Looking Upon a Scar

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Kilmakee’s Fusion youth group (which emphasizes cross-community relations and peacemaking) took a trip to the North Coast. Our main objective was visiting the city of Derry/Londonderry and walking the walls which surround it. Derry itself has a very interesting history. If any one place is consistently a flashpoint for troubles in Northern Ireland, it’s Derry. Even the name is controversial – Loyalists use the title of Londonderry as a reminder that Northern Ireland is British, while republicans refuse this connection and refer to it with the original name of Derry (or Doire in Irish). I generally use Derry because it’s shorter, and I’m lazy.

The conflict in Derry goes far beyond semantics, though. Derry was one of the first British settlements in Ireland. As such, it was home to unbalanced relationships between the settling, militarily dominant British and the native Irish. In 1688-89, when William of Orange led a revolt against the Catholic-sympathizing King James II in England, events again converged on Derry. The city, fortified with walls that still remain, was one of the few in Ireland that supported William instead of James. Protestant Williamites inside the city came under siege from the Catholic Irish for 105 days.

As the city expanded, the separation between Catholic and Protestant remained. The origianl city of Derry is built next to the River Foyle. When population grew, the city spread onto both sides of the river. Catholics moved across the river from the original walled city, to what is now known as the Waterside, while Protestants remained near the walled city, on the Cityside. This is still the case, with the wide river forming a physical barrier in many places.

Derry yet again formed a focal point for the beginning of the Troubles in the late 1960s and early 1970s. A situation developed in the Catholic area known as the Bogside, with much distrust cultivated on both sides. Residents staged a peaceful civil rights protest march in 1972. When a riot broke out on the fringes of the march, British soldiers fired into the crowd, killing thirteen people and fatally wounding another. This tragedy is known as Bloody Sunday, and it fueled IRA recruitment and propaganda in the weeks after.

Derry has the most blatant separation between Protestant and Catholic communities I’ve seen here. The River Foyle is only bridged in a few places, making cross-community contact more difficult. The old city walls still form a barrier between the communities, and cannons (albeit cement-stopped ones) still point down at the Catholic Bogside. In places, the walls are extended upwards with chain-link, to stop petrol and paint bombs from being thrown into the old city. But Derry is by no means the only example of walls in Northern Ireland. There are over 13 miles of “peace walls” or “peace lines” in Northern Ireland, mostly in Belfast, separating unionist and nationalist areas. Last week, the peace march I went on walked beside these walls and through the gates, which are only opened several times a year. Some peace walls are cement, and remind me a lot of the separation walls between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Others are mostly chain-link. Either way, they form a very clear reminder of the divisions inherent in Northern Irish society.

Fusion’s theme this year is walls – having walked some of the peace line in Belfast, and the walls of Derry, we’re hoping to travel to Berlin in the summer and visit the site of the Berlin Wall. While 25-foot walls still stand in Belfast, division will remain. But if the Berlin Wall can come down, ending the signs of hostility between two very divided communities, then there is hope too for Belfast’s unity.

Looking down into the Bogside from Derry's walls. Looking across the River Foyle, again from Derry's walls. The walls, extended with chain-link. Again, looking down at the Bogside. Looking along the walls of Derry, towards the Bogside.

Word of the Week: skint. It would be the equivalent of “broke,” as in, “Hey Dad, can I borrow some money? I’m skint.” I hear it a lot when working with kids who are still in school and always trying to convince their parents to give them more cash.