group because I see them as nothing more than ethnic supremacists who celebrate the victory of Protestant King William over Catholic King James at the Battle of the Boyne every Summer. They march through Nationalist neighborhoods on their way to Church, and don't understand why the Catholics that live there are offended by the celebration of just another event in the long history of discrimination and defeat against Catholics in Ireland. The representative we met with told me that the marches celebrate how William separated church and state in Great Britain, and guaranteed freedom of religion, and they are not about victory over Catholics. That's an absolute lie. The marches take place on the date of the Battle of the Boyne, marchers carry banners of William defeating the Jacobite Armies, songs are sung commemorating the Boyne, and the freedom of religion part would make sense; but King WIlliam also supported the Penal Laws outlawing Catholicism in Ireland, and of course Catholics are not even allowed to join the order. So I guess their really just celebrating Protestant freedom of religion... which is nice.
We are currently in Belfast now and I am going to have plenty to write about at the end of our stay here. Tomorrow we are taking a tour of the Falls Road, the epicenter of the Republican movement by a former prisoner and IRA man, and tour of Shankill Road, the center of Loyalism by a former Loyalist paramilitary and prisoner. It will definitely be an interesting day.
St. Brigids well
memorial to the hunger strikers
Republican memorial in Crossmaglen
tricolor flying in Crossmaglen, protesting British rule
Armagh is also a very interesting place to study the political conflict in NI. It is a heavily Republican area, especially in the southern part, and the British Army used to prefer to travel anywhere in South Armagh by helicopter during the Troubles. The reason for this is because of the strength of the South Armagh IRA cell, and anytime they would travel somewhere on the ground, their vehicle would be bombed. This being said it is also the founding place of the Orange Order, a Protestant all-boys club that celebrates dominance over the Catholics of Ireland. So the population in this county is quite diverse and rich in history.
Crossmaglen is a city in S Armagh where the British Army had its headquarters during the troubles. Jim told us there would be fire fights here weekly between Republicans and the British, and sometimes the sight of the "barracks buster" bomb being hurled over the barracks wall. The Army has withdrawn troops from NI, and now a Republican monument of a warrior and pheonix stands facing the sight of the old military base, with clenched fists.
Jim told us the other day he had a substitute teacher for a class he is taking, and he recognized the man. The reason was because he used to be a British Paratrooper in Crossmaglen, and I'm assuming the two men had had a few run ins with each other. The former paratrooper said he came to Crossmaglen a paratrooper in Her Majesty's Army, and left a Republican. I don't exactly know why he had this change of heart, but I suspect it was the way they arrested (without charge) and abused the citizens of this largely Catholic population. Jim recalled being arrested one time and helicoptered away to the Army base just a day after the IRA shot down a helicopter. He recited a poem that he wrote about the experience which basically said that if they shot at the helicopter he was in, not knowing he was in it, at least he would die in the place he called home and the British soldiers around him would die in a foreign land that was simply a coordinate on a map. It is hard to imagine how the people of South Armagh could ever have a normal life after their experience during the Troubles, but somehow they have pulled through and maintain a warm community.
We also met the Quinn family. Their son, Paul, was murdered by Republicans for speaking out against their activities in the area. We were told about how Paul would not allow himself to be bullied by the South Armagh IRA, and this was what lead to his brutal death. Sinn Fein claims that Paul was a part of a criminal fuel smuggling ring, and the IRA beat him up to show him a lesson (even though Republicans themselves in this area are notorious for smuggling activities). Jim McAlister, our tour guide for the day, and former Sinn Fein MLA, is now the spokesperson for the Paul Quinn Support Group. The group puts pressure on the government to find out who murdered Paul, in order for the Quinn family to find closure.
This issue seemed to be one reason why Jim is no longer tied to SF, and he seemed quite disillusioned by their behavior over Paul's murder. When our program director asked him to talk about being SF's chief orator a while back, he responded, "More like nonsense talker and bullshitter." He also spoke a lot about how it wouldn't be right if you didn't change your mind as you grew older, and the most important thing to learn is the phrase, "I was wrong". I think a lot of the issues I have with the Republican movement in NI have to do with some of their hypocrisy in community vigilance. They say they killed Paul Quinn because he was a smuggler, but Jim said that most of the wealth in this community comes from smuggling. Therefore I'd assume there would be a higher level smuggler to "teach a lesson to" than a 21 year old kid. It was clearly a politically motivated murder. This was demonstrated further when the day after we left Armagh, a billboard advocating justice for the Quinn family was burned to the ground. Also a dissident Republican group that refuses to recognize the peace process recently murdered a drug dealer outside Derry city. This sounds like a way to cleanse their community from drugs and other poisons, however if you look closely at the Republican movement, you'd realize that selling drugs is one way they raised money. So one has to ask did this group murder this father of one to rid their community of drugs, or just drugs that they don't see a profit from?
Next it was on to Armagh City, where we saw the Church of Ireland's St. Patrick's Cathedral, and the Catholic Church's cathedral in Armagh, and guess what it's named? St. Patrick's. Both the Protestant and Catholic faiths lay a claim to Patrick, and rightfully so. He came to Ireland hundreds of years before the reformation and spread Christianity, not Catholicism.
We also went to the founding place of the Orange Order (named after William of Orange). I hate to even waste time writing about this group because I see them as nothing more than ethnic supremacists who celebrate the victory of Protestant King William over Catholic King James at the Battle of the Boyne every Summer. They march through Nationalist neighborhoods on their way to Church, and don't understand why the Catholics that live there are offended by the celebration of just another event in the long history of discrimination and defeat against Catholics in Ireland. The representative we met with told me that the marches celebrate how William separated church and state in Great Britain, and guaranteed freedom of religion, and they are not about victory over Catholics. That's an absolute lie. The marches take place on the date of the Battle of the Boyne, marchers carry banners of William defeating the Jacobite Armies, songs are sung commemorating the Boyne, and the freedom of religion part would make sense; but King WIlliam also supported the Penal Laws outlawing Catholicism in Ireland, and of course Catholics are not even allowed to join the order. So I guess their really just celebrating Protestant freedom of religion... which is nice.
We are currently in Belfast now and I am going to have plenty to write about at the end of our stay here. Tomorrow we are taking a tour of the Falls Road, the epicenter of the Republican movement by a former prisoner and IRA man, and tour of Shankill Road, the center of Loyalism by a former Loyalist paramilitary and prisoner. It will definitely be an interesting day.
St. Brigids well
memorial to the hunger strikers
Republican memorial in Crossmaglen
tricolor flying in Crossmaglen, protesting British rule
Monday, March 1, 2010
Tour Guide for the Weekend
This past weekend Jen came to visit along with her room mate Amanda. We had a great weekend and I got to see some parts of Dublin I had been meaning to see for a while. First we went to the International Bar and Comedy Club owned by comedian Des Bishop. We had a great time there, and everyone else had a great time at our expense, because the mc that night seemed like he was awfully fond of jokes concerning the Americans in the crowd. The next day we went to Howth, a small fishing village on the North side of Dublin that is really a great place to go on the odd chance that there is good weather. Luckily there was no rain and we enjoyed the nice views, curious seals, and good seafood. Sunday was spent walking around the Hugh Lane Gallery, the Garden of Remembrance, Grafton Street, and St. Stephen's Green. I had a great time and I'm glad Jen was able to come visit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52bna-tn_dY
This is a link to one of Des Bishops stand up routines about a little bit of culture shock he encountered when he moved to Ireland as a teenager.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52bna-tn_dY
This is a link to one of Des Bishops stand up routines about a little bit of culture shock he encountered when he moved to Ireland as a teenager.
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