The Peace Walls: An Oral History Voices from those living in the Shadows of the Walls Contents

Foreword 5 Introduction 7 I came home Life in fifties 9 Working Together 11 A vibrant community 13 one day and Feeling free 15 Existing divisions 16 Divisions deepen 17 there’s a big Onset of - A child’s viewpoint 18 Sectarian attacks 20 Change in relationships 21 barrier in Segregated areas 22 Vigilantes & paramilitaries 26 Normal people, abnormal events 30 front of me Emergence of the Peace Walls 34 Hemmed In 38 The Future of the Peace Walls 41 Hope springs eternal 44 I was a homebird and I didn’t Methodology 45 About the Peace Walls Programme 46 want to leave…we were all going References 47 and the bags and all were packed and we were like evacuees, you know, during the war.

3 Foreword

This publication shares the personal stories of residents from the Lower Oldpark and Cliftonville areas who have lived alongside the peace walls for thirty years or more. It is the culmination of a community-based Oral History Project carried out with local residents as part of the Imagine Peace Walls Programme.

uch literature The project is defined by surrounding recognising the importance of the peace walls writing local history and seeks Mcomes from to give control and ownership an academic perspective over what is written about with little input from the interface communities to communities’ most affected. those who live in interface This balance is important to communities. In doing so, The Imagine Peace Walls A heartfelt thanks to all of It is important to record the address, particularly for those residents living by the peace project would like to the interviewees who shared history of the peace walls and express our gratitude to the with us their ‘living memory’ to document the memories who feel their experience of walls, reclaim an important International Fund for Ireland associated with the walls. of those living alongside the conflict has been ignored. part of their personal history for supporting this work and We are grateful for their time, them. Who better to tell the and create a community to Patricia Mullen for editing and honesty in sharing their story of the peace walls than This Oral History project’s archive of the history of their the text. Further thanks to personal experiences, which those who have lived in their aim is to ensure that through area for future generations. Rory from 1440 for the design was at times difficult. shadows? These testimonies the collection and storage work and Frankie Quinn for the can speak for themselves. of interviews, the previously photographs. unheard voices of ordinary Sarah Lorimer people will enter public Peace Walls Officer discourse. for the Imagine Project 5 Introduction

The areas of Lower Oldpark and Cliftonville Most people living in North Belfast are aware are separated by a peace wall which runs from of the territorial boundaries that exist and the Cliftonpark Avenue, through Manor Street, closer to the walls you live the less you see them. No across Rosevale Street and Rosapenna Street Thankfully, there is hope for change within these to the junction with Oldpark Road, one of many communities for a better future, but this sits such interfaces that mark Belfast’s landscapes. side-by-side with on-going fears and insecurities. Many of the residents who live here would have Recent quantitative research has indicated that suffered the brunt of the troubles and continue 63% of survey participants continued to identify to suffer today from the legacy of the conflict. safety and security issues as their primary community Incidents in this area have reduced considerably consideration at the barriers. Most – 68% - would but there can still be the odd sporadic or like to see them gone during the lifetime of their opportunist attack. children or grandchildren.

The Peace Walls may act as ‘protection’ but speaks with interface areas remain characterised by a number of negative factors including the visible and geographic segregation of both communities. There is a natural inclination for some residents to move away from the area resulting in an unstable population. Many one voice residents suffer from high unemployment, low education attainment, health problems, and trauma. In the past these issues have resulted in the interface becoming a flashpoint and many he peace walls were first constructed by Community practitioners and academics residents on both sides have been the victim of the in 1969 as a response would suggest there are over ninety peace attacks. The Peace Walls can limit movement and to and disorder. They wall structures. They have been increased in restrict vision. Peace Walls hinder regeneration were built as a temporary measure both height and number since the Good Friday and economic development of some of the most T deprived areas in . meant to last only six months, but due to their Agreement of 1998. Jarman (2004) defined an effective nature they remained. interface area as “the intersection of segregated and polarised working-class residential zones There is no agreed classification for what in areas with a strong link between territory and constitutes a peace wall and no one knows exactly ethno-political identity.” Gormley-Heenan, C & Byrne, J, ‘Belfast’s Peace Walls: Can you remove the conflict architecture?’, The Political Studies Association, 2015 how many gates, barriers, fences and other kind of Belfast Interface Project (2011) Interfaces Map and Database – Overview Available at: interface structures exist. www.belfastinterfaceproject.org/interfaces-map-and-database-overview [Accessed November 2017] Jarmon, Neil (2004) Demography, Development and Disorder: Changing Patterns of Interface Areas . p.5.

Mullan, P (2017) International Fund for Ireland Peace Walls Programme Attitudinal Survey: Summary of Results, October 2017. p.5 7 No community speaks with one voice and this is certainly the case in the Lower Oldpark and Cliftonville communities. LifeThe peace walls are a in fifties Belfast comfort blanket for some in the community who remain fearful of the walls coming down. Other residents fear that the walls removal will result in encroachment from “ ell, I was born in 1940 in Arkwright So there was nobody running about. Anybody the other community into the Street, which is just off the Old who had a car was a rich person. I can remember area and they are worried Lodge Road. It ran parallel with the first car in our street was in 1953 and it was a that their community will WAgnes Street and between Crumlin Ford Popular. The gentleman across the street was everybodydisappear without the peace Road and . Up to the War, people a Foreman Builder in the Shipyard and he worked walls. The presence of such round about the Old Lodge Road were all …… I all through the war years. He worked twenty four structures highlights the lack think the whole thing was everybody was in the hours a day during the war years to produce of normality that continues to same boat. Nobody was very, very rich but at the ships and things like that. So he was the first one exist between the two main same time because the cost of living here was with television and it was during the Coronation communitieswas and act as a daily in the very, very low, while the wages were very low as and I can remember half the street sitting and reminder of the unfinished well compared to England and the rest of the UK, watching a 12 inch black and white television and nature of the peace process. we were able to do very handy. I don’t remember we thought it was great. It was like being in the people being in abject poverty and the thing cinema. When you think of it now – last week I was in those days, even if you were unemployed got a 49 inch TV – when you think of a 49 inch TV or anything, the dole was very low. National and a 12 inch TV and these ones nowadays are same boat Insurance and Sick Benefit – it was very low as in colour. But we enjoyed ourselves because we well. I think the Widow’s Pension would have made our own fun. I mean the girls would play been around ten shillings which is fifty pence in hopscotch and they would play with tennis balls old money, a week. and they had other games. They had skipping which when you think of it was actually good Due to the decision to place a specific focus on hearing the stories exercise as well. The boys were playing football and running about so actually you were getting of those who have memories of Lower Oldpark and Cliftonville exercise and as a plus you had a great appetite before the peace walls were erected, most interviewees were able because you weren’t able to buy the grunge foods. But it was very happy.” to recall what life was like before the ‘defining moment’ of the (Male, Protestant, 70-79). conflict and the emergence of the Peace Walls. A male resident from Lower Oldpark speaks about what it was like growing up here in the 1950s and early 1960s.

9 Working together People lived together and were

“Nearly every family had some connection to a Another resident remembers leaving his home- mill here. And those mills were entirely straight place in County Tyrone in order to find work in great friends on down the middle, Protestant and Catholic, and Belfast: the Catholics and the Protestant people, women especially and men, but the women mostly “I was born in 1929 and we come from a place because the majority of them were mill workers, called Ballymongan in Co. Tyrone. I was born and both sides of the they were all great friends and they visited each reared there and worked with a farmer before I other’s houses without any trouble at all. You had came here – I came here in ’38. I was a bit lonely only a small minority of extreme really on each now in the beginning. But as time went on I got side. So people lived together and were great used to it …….… I got a job the second week we religious barrier friends on both sides of the religious barrier.” were here. I got a job out the Hollywood Road on (Male, Protestant, 70-79). a building site. They were building houses and I’m telling you, you had to work [at] that time and Going out to work was considered very important in 1958 I was coming home with twelve pounds, and this was reflected by a number of residents working from 8 o’clock ‘til six and to 1 o’clock on a recalling how they left formal education at an Saturday. ..If you wanted to work, you got work. At early age in order to begin working for a living. that time you could have walked out of one job In the 1950s, the urban economy in Northern Ireland remained and onto another one……… “I ended up in the Technical High School. I stayed strongly reliant on shipbuilding and textile manufacturing. One there for probably two years. I tell a lie – a year resident describes how mills were once the powerhouses of the and a few months. I started in August and went through the first year. I got as far as Christmas economy in North Belfast and that many local people from both and my dad said ‘You’re leaving school’. I said ‘Why’ and he said ‘Because your ma is working in areas would have worked there side-by-side: the Mill and [name deleted] in the Mill is going to get you a job. So I was in the shipyard from when I was fourteen, fourteen and three months. (Male, Protestant, 70-79).

11 A vibrant community

I worked away and put my I can remember many many, nose to it most of the time... tons of men would have Like there was no trouble that bought boxes – everything way. I had no trouble with came in boxes in those days, neighbours or workmates like. apples and everything else, You went in in the morning all your provisions came in a WE had and worked ‘til six in the wee box. They would actually evening……We were the best of have broken up those boxes friends. But nearly anyone we and bundled them up and were working with were the went round the doors selling good same as us. If they went into a a bundle of sticks before Catholic area they would [be] they would have gone on the the same as us. Like there was dole. They would have taken no [difference] …… and I daresay any job at all. Nowadays it is if there had been anyone straight on the dole. neighbours.. there that started to raise any trouble that they would have In those days that was a been pushed on. Like, they terrible stigma on the family wouldn’t have stayed. and those men would have Recollections about the area at this time also paint a picture (Male, Catholic, 70-79). done anything. They would have cleaned your house for of a bustling neighbourhood community with services and There was dishonour in being you, painted your house for shops used by both communities: unemployed: you before they would go down and collect the dole. “Everybody had a job and if So the work ethic was there. “ e had lots of shops. Coming from At the very end of Manor Street you had a wee you didn’t have a job you were They call it the Presbyterian the Oldpark Road you had the convenience store across the road, a grocer at actually despised and looked work ethic or the Scottish Manor Bar, you had the chip shop Bruce Street. So there was plenty of stuff there down on by your own mates. work ethic. But that’s a load at the top of Summer Street and for people to shop and a Pakistani shop.” People would have said ‘Get of nonsense. They just had a W then you had a wee bakery on the corner there. (Male, Protestant, 70-79). a bloody job, you lazy so- work ethic.” You had a launderette at the corner of Omni and-so’. It was a stigma to be (Male, Protestant, 70-79). Street. And then you had an old pub, The Meeting unemployed and that’s why, of the Waters across the way. You had another when I was growing up I can wee convenience store, shop for cigarettes and remember men, before they whatever in the block and a chippie as well. would go on the dole, there were people wouldn’t even go for the dole because there was such a stigma on it, being unemployed.

13 This area was residentially ‘mixed’ with Catholics Friendships between children were easily made: and Protestants living side-by-side. A resident from Lower Oldpark recalls that living in such “As you are growing up, you don’t realise who neighbourhoods enabled more opportunities for everybody is. You just go out as a child and you people to interact with each other. He recalls the play on the street. There were no indoor games Feeling Free positive relations and friendships between his or nothing like that. For a start the houses were family and neighbours from the other community: too small so the family lived in it and it was a two “We had good neighbours. We had Catholic up and two down and there was no room for people. We had [name deleted] and his family. everybody to stay in the house, so we were on the They were lovely people. They wouldn’t have streets. You made friends with everybody in the You went to the dances passed you on the street. [The houses were] area.” (Female, Protestant, 50-59). mixed. Oh yeah. All mixed media. There were forty-eight houses ………There were people down There was also clear evidence from testimonies that nearly every night... below we knew from Agnes Street and there this was a time of greater community spirit with a were people round the corner [names deleted]. A level of light-heartedness and camaraderie about very nice family. They had one boy and two girls. difference. They used to play with my kids. ne clear theme mix. The girls were on one more times than the others. “Everybody looked after each other. There emerging from side of the hall and the boys The funny thing is nine times And then the next street there was [names were actually people round [and] about – I can stories of this time were on the other. But you out of ten you were leaving deleted] We all got on well together. After we remember at a funeral – obviously people hadn’t Owas the feeling didn’t have Roman Catholic a girl home to Ballymurphy were there a couple of years, a son, his best mate much money then and the whole area joined in. of freedom felt by younger girls standing and then a and you were from the heart was [name deleted]. They took out the car and If someone was having a funeral and they held a adults, particularly in relation wee group of Protestant girls of Belfast and you never they had a bonfire together at the bottom of the wake in them days and I remember some women to where and with whom standing. They were all on the even thought about it. You Street. The first bonfire on the Street. I went down would have brought their best china; other ones they could socialise. One one side of the dance hall. never worried about it ……. So resident reminisces about the to [name deleted] and I said ‘The kids are going would have brought a big tablecloth for the table everybody got along and the enjoyment he felt in being to light bonfires and they are going to have a and all the women made sandwiches and buns and thing about was you were able young, single and dressing Vice-versa on the other side cakes for the wake……. This is what we have lost. It bonfire. What do you think of it?’ He says ‘Oh, why ‘to impress’ when attending were the Jack-o-lads all to go anywhere. There were was a great community…………. not?’ So they went round and got rubbish out of dances: dressed up in their lovely suits no restrictions. You were able people’s houses but it wasn’t any more than 3 ft because then you used to be to go anywhere you wanted. high and about 10 ft wide. …….. Not only that, we had a mixture, even though “I would have been twenty- able to buy your suit, I think it we were going down the Shankill Road. We had four in 1964 and the thing was a pound down and five When I say we had the best So they went around to the neighbours and said Roman Catholics, Italians and we had Jews. I is my age group – we were shillings a week and of course times, this place was hiving. ‘the kids are having a bonfire and could you chip remember the first black man to come on the Old enjoying the greatest life you you were up to the nines with We had all the greatest pop in something for the bonfire’? And guess who Lodge Road actually was a boxer, Floyd Robertson, ever had because that was your lovely suit on, you had stars and everything else objected? An Orange man! ……… You would have and he actually ended up being a champion boxer when the teenagers for the your shirt, and in them days and pop bands came here to a bigger fire in your house nearly. It lasted about of Ghana. It was a curiosity but nobody bothered first time had money …… you never went out without a perform and the crowd wasn’t half an hour but the kids enjoyed it.” and actually the Roman Catholic lodge went out pure white shirt. If you were all Protestant or all Catholic. (Male, Protestant, 70-79). with us to collect for the bonfire and came to the going to dances you never Everybody mixed together …….Because people where I bonfire on the 11th night and even watched the 12th wore anything but a pure the same as a pop concert lived and all my ship mates parades on the 12th July. It was a strange thing and white shirt and very rarely one nowadays.” and friends, we went to the we called each other names, teased – Fenians, with a colour ……… So you had (Male, Protestant, 70-79). dances – that was a great Proddies – and everybody accepted that. I don’t the dances and you got up thing in those days. You went ever remember anybody taking offence. Somebody and you danced with the girls to the dances nearly every would have said to me ‘You Prods are everywhere and you got your eye on one night a week and you would now’ and I’d say ‘Sure you Micks are the same’.” and you started picking her (Male, Protestant, 70-79). 15 Existing divisions Divisions deepen Unemployment was one of he divisions that One resident remembers how Unemployment was one of existed throughout the economic decline and the greatest factors because the greatest factors because Northern Ireland the emergence of political it put people on the streets T came to the fore in hardliners impacted on the with nothing to do and the 1960s. Attempts by the, attitudes of people in the area: they were easy prey for the it put people on the streets then Prime Minister, Captain scaremongers. You know, ‘the Terence O’Neill to address “It was only in the mid-sixties Catholics are going to take issues of inequality in Northern – first of all, I actually think it your jobs’ and all the rest of it. with nothing to do Ireland and rapprochement started, firms started to lay ‘The Catholics are getting jobs with the Republic of Ireland off people. After the war firms here and you are not getting were viewed with suspicion were going full blast to make espite the commonality that existed in He stayed all the time but he never got in because amongst many in the unionist jobs’ and that’s how it started up for the war time and it working-life and economic conditions the Unionist majority at that time was so massive population and considered too up. And of course Sinn Fein within both communities in this area, there was no chance of a… minor by many nationalists. As started to slow down in the who had laid dormant, they Dsegregation existed most obviously in the Northern Ireland civil rights sixties. Industry and everything saw this as a great opportunity. the spheres of education, churches and politics. We had Labour – with Northern Ireland Labour movement developed and started to slow down in the One resident recollects the heavy influence of with the old Nationalist Party and we had the gained momentum, so too did sixties. You had guys on street But the age before ’69, ’69 community background and religion in shaping Liberal Party…….. You had Northern Ireland Labour unionist opposition. corners with nothing to do so destroyed everything and fixed political affiliations despite the presence and then you had Republican Labour. all it took was some firebrand pre-’69, ’64 it started there. of political parties that would be considered as The industries North Belfast and unfortunately a firebrand And what happened in ’64 ‘more’ representative of the working classes. Oh, Trade Unions were massive. And this was the was so reliant upon were also emerged in the form of the was the Protestants were a bit funny thing, because if you think of it, but religion steadily in decline and as de- Rev Ian Paisley and his cohort. You all knew about politics and in those days the worried because ’66 was the was the most part, the biggest influence because industrialisation increased, politicians came around in big open-back lorries – in 50th anniversary of the Rising if you think, the whole of the Shankill Road were over one-quarter of all breaks, for some reason they called them. It was a and they thought it was going shipyard men, red hard trade unionist. So by manufacturing jobs were lost. terrible smell. They had sulphur [inaudible] on them. to be a big massive show of right the Shankill Road should never have had a In their report, Economics in Today it wouldn’t be allowed because the Health strength by the Republicans Unionist [elected] because the full name of the Peacemaking: Lessons from people would have jumped on them. But these and I think that’s why so many Unionist Party was the Conservative and Unionist Northern Ireland, (2007) The of them went to Paisley.” people went riding in the back end of these and Portland Trust describes this Party. So therefore in any ordinary situation or (Male, Protestant, 70-79). spoke on street corners and everything else and economic change as causing any ordinary country the Shankill Road, or the Old had these speeches off the back of the lorries………. further insecurity, deepening Park Road would all have been staunchly Labour divisions and communities or Socialist in some sort of way but because Oh, you were a Unionist. You were a Unionist because poising themselves for conflict. of the religious attitude, because the religious my mother was red hot. She was actually a Mistress of inclinations of Labour were against the Crown and one of the Orange District Lodges and Unionist to the against the Protestants they never got a show. core. But round here we had Labour. In fact there was The Liberals got a wee bit of a thing. They were a very famous guy on the Oldpark Road. always just wavering in the middle.” (Male, Protestant, 70-79). Belfast City Story LSE Portland Trust 2007 17 Onset of the Troubles – A child’s viewpoint it had a big

impact on he Troubles started when I was nine So that was okay then but what I didn’t know was years of age and it had a big impact a lot of my friends were Catholics. I didn’t know on my life. You made friends with that’s what the fighting was over in between everybody in the area and whenever Catholics and Protestants and we were separated the Troubles started in August ’69, then because on Cooper Street, one side was my life TI was nine and half and I was playing about, no Catholic and the other side was Protestant. Clonard problem, and I could hear people saying that Gardens – well I used to play in Clonard Gardens trouble had broken out in Londonderry. I said to and all my friends were all on Bombay Street and Most interviewees involved in the project were my mummy ‘What’s that?’ and she said ‘That’s then the next thing Bombay Street was burned to miles away from here. Don’t worry about it. Its miles the ground. And that’s the last that I remember of young adults before the Troubles erupted in away, don’t worry’. So that was okay then. We were seeing any friends that I had from the other side of playing about and that night I went into the house that barrier. 1969. However, two interviewees who were and came back out the next day and everything (Female, Protestant, 50-59). still children at the time recount hearing about seemed really desolate. There was nobody about and the place was all quiet. I knew nothing about “Just as a child, seeing two pubs burned at the the conflict or directly experiencing violence [the] Troubles. We were sort of hid from it. We corner of Agnes Street and mummy and daddy for the first time and noticing unsettling were sheltered from it, being a young child. But getting you out of bed. I remember we had the old there were people about the streets - older people paper blinds and seeing this glow, and as a child changes in their area: seemed to be about, a lot of people on the streets. you are curious and you pull the blind across to look and there was this blaze of flame. But it was And I said to my mummy one time ‘Where’s my the next morning going past and the smells, the friends?’ and she said ‘Oh I don’t know. Just go and smell of the burned charcoal, the burned debris play. There’s plenty of friends out there. Go and and the smell around the buildings and things play’. But I came in again and I says ‘I haven’t got like that. So its things like that you remember as a my friends. My friends aren’t here’. And she says child.” ‘I don’t know’. She just kept saying ‘I don’t know (Female, Catholic. 50-59). where they are. I don’t know where they have gone’.

19 Sectarian attacks Change in relationships

s tensions heightened, openly Then the Troubles started here in Belfast and it was the end of the sectarian attacks became more bad here. Churches were burned. People’s cars commonplace. One resident tells of were attacked outside churches. We got married Aincidents of sectarian violence by both in a Methodist church just up at [inaudible] facing communities, some across the area but others that junction there. It’s gone. It’s gone because the friendship.. aimed directly towards his own family: congregation were afraid to go there anymore, because if they went in there their cars would be T he trouble and attacks were really serious. And attacked. Then they closed it. Then the so-called s the Troubles developed, I listened and then I said ‘[to my neighbour], why then because the police were getting on top, it Protestants in the area – they set fire to the church communities began to close in on are you worried about that, sure the only house wasn’t army then, it was the police first, and they hall but they said that they weren’t going to let the themselves as neighbours turned they can shoot into is mine’. And he says, ‘Sure were getting on top of it and their story goes that, RCs get it. They ended up knocking the church down. away from each other. Many of the that’s alright’. I said ‘What?’ ‘That’s alright’. I said well it did happen, about a quarter past twelve A interviewees have stories about the impact this ‘Oh!’ and I turned around and said ‘Do you all feel one afternoon a mob came up from the Falls Road Then we had a Presbyterian church at the end of period had on such relationships: that way?’ Not one of them spoke. I said ‘Thanks, and attacked a house, I think it was Percy Street, Cliftonpark Avenue. You had a block of houses Before people started to leave they started a you’ll not be seeing me back here’. So I walked and they busted windows, attacked cars and they and then you go along Cliftonville Road. There was vigilante type of thing. I came out the door one round to my house. It was only about thirty yards beat up an old pensioner, God help her and a a church there and it closed down for the same night and there were about seven or eight guys up and that was the beginning of the end of the schoolboy, gave him a kicking. And that was the reasons. And your man Paisley moved in there and he standing at the top of the street. I walked up and friendship. That was probably the end of it……. start of the trouble in Belfast. And it was to take called it the John Knox Memorial and they broke into it was a young fellow who lived up the street. Those were my neighbours, yeah.” the weight off the guys in Londonderry…… it one day and burned it because he owned it. It was I can’t remember his name but I know he was (Male, Protestant, 70-79). just going downhill at that time… studying for the priesthood and they were all Another mob from the Shankill went down Percy standing along the wall, sort of like lecturing A second interviewee considers how things Street and they put a Union Jack on a lamp post My son, he was in the boys’ band in the school at the them. changed on her street: on the Falls Road. And that was it kicking off then. time and they started throwing nut balls at him in the That night up at Conway Street there were mobs street at half past eight in the bloody morning. So I I said (to a neighbour) ‘How is it going?’ I said ‘Are “I was very friendly with a lady on the opposite running around wrecking things on both sides. had to walk him to school and then he got the bus you alright, [name deleted]?’ and he said ‘Yes side and I was friendly with all the people down Then one wee man, I wasn’t there, I heard the [inaudible]. My wife was attacked by an Alsatian dog [name deleted], we’re alright’. [He] was from three here. We used to stand and chat and all the rest story, one wee man who lived there, he walked in the same place one night. He came flying out of a doors below me. He had a nice family, one lad of it. And then one day the people down here down and they beat him with a hammer ……. house. She says ‘he must have set it on me, whoever and three girls. Anyway to cut a long story short didn’t talk to me anymore. And I said to my friend it was’. But that sort of thing was going on. [the young fellow] said ‘We’ll get everybody ‘What’s wrong? What have I done?’ She says ‘No, (Male, Protestant, 70-79). together in an armband, a green armband and you haven’t done anything, you are talking to me we’ll walk about the area at night to make sure and they don’t like it’. So that was the attitude there’s no trouble and keep an eye out for people of people and from that day on I never made a coming to start trouble’. He says ‘We’ll have to friend up here. If they say ‘Good Morning’ I say watch and tell them what to do’. He says ‘What ‘Good Morning’.” (Female, Catholic, 70-79). we have to watch for is people up here shooting down the street’. 21 Segregated areas

There was a tension Some considered moving away from the area due “One night my husband went out on a to attacks whilst others were determined to stay: Wednesday over to the dogs or wherever it was he went to and he always came back about all the time. You could “We were up and down that M1 going back to 10 o’clock. It was a Friday night. He didn’t work the country. Of course we were scared of here Saturday. I was having his tea and all ready because they burned and we were very when he came back and the children were in sense it in the air close to Ardoyne, so we went to the country bed. I says to him ‘That’s shots’. ‘Not at all, love’. and then we came back when we thought it had He wouldn’t worry me. ‘I’m telling you that it is a settled. Then it started and we went down again backfire’. So no time ‘til I could hear thud, thud. and then I said to [my husband], ‘we can’t do this, They shot a man up at Summer Street there and At this time, Northern Ireland saw “the biggest population movement we either have to go and live in the country or then they wheeled the thing down and then they in Europe since the Second World War as the two communities stay in Belfast’ ……….. So then one night we were burned him at the top of the street……. That was shot into. I think it was a mistake because there the start of it. I says ‘No, I’m not moving. I was separated”. Previously mixed areas became exclusively one or were three houses that night shot into. But we going to lose my home. I did lose my home. Was the other. Homes were transformed from what were once places got the last bullet ……. we still have our hole in I right or was I wrong? Put yourself in my shoes. of safety to places under attack. A number of those interviewed the gable wall. So I said to the policeman that We had four children and you worked and take in night here ‘I’m leaving. I’m going to go down the ironing and everything. I’m not going into no remember witnessing violence directed towards their neighbours: to live in Castlederg’. He said ‘Mark my words. council house after paying all that money and the Don’t go. Stay where you are because trouble work we have done to our house.” will start down there too eventually’. So we never (Female, Protestant, 80+) “ eople like [name] and his wife, [name] – [he] “We were in bed one night and the next thing left. A few time bad boys, I would call them, got involved one day. There was a bunch bang, bang and the house next door was petrol used to come into the street and throw bottles Residents reflected on how the creation of areas of hooligans from down the road here - it bombed. I says ‘Here we go again’. ………. I would and there were a few boys arrested here in the of ‘them’ and ‘us’ increased fear and tension: was either the Oldpark or the Shankill. But have been about 17 or 18 and the house next street and that was another bad night. We left P that night too but we went to a cousin of mine “Oh it was a very scary time because both sides they came up and they walked up with sticks and door was petrol bombed and the people were rocks and they came in to Harcourt Drive and started still in the house. The fear on those people’s up the Cliftonville Road and stayed with her but were afraid. The Roman Catholics, Nationalists smashing windows and stuff. They came running faces, with the flames all coming out and they we came back about 11 o’clock when things had or whatever you want to call them, are going back down and [he] came out in the street and were trying to get out through the windows. settled down and we never left after that, we just to attack us and of course they had the same he had a stick with him and he whacked a couple My daddy ran in and he was hitting and he was stuck it, stuck it out.” (Female, Catholic 70-79). fear -- these Proddies are going to come and of them with a stick. It was only like a broomstick saying ‘Don’t smash the windows. The fire is attack us ……… Actually life became really grim and but he touched them alright and they ran off. But going to get worse’, because people were trying people were afraid. Any time before that people they came back that night and kicked in his door, to get them out through things and we were were talking together in buses and trams and his front door was smashed right onto the floor. It able to get them all out eventually. So that house just normal, because that’s all they were, normal scared the life out of him and his wife. He said ‘We’ll was blocked up then and that was the end of people, and this suddenly stopped…… have to get out because the next time they’ll come that house. So we lived up beside a blocked up in’. They didn’t go into the house but I saw the door …. house.” (Female, Protestant, 50-59) Many left, yes.” (Male, Protestant, 70-79) www.bbc.co.uk/history/topics/troubles_everyday_life#default Denis Murray 2013 23 I had Catholic friends but the only thing I could It was a bad time for everybody and people just We went to Scotland. Everybody went to So I went to Carrick and they went to Scotland. do, , I met him downtown and had a drink in a stopped walking down Cliftonpark Avenue. They Scotland but I didn’t want to leave. I was a home But it meant then, and nobody had a phone. My bar downtown, in fact it was Church Lane, but he just didn’t bother because they were scared and bird and I didn’t want to leave. My brothers went friend had a phone that lived down the street would never have invited me up to his house and rightly so and there was all sorts of mayhem but the day we were going, we were all going from us and I remember ringing my mummy at I wouldn’t have had him up to mine for the simple going on. There were two guys from the Oldpark and the bags and all were packed and we were seven o’clock every night. Mummy would have reason that we knew that neither of the two of Road walking down from Cliftonville Golf Club like evacuees you know, during the war. The to go down to her house because her mummy us could guarantee each other’s safety. So you and they were dragged into the Cricket Club and bags were all packed and I always remember, says ‘Yes, certainly’. That was me making sure would meet down town and then you went home shot in the head, just because they were walking I hid below the bed because in them days you everybody else was okay at home. You know it’s and that was it, whereas before the two of us down. There were two schoolboys, two brothers, had the beds you could get underneath and I hid a lot of confusion. A lot of worry – is my mummy could have gone to his house or to my house or one was fourteen and the other fifteen, they were below the bed and nobody could find me. When okay, is my daddy okay? Then my brothers are something like that. But you just met your friend walking across Ardoyne playing fields to meet they were doing the names they said ‘Where’s in a different country and no way of contacting downtown.” (Male, Protestant 70-79). their girlfriends and guys came out of Ardoyne [name deleted]’ and my brother says ‘She was them. Are they okay and all?’ and shot them dead, two brothers.” here a minute ago. I don’t know’. So my brother (Female, Protestant, 50-59). “There was a tension all the time. You could (Male, Protestant 70-79). came running down to the house and he says, sense it in the air – you were looking out the my mummy was with us, my mummy says ‘I don’t “There were things going on but your parents doors to see if there was anyone hanging about Parents tried to protect children from the ongoing know where she went’. So my brother came down never spoke about it. Everything was all quiet. You …….. There were guys I had never seen before in violence. One resident reflects: to the house in case I had went down and he were very, very protected. We, at that particular my life. They would pose a threat and at times looked all around and says ‘No, she’s not here’. point in time, we used to have a telephone where there were gangs walking about here. Both sides “At night we had to lie on the floor in our bedroom And then that was a whole panic. very few had it. So they used to come and speak by the way, and it got really rough. You took your because there was men on the roofs …. and they Mummy came down and I had hid below the bed to their brothers, the mothers would speak to life in your hands sort of thing, walking about would have shot over into Clonard Gardens and the and I said ‘I don’t want to go. I’m not going,’ and their sons in prison. We always knew our phone after dark. It wasn’t the wisest thing to do. It just ones in Clonard Gardens would have shot back. And she says ‘But you can’t stay here. It’s not safe to was tapped because you could hear this click, got worse and worse and shops started to close it was all just, the bullets were flying everywhere. stay here’ and I says ‘Well I’m not going’. So they click, click, click, and I heard it. And we used to around there because people weren’t going to There was actually one Sunday morning, we were went. Eventually they all went without me and my get a shared line and the crossed conversation shops. They were all going elsewhere for safety. all rapped up out of bed and there was a bomb had mummy’s cousin had moved to Carrick because and things like that, as a child. But no, we were You had to be very careful where you went and been left on one of the window sills of a house just she lived on the Shankill and they decided they very protected, very, very protected as children”. [name deleted] actually told us, a little later on, across the road from us. And we were all put out of were not staying [in Belfast]. They had got a (Female, Protestant, 50-59). before she left here, she says ‘Don’t be going the house and taken up through the back way. My house then in Carrick and she says ‘She can on the Cliftonville Road after dark’. I said ‘Why?’ granny lived on the other side of the Shankill so we come and stay with us’. So I went and stayed with and she said ‘Because the IRA is going to shoot all moved over into her house because my mummy her because she had a daughter the same age anybody they find on it’. I said ‘You’re kidding’. She had a fear for the kids – my mummy and daddy lived as me and it was company. So I spent the whole said ‘We were told to stay off the Cliftonville Road in the house on their own and my granny looked summer in Carrick whenever the schools were and that anybody who was seen walking up there after us. I had three brothers and we all moved over off. It was just to keep everybody out of trouble.…… was seen to be a Protestant and were going to into granny’s and we came back again just during get whacked’. I thanked her for that too…….. the day, and every night back over to granny’s, because the shooting was always on at night………

25 Vigilantes & paramilitaries

“There was vigilantes in every area and my daddy This fear that male members of the family might Barricades were was a vigilante for our area …… and the vigilantes become directly involved in the violence was used to sit in the bar then at night and they discussed by several residents. would have watched the area ….. and they would have sat there and kept an eye and they sort of “The children got up well and like I had four sons put up policed the area. which was rough enough … It was rough enough at that time and they didn’t get involved either in Then my daddy came in one night and he says anything so we were very lucky.” ‘I’m finished. I’m not going back because this is (Female, Catholic, 70-79). getting too hairy.’ He says ‘They are starting to talk As conflict emerged across Northern Ireland, about starting up a group’ and that’s where the local men began patrolling the boundaries of their UDA and the UVF all formed. You know, things like that. Because they were all starting to talk community. This was designed to act as a deterrent like that and he says ‘I don’t want anything to do and prevent attacks. Residents discuss the transition with it’ and he warned my eldest brother to stay out of everything. He says ‘If you hear, because of these groups into something more sinister: you are a young boy, and that’s what they are looking for, young boys to join up’. So then that was okay. He didn’t. Lucky enough he didn’t get involved in anything. None of my brothers got o the next thing was in the Protestant areas The UVF had been formed by people in Paisley involved, thankfully.” “ barricades were put up and vigilantes shirts. Because Gusty Spence and all them, they (Female, Protestant, 50-59). sprung up. Men went round in their own were all Paisleyites. Sareas and barricaded the streets up at night and then they paraded around to guard That’s how they started the UVF up again but the streets from attack and the Catholics were the UDA - that came later. It was the vigilantes doing the same on their side. They were building starting to get together and they decided then, barricades in their areas. Every place became because they were into sticks and stones and ghettos. There were ghettos in the Shankill Road daggers and everything, anything to defend your ……….. [area]… So the next thing the shooting started. Then they said right, so they formed the Ulster The thing is the vigilantes got together and grew Defence Association and started bringing in bigger and bigger. Well the UVF had already weapons, arms and ammunition from all over the been formed. place, wherever they could get them. And that was the start.” (Male, Protestant, 70-79).

27 Another female resident from Lower Cliftonville The strength of mothers dedicated to protecting reminisces on her fears of raising boys in this their children from this was highlighted by one environment: female form Lower Oldpark:

“I had four boys. My fear was they are going to “There is also the impact it had on us as children grow up. They are going to join the paramilitaries. growing up who came from a family who kept They are going to get shot. They are going to them away from paramilitary groups. I know what shoot somebody. It was like, how do you get happened. I know one particular point in time away from it and I actually thought about moving there was things going on in the house and to to England to get away from it, but I didn’t go. this day I always regret not asking mummy, but I And thank God none of my boys, none of my think they tried to recruit my big brother and my family, my brothers or sisters, none of my family mummy was the backbone with daddy, a strong relations have ever been in jail for murder or big man, but he wouldn’t have had the brass that doing something from the other side. I have never mummy would have had. I think [name deleted] had anybody murdered in the family so I don’t was a name that came into my head. I think he have that – some people can be really bitter. was part of the paramilitaries and she went to I don’t have that bitterness. Maybe because it school with his sisters. She made contact with hasn’t happened to me.” someone and thank God none of my brothers (Female, Catholic, 50-59). were recruited in, but it was so close. Things were going on but it was never spoken about. Mummy was a very wise wee woman. She always – she met you for the first time and she could read you. She had just a gift and a real wisdom with people and a great gift of making people laugh and just ooze with love. And her family were her life and she protected us, like most mothers do, but really protected us.” (Female, Protestant, 50-59).

29 Normal people, abnormal events “ remember , safe for everything else……. I’ll “When I was thirteen that 20 bombs went off that never forget one night me and would have been the Hunger day. Because I remember [my husband] went into the Strike trouble. It was chaos. I sitting as a child counting cinema in the town. You didn’t I mean I would have got up them, one after another – the call it the cinema then, it was at six in the morning and There’s a lot of bombs going off. We sat there the pictures. So we went to I lived in Harcourt and I and the soldiers were in the the pictures in town and we would have went straight to street. Everybody was just were sitting watching the film Ardoyne because the trouble sitting out in the street. It was and the next thing the writing happened there the night people with a lovely, lovely sunny day came across the screen that before so I would have gone and I just heard them going there was a bomb scare and over to see the aftermath. off– one, two. At that age, we we had to leave as quickly as Roads were dug up – buses, were very young and we didn’t possible. And we left, and it lorries – it was just mad. And PTSD and know what it was. But it was said ‘please do not panic’. And then at night time I would have the bombs going off at Oxford we got up and we left, but the gone back over because I Station and all around there.” panic, and I can remember was nosey and I stood outside (Female, Protestant, 50-59). sweating and everything the front gate to watch all the mental issues else and I couldn’t get out. casualties. There were people “Well I remember being in We couldn’t get out quick split from the top of their head the chip shop one night. You enough. They had opened all to here, fellows shot in the know whenever you are kids the escape doors and the fire face. It was horrible. because of the and all and you go down and doors to let everybody out. (Female, Catholic, 50-59). we had went down to get We did get out quick enough. chips and we were standing It was okay but I felt as if it in the chip shop and next was a long, long time and we troubles thing – bang, bang, bang and couldn’t get out. And ever the bullets came through the from that I have not been to a windows and we had to dive cinema in the town.” onto the floor, get round the (Female, Protestant, 50-59). People tried to continue living normal lives against counter of the chip shop and a constant cycle of violence. Many interviewees lie down on the floor. You know it was fear after fear. It could provide detailed accounts of the violence really was. I mean you never knew where you were going, they witnessed and the distress caused: where it was going to be

31 Residents recalled the direct “My eldest daughter and “My sister and I were out Violence affected every part “They bombed the water tanks Interviewees described the impact this violence had on another wee girl and they playing and the shooting of people’s lives, including at the top of the house and importance of a positive their families: used to come home here came down the street and attacks in the workplace: they burst and came down the mental attitude to ‘get through’ for their lunch and when she you just got down or ran. But stairs like a waterfall. Well we and showed remarkable “We got a phone call to come came home, she went down my wee brother witnessed “There was an explosion one couldn’t have business and fortitude in the face of such up the Springfield on Oldpark Avenue and [my someone being shot on the day inside the factory and everybody floating around experiencing such trauma: Road. When we went up daughter] came on down here . So I remember we ran out .…... Me and [name in water so we have to close ‘[Name deleted] has been and she was shot dead, that there was an article in the deleted] ran and we stood the front of the hotel ……. You “It all depends on just the way shot’ and the cops rang when wee girl. That took an awful lot paper about a young boy under the dynatherm boiler don’t upset your staff because you feel yourself, I think. It’s a we were sitting in the house out of me. I had to go to the witnessing this and my mum and the painters were coming they are hysterical, so you personal feeling, accept and talking to [his wife]. The hospital that night. was very terrified that he in because we had booked have to keep quiet. And for just get on with life. There’s phone rang when the cops would be called for a witness, different lunch hours. They the customers’ sake as well no point in dragging yourself down with it. It’s still there..…I came up and they said that And then there was another but he was too young and she were coming in and there you have to go around and would say that’s why theres they needed somebody to wee girl. She worked in a wee was more fearful because he were guys with blood running search your whole area, in to [sic] a lot of people here with go in and identify him. Well I shop there in Manor Street was a child and what effect it out of their sides and their the toilets and everywhere to PTSD in this place and mental was the only man there. She and she was shot dead too would have on him. He grew heads. I ran over and helped see if there is anything pinned issues because of all the wanted to go and I said ‘I’ll go and the woman that worked up okay.” this fellow and I walked away under the tables. So you had Troubles. My husband will along with you’. So we went in the shop, she lost her eye. (Female, Protestant, 50-59). from the whole bloody place to do all that quietly and I say to me sometimes ‘You over and your man said ‘Who’s She’s dead now too, God and [name deleted] stood asked one – there were three know you have PTSD and you going to identify the body’ and rest her. But my daughter, underneath the dynatherm people sitting at a table and don’t realise it. You are not she says ‘I’ll do it first’. I said to she worked in the shop too. boiler and they had put a they were from Sweden and I accepting it that that’s what your man ‘Is he alright?’ and Thank God she wasn’t on bomb in there too. And he was asked them very quietly would you have.’ I just get up and get he said ‘He’s not alright but that night but this other wee killed. He was only twenty- they move into the back of the on with it…… I think you had to there’s no real damage done girl was. She lived above us three. I was about twenty-five. hotel and one of them went get up and get on with it and to the front of him. It’s all to here and they went into the There was another bomb ‘Oh, there’s a bomb, there’s a just accept this is the way life the back of his head’. She went shop and they shot her dead. I blew up first inside and [the bomb’ and they went flying is. Get up and move on or else berserk and said ‘I want to see don’t know if they intended to other] must have stayed all out the front door.” sit in the corner and weep him, I want to see him’. She shoot them or if they intended night, the bloody thing, but (Female, Protestant, 70-79). over it. Fair enough, don’t went in again and they had to steal in the shop or what this thing that blew up, it burst forget about things and I know to give her sedatives to calm they intended to do, but that and the stuff that came down people that have hurt and they her down. He was only in his was two bad incidents that apparently was burnt black. can’t forget about it but again, thirties. happened.” His head was all damaged we have got to forgive and (Male, Protestant, 70-79). (Female, Catholic. 70-79) and burnt black from his waist down. It was just by the grace forget.” of God by helping this guy that (Female, Protestant, 50-59). I was saved.” (Male, Protestant, 70-79). 33 Emergence of the Peace Walls I remember there was a gate at Mountview Street, “It wasn’t a barrier, first of all. The first I remember a big steel gate, and it wasn’t up that long ‘til a was a bus coming down our street. I mean they couple of nights two or three hundred came were tiny streets in them days and this big double down on a bus to get in. They brought them from decker bus came down our street and they came big barrier in front everywhere – maybe Falls Road, New Lodge across and blocked off Kashmir Road and that wherever, dozens of them, a couple of hundred, I was the first barricade that had went up. There reckon, and they had petrol bombs and they were was one there and there was one came down of me chucking bricks over the wall. They took that gate and went across Kane Street. Because Kane down and made it a permanent structure. Street and Kashmir Road were at the bottom of our street and they crossed there. Then the Against the backdrop of escalating violence, segregated The Wall was just at Rosapenna Street but it army came and they moved in. The buses were didn’t come down the Oldpark Road. There were removed then. The buses were burned actually. communities and sectarian tensions, barricades began to still wee bungalows down there. It’s a space And then the buses were removed and the army be erected across Lower Oldpark and Cliftonville. These ground now. But they used to come down there put up, you know, the wood with the barbed wire at night, maybe a couple of dozen of them, and they closed the streets off then. I mean that were patrolled by local men and later evolved into the more smashing windows and attacking the pensioners’ street was a busy street. There was every shop permanent structures of the ‘Peace Walls’. Many residents have bungalows and they tried to get down into in Cupar Street whenever I grew up. There was a [inaudible] Street through the back way and it bakery, there was a butcher’s, there was a pawn, very clear memories of these barriers being constructed: was hand to hand fighting, to tell you the truth; it there was a chippy, there was a hardware shop; got really vicious. But as I said, the Wall went up everything was in it.” (Female, Protestant, 50-59). and I wasn’t consulted. I don’t think anybody was “ ll the people on the River Street The first [peace walls] were metal. They consulted.” (Male, Protestant, 70-79). There was a general acceptance that the Peace all moved out and it was just ‘No were quite substantial.” Walls were necessary at the time: Man’s Land’ and guys were coming (Male, Protestant, 70-79). “I came home one day to come up this way and in, they were coming in in cars. It there’s a big barrier in front of me. And I couldn’t “It was the first good idea they had during the A “They got sandbags or else steel drums and put understand that so I came around and up this whole Troubles, putting those Peace Walls up was the same on both sides – cars – and you didn’t know what was happening so sandbags in between them and planks at the top way and it was a big brown barrier just across the because otherwise nobody was safe because road from one house there to the shops on this nobody was safe and vigilantes started up and that’s why the people put up barbed wire. It and there was one in Manor Street. I walked past side. After that the Peace Line went up. So it was actually started barricading their own areas up. was like you would see with the soldiers in it one night. I walked up Summer Street. I was down seeing my da. He was still living in Bristol the powers that be that decided to put a Peace So putting up the Peace Walls was a proper thing Nicosia with the big arrow and the two axes Street and I turned the corner and walked up and Line up.” (Female, Catholic, 70-79). to do and it gave people a respite. If you had at the end and then they put barbed wire in there was a barricade across the road and about been here before the Peace Walls you would it.…….Well they blocked the streets with that a dozen guys there……. That was just at Manor have seen all the houses with cages over their every night and the men patrolled twenty Street. But they were at their barricade to attack windows because they were getting bricks and four hours a day…….. at their end. There were barricades going up what they were scared of most of all was a petrol everywhere. 35 bomb coming, whereas if it hit the cage it would “It was because I just seen it going the same way You just went in and you shut the door and you take that walkie-talkie’. They lent me their burn the outside but wouldn’t get into the house. as it had went with the other places that I had you just hoped and prayed that nothing would walkie-talkie. They were like ‘We are only down Bricks and petrol bombs were being thrown at left – Ainsworth Avenue, you know, Cupar Street. happen. For years I didn’t go anywhere. I always the street. We will get to you before the police houses on both sides. So therefore when the It was just going the same way. Exactly the same wondered why I was here. I prayed to God. I used come if you have to make a phone call to the Peace Walls came everybody who lived in those way. Because I just said to my husband ‘Here we to cry and walk along the streets and cry ‘Why do police’. And that’s the way I had to live, in bed at houses was extremely grateful and it gave them go again. I mean do the Peace Walls follow us?’ you have me here?’ because they were difficult night with the walkie-talkie to contact the people a wee bit of safety and a wee bit of comfort” Everywhere we live, its open and next thing a times.” (Female, Protestant, 50-59). walking the street for my safety and my kids. Only (Male, Protestant, 70-79). Peace Wall goes up. But the fear – I mean that’s for the grill, only for me having them closed up, what it is. I just couldn’t understand – you know, “Neighbours down the street were petrol the petrol bomb; the police said they wouldn’t “Well it kept both sides apart which had to here we go again. Years later, and I even said bombed all on the one night. Most of the street have stood a chance. Because their window was happen. Something had to happen because to myself, ‘How long is this going to go on for?’ had to get out and then it was like there was a there and their bunk bed was right at the window. there was always a lot of fighting going on down Something starts and the next thing a Wall goes bomb device in one of the gardens. So they were They would have been burned to death. Manor Street.” up and blocks off.”(Female, Protestant, 50-59). getting my neighbour and her friend’s daughters (Female, Catholic, 70-79). and son out of the house when they threw a I think we thought … for our protection but once Despite most interviewees welcoming the Peace petrol bomb over and it landed at their feet. They it’s there the kids will gravitate towards it. And “There were bad people on both sides, really Wall, the interface also acted as a flashpoint. were very, very lucky, that family because as they they throw over that wall. You know it’s young bad people. When the Walls went up they were Throughout the conflict missiles were thrown over were coming out of the house the petrol bombs teenagers coming to do it and I don’t know about a blessing because there would have been more the peace walls, houses were attacked and there were hitting them. They couldn’t get out the back the time I was petrol bombed. It was four in the people killed. I thought the Peace Walls would was a fear and lack of safety and security on the way. The back way was at the side sort of so morning so I was thinking no, it’s the men then. give them a bit of breathing space and they part of local residents: there was no other way out. It was awful. Because it was petrol bombs and then it was would sort of think about what they were doing paint bombs after. and think about what they can do and what’s the “I don’t think people thought about safety then We had a lot of trouble with bricks, bottles coming (Female, Catholic 50-59). best way forward.” even with the Wall going up because it was still over that daily, every day, every night. Then one (Male, Protestant, 70-79). very difficult challenging times. Even with the night, it was about four in the morning and we “The stone just went by and splattered me, fire Wall there it was still the height of the Troubles heard the smashing coming over the back and I just tore right out like that. I ran in next door “It was just something you accepted was going so people could still come round and come in just saw a flash and I knew then; I jumped out of to the lady next door. The sweat and I took a to happen. What I do remember is the times different ways if they needed to. the bed. And thank God two wee boys, two of my nose bleed. I didn’t want to tell [my husband]. I whenever Manor Street was opened and difficult (Female, Protestant, 50-59). boys were in the back bedroom but I had the grills said ‘Look, I’ll be alright’ and I waited until it was times and …my brother was always attacked to cover their window and if I hadn’t that, the petrol cleared. And he says ‘I told you to come up with coming home from school. I remember my mum “It started off with young children going out bomb would have come in on top of them. me’. I never thought for one moment. They knew. and sister having to walk on the opposite side of throwing stones and it escalated and their parents They must have known me or they knew once the road because at that point in time, he always, came out. Then at times whenever there was a big I had to leave the kids and I had to go out in you came up you were … I wouldn’t have minded when they were a wee bit older they would go stand-off we were hemmed in to our own house for the street. I had to run and then there would so much had it been when I was going down so down themselves to school, and he always used quite a number of weeks because at night, at the have been vigilantes at that time at the bottom they’d know you were a Catholic, but coming up, to be attacked. So at that point it became very interface building were set on fire, because we are of my street. I couldn’t see them. It was black. the stone hit me.” segregated…… At that point it was protection.” quite close to the interface, but with the properties It was that frightening. They said to me ‘Look, (Female, Catholic, 80+). (Female, Protestant 50-59). at the back of us, it was quite frightening. 37 Hemmed In

you just couldn’t Then in later years I would have gone to Lisburn, Another interviewee, a female resident from the because there really was nothing here. There Lower Cliftonville, recalled how as a home owner were not youth clubs; there was nothing, no she felt trapped living at the peace wall and services. So I was getting out and finding people couldn’t sell her home for the market value: go from A to B the same kind …. the area wasn’t great and you were embarrassed. You were embarrassed at “It looks very bad especially for anybody coming. times, to be honest, but I got to the point where And the wire on the windows as well. And to anymore later on in life it was like they accept me for who get them cleaned I used to get a can and try I am not for what I’m living in. It’s the person not and throw the water up. But you couldn’t have [the place]. washed them the same. And then my husband bought one of them power hoses and washed All interviewees recognised that the Peace Walls also had There was a lot of dereliction, empty homes and it down as best he could. We had to put wire up streets were demolished and you remember, on the windows. It wasn’t ‘The Men Behind the negative impacts on their lives and the wider area. Feelings of mostly the impact is the smell of the dereliction. Wire’, it was my windows behind the wire, and being ‘hemmed in’ were common. An older resident recalled the You would pass somewhere and it brings back that was the wee mesh wire. A lot of them moved these old memories of dereliction and I have out but we were paying off that house. We would difference in his social life after the Peace Walls were erected: visions, and sort of memories of the old streets have lost our house so we put the wire up on the still come back to me. Slowly but surely you windows. We had four children and you worked are seeing it disintegrate. You know, the people and take in the ironing and everything. I’m not “ ou couldn’t get out to meet people One female interviewee recounts the growing moving out and you are living on a street with going into no council house after paying all that unless you were going into Protestant dereliction and lack of services in the area: only like two houses and then the kids beside money and the work we have done to our house. areas. So you weren’t meeting any you would be demolishing the house and there (Female, Catholic, 80+). …… oh you were definitely losing “Our playground was the empty homes on Dargle was the danger of, at that point there was the Y The peace wall also impacted on the landscape your freedom. You were hemmed in. You were Street and Rose Street – all those streets had old gas [could be released] …… and it just left hemmed in because the simple reason was the massive big homes, like six-bedroom homes and things very, very unstable. It was quite creepy and infrastructure of the local community. The Shankill Road was never famed for having very they were knocked in. The rooms were knocked and eerie. Cliftonpark then was quite a horrible mobility of local residents was affected as Manor Street, a former throughway, was cut in half by great public houses. Most of the pubs in the in to like upstairs knocked into like big holes in place to walk up. It used to have the old derelict a peace wall. Residents remember how it was Shankill I can remember were like John Wayne the walls so you could literally run through them. houses – every house would have had a hedge before the wall and how things changed: walking around in a cowboy film. There was And we used to play hunts.…..Our playground was and the hedges were overgrown and you felt sawdust on the floor and spittoons in the ring on basically the empty homes and looking back now safer walking on the [actual] road at night and “I mean, I could have walked up Cliftonpark it and the drink would be sort of thrown up to you think of the fear and the danger associated it wouldn’t be lit up and was very desolate.” Avenue and walked right through into the you …….. suddenly you were hemmed in. You were with that. (Female, Protestant 50-59). hemmed into some wee stupid bar and all you Waterworks which we did many a time and were meeting were the guys you were meeting from the Waterworks across over into the Grove all your life. You were just going over the same playing fields because a lot of us didn’t have thing all the time.” (Male, Protestant, 70-79). 39 The Future of the Peace Walls the money for the bus. So we “At that time there was very I must say even though it was walked up to the Grove with little – there weren’t two or on the Peace line it was one of football boots round your three cars at everybody’s door the best streets I ever lived in. ven within this small sample, there was “I’d love to see it go. I don’t like barriers. Barriers neck and walked back again so we had a bus run from It has been the best street, for differing viewpoints regarding the removal cause problems and I don’t like that. Open it all and never any trouble. [When here, from the to your neighbours, for people of the Peace Walls. Some supported the up. The people will either live together or they the Peace Wall went up] it the Gasworks. The 77 bus ran helping each other. It was wall being removed now but remained will move away. One or the other. Why can’t they meant that you just couldn’t across there and then they such a real community wee E unsure how possible this was. Residents spoke of forget? That was yesterday; close the door. Move go from A to B anymore. done away with it when the street. Every day all our kids the leadership of women in the community being forward. Think of your children and the future you You had to go A, B, C, D and Troubles started.I used to go played together. People were key to this: want for them.” F to get to where you were to the hospital on the bus and out from supper time at night (Female, Catholic, 70-79). going whereas before that it was great because you got after the men had their dinner. “I don’t think the Peace Walls will come down any you went through Catholic off at Shaftesbury Square and The women were out on the time soon and I think it’s going to be the women Others feared for the consequences of such an areas, Catholics went through then you walked up to the street with all the kids. It was who will bring everything forward. The men are act and felt the time was still not right for taking Protestant areas. Now, even hospital.” like a wee group team we had. sitting on their backsides. They can do the war such a permanent step: when I took that wee job, I (Female, Catholic, 70-79). I mean the whole street was but they can’t do the peace. They can’t do the had to go either up round out and we would have tea making up. That’s all the women and it’s our “You take these Peace Walls away you are going Rosapenna Street and away Despite these difficulties, and sandwiches every night, generation of kids and their kids.” to have access to each other and it’s going to be down to get there or else go interviewees remember the obviously somewhere, and a (Female, Catholic, 50-59). … When you can’t see people you can’t start a row away down, up Cliftonpark strength of the community brilliant, brilliant street. and start harming them. It will be a very, very long Avenue over the bumps to get they lived in and the pride they “The women have held the communities time.….. The wall makes you feel a wee bit safer took in their area: there. It doubled my journey. It was such a pity the houses together. The women have been there when and it makes people on the other side feel safer. Normally I could have walked had to come down. Even the fellows have been in prison and they have The older people knew because they had already “I can remember moving into through there. You could have though the Peace line was held communities together. But there has come through, as I say, in the ‘30s and the ’21 Rosevale Street, twenty-two walked from here to York there I would have stayed been lost generations, There is no leadership riots. They knew what was going to happen. They years ago and the Peace Wall Street straight through in a there. It wouldn’t have put me in the community, leadership comes from the knew it wasn’t going to be overnight. The young was right behind me. Now you matter of fifteen or twenty off even though I was petrol women, not from the men. The men are in the ones, they didn’t care. The Peace Walls were up could have gone out and you minutes but you can’t do bombed. I would have still background doing the things that they do best as and that suited them. It meant nobody could get could have ate in that entry. that anymore because of the lived there. paramilitaries, intimidating people. Women taking in at them so the young ones didn’t think how The entry was spotless. The Peace Walls.” (Female, Catholic, 50-59). these massive risks in communities to keep that long it was going to be but the older ones knew women looked after it, cleaned (Male, Protestant, 70-79). partnership going in spite of massive intimidation the longer the conflict went on, the longer it was it. The entry was full of young and isolation in your own community. going to be before you’d get the Peace Walls children. You put them out, a (Female, Protestant, 50-59). away.” big long entry and they played (Male, Protestant, 70-79). up and down there with their skateboards or their wee dogs.

41 “I must confess I have never considered taking naturally. Young people are inter-marrying There were comments too about the attitudinal “I think now kids are realising, where years ago the Peace Walls down because I think it’s too much more readily and they will then move into change that needed to happen before the walls we were taught, well not taught, but people early, far, far too early. If they took them down Protestant communities but you know, all we want could be removed: would have said that all Protestants were bad tomorrow there would be a bloody funeral to do is live in peace. We have lived through forty where now ‘My daddy wouldn’t say that to me’ because that would just open the gates to all the odd years or more plus of hardship and strife and “They are not mixing enough to create peace. but with even my children would know they are mayhem because it’s not over. They were there really difficult times. It is also [about] creating an Like I mean, there was one teacher in school and not all bad. And I think that is half of the learning. for a few years but I don’t think it’s anywhere environment where our young kids are educated she always wanted to learn Irish and I said to her You have to teach them that there is good and near the right time to … Maybe eight, ten or fifteen and they stay within the community rather than ‘Why don’t you? Look up Irish classes and go to bad, that not all Protestants are bad and not all years’ time, yes. But I think at the minute …” moving away and that could have a massive them’. So she found somewhere up The Falls and Catholics are bad and I think that’s the difference, (Male, Protestant, 70-79). impact.” (Female, Protestant, 50-59). she went. She said ‘I never had a better time’. She a wee bit of a difference now. You know that was said ‘The people are lovely’. I said ‘The people what you thought then; that was what I thought. “I know it’s hard whenever things are still are no different to us. We are all the same. It’s I didn’t know Protestant people when I was happening. If everything was sort of cut and “I’m a wee bit old now [laughter] but I hope [they just that tradition has told us don’t talk to them.’ growing up because they were from the other dry I could say ‘Okay, the war is over, get on will come down] in my lifetime, but I would say I sometimes think that people don’t really know side and you didn’t bother and we just thought with it. We’ve got to do this and got to do that. you are going to have to do an awful lot of work. who they are or what they are. They are like the they were bad people. Now the kids are learning Pull the Walls down. We’ll all be friends again. It’s not just a matter of knocking those Walls down. nomads running round the desert. They have no and they are doing cross-community and We’ll all live together in mixed communities’ but You are going to have to do an awful lot of work. base and I put that down to the politicians trying they are learning more in school. It’s more the there’s still people out there that still hold on to Forget about the Peace Walls. Make them nice and to divide everybody. It’s all wrong. It’s a most community workers are doing more education to things and still would like to get their own back.” then spend the money that’s being used and that’s beautiful country, North and South, and it could teach your kids about Peace Walls.” (Female, Protestant, 50-59). been … to get the two groups …build relationships. be on top of the world.” (Female, Catholic, 70-79). (Female, Catholic, 50-59). Despite differences in opinion on when the walls The people will [eventually] want to get rid of the should be removed, it was clear that all residents things. We don’t want the bloody things. The Peace Others highlighted the progress made in the “It has been, I think, a steady progress. It has wished for a better future for the next generation. Walls – make them nice. Make them the way they area in the past decade and the importance of its challenges and it still will continue to have Residents reflected on the reasons for why people have in New York with a lot of graffiti on them and a the younger generation being involved in cross- challenges but as groups who have different wanted the walls to stay with suggestions of what lot of dancing wee figures on them. It’s going to be community initiatives to aid attitudinal change: needs, I think you have to work alongside each could happen in the interim: a long time but what you are going to have to do is other. The difficulty is in this part of the city, get the hearts and the minds of both communities “Well there has been a bit of sharing going on the Protestant community would be seen as a “I would like to see the future that – you know, – the young ones – the old ones don’t count ……the here. Small groups meet together, residents weaker link, looking at the funding element of my kids have grown up. They know a different life older people, because they have known Catholics from one side and the resident who are [from the it. But I see in the last nine years, we have seen than what I did. I would like their kids to know a and Protestants congregating together but these other]. At least it lets these people see, and I’m massive, massive transformation of the area different life than what they did and there will be young ones don’t have and that’s what your whole talking about both sides here, that that person and the attitudes of people in the area. I think their children then. You know as you go down the trouble is. You are going to have to get the hearts there has a head, two arms and two legs like people’s attitudes has [sic] changed.” generations, things to improve every time, but I and minds on both sides of the Peace Wall and me. Nobody chooses to be a Roman Catholic (Female, Protestant, 50-59). am only hoping that it works.” get them integrated in wee informal groups and and nobody chooses to be a Protestant but if (Female, Protestant, 50-59). keep widening that circle. Bring small groups, wee you are born into a Protestant family or Roman discreet groups and get them together and then let Catholic family then you will be that. It’s maybe “People have a fear of change. A fear of them – it’s like throwing a stone into a pond and let an accident of birth, if I could describe it like that. not knowing, because they have lived in an the ripples go out.” (Male, Protestant, 70-79). [laughter] It’s either a Union Jack or a Tricolour. environment like this for so long. I hope in years You know what I mean. It doesn’t happen that to come you will see the Walls being transformed way. It’s what they are told. ‘He’s an Orangeman. into physical structures that create employment Don’t talk to him.’ Its bloody brainwashing of or maybe could be part of social housing. I think youngsters, like it’s a mind game really. Its [sic] if anything is going to happen it will happen confirmed opinions. It’s your attitude too, you know. My experience of the folks in Manor Street was great.” (Male, Protestant, 70-79). 43 Hope springs eternal Methodology

ornat (2012) notes that “Oral history values the As is required practice, each participant signed a consent contribution which individual experience makes to form outlining that they are aware of the nature of the project, understanding the past and society today”. Storytelling understand that their interviews are to be recorded and that People see things B and narrative work is the form of remembering that they remain able to review their transcript and hold ownership is most frequently offered as a vehicle for dealing with the past of a copy of their interview. A copy is also held at an archive in post-conflict societies. Whilst it is important to record and/ in the Lower Oldpark Community Centre on a password- or share the stories of the experiences of the conflict as an protected external hard drive. Each interviewee has also given historical resource and a way of enabling society to examine prior approval for the use of any direct quotations attributed to changing the wealth of meaning and learning connected to the conflict, it them in this publication. is equally important to remember that this can be a potentially difficult and emotional process. However, it has been found that Transcripts were analysed by importing into nVivo and oral history testimony, if conducted in a sensitive way, allows the following the six-phase thematic analysis process as person telling their story to experience a degree of healing. Despite the difficulties faced within this community, outlined by Braun and Clarke (2006) below: The participants in the project are all residents who lived directly beside or close to a peace wall. Residents from a 1. Familiarising yourself with your data: Transcribing data (if the trauma and violence witnessed and the hardships range of age groups were selected with a specific focus on necessary), reading and rereading the data, noting down those who have living memory of the community before initial ideas. of living in an area lacking investment, hope exists. the wall was erected. Each interview adopts a ‘life history’ 2. Generating initial codes: Coding interesting features of approach, asking those involved in the project about their early the data in a systematic fashion across the entire data set, One resident explained further about her hopes for life and family background and moving the interview to cover collating data relevant to each code. events throughout their life. This life history approach provides ‘rich’ data which presents a context to the emergence of the the area and the importance of harnessing the power 3. Searching for themes: Collating codes into potential peace walls. themes, gatå†hering all data relevant to each potential of young people living there: theme. Choosing this particular methodology enables each contributor to share memories and stories of the political, 4. Reviewing themes: Checking the themes work in relation to social and economic situation in Northern Ireland both before “ the coded extracts (Level 1) and the entire data set (Level here is hope. People see things changing. A new hotel, the Courthouse. I was born beside and after the conflict began; offers their understanding of why 2), generating a thematic ‘map’ of the analysis. It creates a bit of hope but there is also the Courthouse. As a child growing up, I have the peace walls were erected; describes how communities that fear. The fear is still there. We are many, many dreams of the Courthouse being adapted to their presence and documents the impact the 5. Defining and naming themes: ngoingO analysis to refine the walls had on their lives, their families and their areas. Whilst specifics of each theme, and the overall story the analysis becoming a more settled community transformed. each interview maintains a focus on documenting the history tells; generating clear definitions and names for each T of life beside the peace walls, it also enables interviewees to and that’s only within the last two years. For theme. me, a resident living here for forty years, I find it It is going to be a twenty-five million pound consider how they feel now about the future of the peace walls and the wider challenges and future hopes they hold for their 6. Producing the report: The final opportunity for analysis by quite exciting. It’s good to know we are part of project so I think many local people can get jobs. community. An interview topic guide is included in Appendix 1. selecting vivid, compelling extract examples and relating a beautiful building like the library. That was a It will be nice seeing a part of North Belfast where back to the analysis of the initial research issue. dream to make that library come back to life again people never wanted to come to, you were Interviewees were offered the opportunity to share their stories either at their local community centre or at their - that is another hub within the community and embarrassed, people coming up your street, home depending on wherever they felt more comfortable. hopefully it will become a use for employment and it’s going to be a place we are going to be All interviews were recorded on a Marantz recorder and then and community use. So yeah, and the Gaol and all so proud of, and creating a future for the young transcribed in the highest confidentiality. the re-developments are really exciting. generation and hopefully people will carry on the good work; especially in communities because I think you need places like this to engage with. Bornat, J (2012) Timescapes Methods Guides Series, Guide No. 12 Oral History and Qualitative Research p.1. We need to empower and bring young people on board.” (Female, Protestant, 50-59). Braun, Virginia and Clarke, Victoria (2006) Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3 (2). pp. 77-101. Available online at: www.informaworld.com [Accessed 12th December 2017]. 45 About the Peace Walls Programme There has been meaningful cross-community dialogue The landscape is transformed, from the Lower between women’s groups from across the Lower Oldpark area, where previously the view of the city Oldpark and Cliftonville areas and a range of cross-city centre and docks was obscured by the Girdwood wall. and cross-community youth programmes including a From Brucevale the view of Belfast Mountains is now n May 2013, the Northern Ireland Executive It aims to engage both communities in a meaningful 3D modelling workshop and media course addressing apparent. published a policy document setting out way without compromising their needs for personal the peace walls. The Imagine Peace Walls Programme the power-sharing Executive’s approach to and household safety, alongside wider regeneration Reference Group are in regular contact and are building a shared society in Northern Ireland plans for the area, including housing regeneration regularly updated on the progress of the project. I at Lower Oldpark, the re-development of Girdwood - Together: Building a United Community. In this This involves the Department of Justice, the Housing document the Executive made a commitment to Park, the activities within the Crumlin Road Gaol and Executive, Belfast City Council and the PSNI. reduce and remove all peace walls by 2023. surrounding area. It aims to encourage local residents References to develop a vision for the area and deploy visioning A major success to date is the regeneration of the tools whilst developing a ten-year plan for this In January 2012, the International Fund for Ireland Girdwood Barracks on Cliftonpark Avenue through Belfast Interface Project (2011) interface area. (IFI) launched a funding programme to support local the EU’s PEACE III Programme. Local community Interfaces Map and Database – Overview communities wishing to work towards beginning representatives have worked together to manage When Imagine began in January 2014 there were many to remove the peace walls. They have invested the process of transformation of this site from an Bornat, Joanna (2012) reasons to have high hopes that the project could be substantial funds to positively transform interface unused contested space into a ‘shared space’. The Timescapes Methods Guides Series, part of this apparent new Government commitment neighbourhoods through a range of ‘confidence and Girdwood community hub is a ‘state-of-the-art Guide No. 12 Oral History and Qualitative Research to improving community relations and continuing the relationship building interventions’ delivered through shared space hub which offers first-class leisure, journey towards a more united and shared society. community-based organisations. Any efforts to community and education facilities’. Sixty nine social Bryson, Anna (2016) However, the sudden announcement that there was remove the walls will be decided by the communities houses have been built on the Girdwood site by APEX a plan to create a ten year programme to reduce, and Victims, Violence and Voice: Transitional Justice, themselves, without whose permission, everyone has Housing Association. A final housing phase will ensure remove all interface barriers by 2023 was not well Oral History and Dealing with the Past agreed the walls will not be touched. housing on Cliftonpark Avenue. There will be further received by many residents living at or close by the developments within the site for a sports centre of interface barrier between Lower Oldpark and Lower Braun, Virginia and Clarke, Victoria (2006) The Imagine project has engaged with local residents excellence and social enterprises. The Girdwood Cliftonville. Using thematic analysis in psychology. in a process on both sides of the interface and hub and housing will change not only the physical Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3 (2). consulted them on their views on how the interface landscape but the wider social dynamics of the area. This had a very negative impact upon the Imagine and adjacent lands can improve the quality of life It is a landmark project, a real opportunity which could project with residents assuming that we ‘the workers’ Gormley-Heenan, Cathy & Byrne, Johnny (2014) and increase confidence in the process. The project is have wide-ranging impact on the regeneration of this were there to implement the immediate removal of the ‘Belfast’s Peace Walls: Can you remove the resident-led carried out by the two based community divided part of the city. local interface barrier. In recent years we have worked conflict architecture?’ groups, the Lower Oldpark Community Association very hard in establishing trust in the communities and the Cliftonville Community Regeneration Forum, Some residents within the Lower Oldpark community following this. Jarman, Neil (2004) supported by outside agencies with relevant legal were reluctant of the removal of the boundary wall Demography, Development and Disorder: authority responsibility and appropriate expertise. which they feared would cause sectarian attacks Changing Patterns of Interface Areas Having weathered the storms and tried to address the and rioting. The process of transformation had to be issues that people had, we have been able to make The objectives of the project are to engage the two managed very delicately. The Girdwood Hub opened progress on most of our key objectives, by organising Mullan, Patricia (2017) communities to tackle the consequences of living by in January 2015 and has been received well by the site-specific community consultations which receive an interface and identify sites where improvements are community. International Fund for Ireland Peace Walls a high attendance of residents. Agreement on the possible and achievable. Programme removal and transformation of many peace wall sites Attitudinal Survey: Summary of Results: October 2017. has been agreed and a baseline attitudinal survey has been completed. 47 Sarah Lorimer Malachy Mulgrew Project Officer Project Officer T: 07780944547 T: 07708657440 E: [email protected] E: [email protected]

Lower Oldpark Community Cliftonville Community Association Regeneration Forum Avoca Street, Belfast 185 Cliftonpark Avenue, Belfast BT14 6EN BT14 6DT T: 028 90351334 T: 028 90749147