Email: Megan Buff

Friends,

Before he was arrested, Jesus prayed for his disciples: “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:22-23).

To mark the sacrifice of Good Friday, the Clonnard Monastery in Belfast holds an annual peace walk through the heart of sectarian areas. A group from Kilmakee, mostly youth, went along on the walk this year. We started at the monastery and walked down the Falls Road, the famous Catholic/Republican stronghold. Then we walked along the “peace wall,” which separates Republican and Loyalist areas, and crossed onto the Shankill Road, which is the Protestant/Loyalist equivalent of the Falls Road. We walked along the Shankill and then came back through the peace wall to finish in the Falls Road area. A crowd of 100 or so people, Catholic and Protestant, walked together. We each wore a cross made of a palm frond, and there were three crosses inscribed with “My peace I give to you” carried by people in the crowd.

The separation in Belfast still surprises me. I’ll say more about the walls later, but the psychological separation is just as strong. We drove from the church to the monastery, and when we crossed into the Falls Road area, the girls in the back seat started making nervous comments. “Lock your doors. Just kidding. Actually, I’m not.” “Are we safe here? (nervous laughter)” Even the adults were checking in with each other at the monastery, looking concerned and out-of-place. “Are you okay?” “Yeah, I’m fine. Are you okay?” The area was far out of their comfort zone—the sort of place that was so strange, anything at all could happen.

We all know that Good Friday is not the end of the story. The finality of death gives way, on Sunday, to the renewal of life. Christ is alive, and hope reigns with him. Hope lives in every step we take together with other people, carrying crosses and praying for peace.

On the Tuesday and Wednesday after Holy Week, Kilmakee’s Fusion youth group (which emphasizes cross-community relations and peacemaking) took a trip to the north coast. Our main objective was to visit the city of Derry/Londonderry and walk 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 call it “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 original city of Derry is built next to the River Foyle. When the 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 became 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, they’re hoping to travel to Berlin in October 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 divided communities, then there is hope too for Belfast’s unity.