It's Personal

One thing has come up a lot over the last few weeks in conversations with community groups and individuals. With so many parades, commemorations, sensitivities and contentious issues being reported in the media, we've been talking about the differences between rural and urban.

Throughout the research it is clear how differently people in the border areas feel, think and respond compared with more urban areas (i.e. Belfast).

The experience of those living along the border was vastly different to those in the cities of Belfast and even Derry-Londonderry.

What was it that was so different though?

In the space of a week, I was told by three different people that "along the border, in the rural areas, it was personal." And by personal they meant intensely, deeply personal.

In the cities and larger towns for example, whole streets and estates may have come together against another or attacks were made on people with whom they had no relationship with. In a way it was somewhat anonymous.

In the border areas, people knew each other well. Generations of the same families lived in the same townland for maybe a hundred years, maybe longer. So when the conflict heightened, it felt very much like neighbours attacking neighbours. Local people knew who was involved in what activity, they often didn't know who to trust and suspicion became fierce from all sides.

That's not to say that some communities, friends and neighbours didn't strengthen and come together because they did. However, largely, it created a deep division. One that we are still seeing in places like Castlederg or South East Fermanagh.

It's this 'personal' nature that our project hopes to be able to touch on in the films- the positive and negative.

We have heard stories of small communities coming together e.g. in Belleek where Catholic neighbours and families helped mend the Church of Ireland hall after it was attacked, even inviting the church members into their homes for tea and sandwiches.

We have also heard stories of suspicion between RUC and UDR officers and their neighbours, not knowing if their neighbour was surveilling their movements as they made their way home to their farm after a shift.

And there are so many more stories in between these two poles. It has been incredibly interesting hearing this issue begin to come to the fore in our research.

I would like to stress that this doesn't speak of 100% of people but of the many, many that I have spoken to. We really hope to be able to document and demonstrate the difference in experience between the border and the urban areas in ways like this.


*Thanks to Joe O'Loughlin for the photos.