The end of a series

The latest series of Holywell Conversations podcasts began with reflections on the Good Friday Agreement, amidst fears that Northern Ireland’s devolution was over, and that series has now completed at a time when government has actually resumed. Over the series’ 18 episodes two themes have been examined – the challenges holding back reconciliation within our society, and the specific problems that continue to face the North West region. In the first episode, we heard from three people at the table …

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Why do we still have ‘peace walls’?

Why, a quarter of a century after the Good Friday Agreement, do we still have peace walls and interface barriers? The truth, of course, is that the peace deal ended the conflict, but failed to end division and embed reconciliation. Murdered journalist Lyra McKee famously wrote that more ‘peace walls’ have gone up since the GFA than have come down. This is despite a strategy from the The Executive Office containing the target to remove them all by 2023. Yet …

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Listening to the psychogeography of Belfast

One of the final events of the Four Corners Festival was a discussion on what was described as the psychogeography of the city of Belfast. A panel of four — with one connected via a video call — ruminated on their walking through the streets, along borders and through them, sharing their perspectives to an audience of about two dozen gathered at the freshly opened Girdwood Community Hub. The question to answer was what can we learn about a city …

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Ulster University release new report on public attitudes to Peace Walls.

PEACE WALLS: New research commissioned by the Department of Justice and carried out by Ulster University has revealed some interesting findings about how the public view peace walls. This survey follows on from similar research carried out by the Institute for Research in Social Sciences back in 2012.

Belfast’s Separation Barriers: Learning to Reflect Before We Act

I read Gladys Ganiel’s recent article, ‘Vicky Cosstick – Imagining a Belfast Without Walls at the 4 Corners Festival’, with considerable interest. In my own work, I’ve observed that giving specific attention to Belfast’s walls when exploring the lives of interface communities isn’t as common as it might seem. The walls themselves receive only cursory attention, serving either to describe the landscape or- more often- to metaphorically describe ‘walls’ in the people’s hearts and minds. Any connection between the physical …

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It’s not the Orange Order “coming down the street, shouting and yelling and waving rifles and pistols”

So, I was going to let this one run til the PCC had its say, but for the record here’s Colin Freeman’s offending dispatch from Baghdad in the Telegraph last week… “Ever since last week, not a day has gone past without them coming down the street, shouting and yelling and waving rifles and pistols,” said Imad Ahmed, a shopkeeper in the Sunni district of Adel in west Baghdad. “They say they will crush the Isis terrorists and anyone who …

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McCann meets…David Ford MLA #AP2014

In my second interview from the Alliance party conference, I was able to chat to the party leader, Justice Minister, David Ford. In the interview we chatted about the conference, his predictions for the future growth of the party and the On the Runs issue. I asked him about the comments made by Anna Lo in the Irish News; If any leading member of the party had said that I have a long term vision that Northern Ireland remains within …

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Obama strikes a note of realism in making a cautious appeal to open a gate in the peace walls before tearing them down

While it causes a thrill to see Obama in town, lockdown  bloated security hassle and all, visits by presidents, prime ministers and even popes are now subject to the law of diminishing returns. Timed to deliver a powerful boost the fledgling peace process in 1995,  Bill Clinton’s impact at the City Hall was bound to be hard to beat. Obama had a less visionary message to deliver to the obligatory “youth,”-  that at least you have a different context to work …

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Taking down walls not popular in interface areas…

Interesting shared line from former combatants William Plum Smyth and Spike Murray, who agree that the peace walls hastily erected in the early part of the troubles should be retained. And it’s a feeling replicated amongst ordinary on both sides of barriers that have remained in place for well over 40 years now… Patsy Canavan a resident of Bombay Street… “It’s grand as long as the peace line stays up, but I wouldn’t like to see it coming down – …

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