Anna Macleod ENG

‘Building a Commons’ methods of repair in sensitive regions Transcription of Interview with Barney Devine on intercommunity development and conflict management in post conflict Northern Ireland. But the other matters still remain and this society now still picks over the scabs, for example the Kingsmill massacre was on television the other night where the IRA killed 10 people, took them out and shot them. Bloody Sunday was only resolved at great cost last year, Bloody Friday was talked about with the IRA bombing Barney Devine has over 25 years of experience working in community and voluntary sectors in Northern Ireland. He was director of a Peace and Reconciliation Centre in campaigns in Belfast that killed many, many people. The politicians haven’t been able to wrestle that issue down at all. How this society commemorates the violence Derry/ Londonderry for 5 years and is currently Business & Development manager with the Northern Ireland Centre for Trauma and Transformation which since its hasn’t been sorted, if you are victim of British state violence, if you’re a Republican and if you are a Unionist Loyalist Protestant, if you were impacted by violence, if foundation in Omagh in 2002 has provided a specialist trauma treatment, research and training service for those aected by the conflict in Northern Ireland, known as you are a victim of Republican terrorist violence and indeed the victim support organisations that grew up in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s these were people who the ‘Troubles’. Its programmes are based on evidence based cognitive therapy for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and other trauma related psychological broke themselves into the sectarian camps, if you like and saw themselves as very clearly being victims of one or the other, one persons terrorist is another persons conditions. freedom fighter, that’s still a problem in Northern Ireland. The Truth and reconciliation issue is something that remains and something we are still wrestling with. Barney has a Masters in Peace and Conflict studies through the University of Ulster. The work that I now do 20 years on from the peace process culminating in the settlement is that we find ourselves in a post settlement phase, we see ourselves in a post conflict phase but its largely, in my view, a conflict management rather than a conflict resolution phase. We still have a lot of concerns around the mental health need of victims in particular. When we first began to look at this, those who were bereaved were very clearly identified, those who were injured were being seen as Anna Macleod - Can you outline the key historical factors that led to the development of parallel or multi faceted communities in Northern Ireland who identify victims but the mental health needs of those who were intimidated or those who witnessed or those who had been in acts of violence in the blue light services such as themselves with dierent cultures, traditions and jurisdictions. army, police, fire fighters and ambulance services have huge needs in that regard. The work that I have been doing has been working to identify the numbers of people Barney Devine - Irish history and the history between Ireland and Britain goes back a long long way, some would even bring it back to Strongbow who was a Norman impacted to provide eective treatment for those who we have subsequently identified as suering from PTSD ( Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and also looking at lord who came to Ireland at the request of the Irish Chieftains, that would go back to 1100’s but it very quickly became a strategic target for England that Ireland would how this population, as it ages, is moving forward and how the health service hasn’t dealt with it. How the services have been as much as if they were in Dublin 4 or come in under its domination particularly from Elizabethan times onwards so from about 1550 Henry the V111 had pretty much come to the eastern seaboard of Ireland Essex in England, they weren’t put in place to address the special needs of victims of violence and the mental health needs of the conflict. and Elizabeth 1st found it important to bring Ireland in under her dominion because of the wider European context which was around the reformation, counter AM- How successful do you think Truth and Reconciliation commissions are, such as those that have operated in South America and Africa and would such a reformation, and the rise of nation states, particularly England and the rise of Spanish influence on Europe and the attempt to overthrow Elizabeth. commission be useful in the Northern Ireland context? Queen Elizabeth’s wars were long and brutal but eventually from about 1594 to 1603 England eventually defeated what were the Earls of Ulster and the Chieftain’s of BD -This is a very big issue and something that this society is probably not yet at a point that it can examine or address and consume within itself comfortably just yet. Ulster who held out to the very last, were defeated in what became known as the Flight of the Earls. Thereafter came the most important even in recent Irish history and A lot of talk has been around the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission experience and how that transformed the post conflict situation. That may have that was the Plantation of Ulster, where England, under King James decided that he needed to have his own people from Scotland, Scottish Presbyterians and English been so for South Africa but I am not exactly sure to what level it is true and I am sure there are still lots of issues there because of the speed that it was implemented planters who would take over the land in Ireland, farm it, turn it into good production that they would be good citizens in the realm and they would be beholden to him in after the conflict was over. a most subservient way. So, the Plantation of Ulster occurred from 1610, right the whole way through there were rebellions by the Irish, 1641 being a major one. Cromwell was sent over to suppress it so the history thereafter is a series of very oppressive violent periods whereby the Irish at dierent times under the banner of Northern Ireland is dierent in that regard, Northern Ireland was a deeply divided society and whilst the levels of deaths is not on the same scale as in other conflicts religion or liberty, freedom or rights rose up against the English, violence was rampant throughout the whole of the country. It wasn’t really until Nationalism as a nor the numbers of injured necessarily on the same scale, when you look at it proportionally it is never the less had a very high impact on a very small population and, European philosophy got embedded in Ireland that you had the United Irishmen coming after the French revolution, you had Nationalism growing in Ireland in the 1800’s because of the nature of the communities, because of the experience of the communities, the mistrust and the fear there’s still a very long-lasting legacy there. The with the Land League, where you had Irish men trying to get land back for themselves, religious toleration and freedom. communities here and the politicians in particular are still very reluctant to deal with this. There has been several attempts to do it, the Eames Bradley report that came out maybe two or three years ago very bravely attempted to look at all this but at the time the report wasn’t looked upon very favourably. But I think its coming back The ascendancy at that time was the English plantation, English Protestantism and the link with England was then eventually forged parliamentary with the Act of Union into fashion again. in 1801. They looked at Justice, they looked at reparation, they looked at commemoration and how we look at commemoration, how we look at the past, how we acknowledge So from then on you had strong European influence, political and philosophical influence right up until the 1st World War when Ireland, as it was then, was brought in and what was done by each other in the past and how we are going to address the hurt that remains within this society. There is interestingly as we now talk, movement asked to become part of the great conflagration that consumed Europe in the 1ST World War. It was at that time during the 1st World War that what was called the 1916 politically, Republicans in particular are trying to address the reconciliation thing and it’s interesting that it should come from them. The mistrust of Unionist towards Easter Rising began when a group of Irish Republicans and Nationalists decided that it would be a good time to push militarily for freedom from Britain, it failed and all or Republicans politically and socially is still very much there. The Republicans have recently, through the media and through attempts to engage politically with most of the leaders of the 1916 rising were executed by the British who put the rebellion down very quickly and very brutally. Unionism, attempted to talk about how this society can move on into that next phase, we have had the political settlement, we have had the institutions put in place The mistake they made was in killing and executing the leaders who then became National heroes and in time, once the war was over and importantly the Northern we have had the workings out of that, we have had the support from the European Union and from Dublin and London but how now as a society can we examine what Protestants had sent out most of their young men to fight in Flanders Fields.

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