Wednesday, June 15th





Me and Paedar Whelan

Today was a very interesting and diverse day.  We covered a lot of ground both literally and figuratively, and I enjoyed every minute of it.  We started the morning off with a walking tour: the first half directed by Coiste (http://www.coiste.ie/), a Republican group that runs political tours of the Falls Road area by ex-political prisoners, and the second half directed by Epic, the loyalist version that gives walking tours of the Shankill area.  I was particularly enthralled by the first tour because I managed to get a good amount of time walking one-on-one with our guide, Peadar Whelan, a former IRA man who was imprisoned with Bobby Sands, though he did not participate in the hunger strikes (I think he did do the dirty/no wash protest though).  The reason I found him most interesting is that he talked a great deal with me about my area of research and a lot of his educational background surprised me.  He is originally from Derry so I made a point of asking him if he had any opinion about Field Day, particularly Brian Friel and Seamus Deane.  He said that really he didn't know too much about them at the time because he was in jail when Field Day really started up but that the general sentiment was that what they were doing was positive in terms of reviving culture.  As he asked about what I was focusing my work on, I was really shocked -- though I probably shouldn't have been -- that many of the texts I've been reading in my research are ones he was reading in prison!  I guess it sort of makes sense, but I was caught a bit off guard thinking that my education is in line with a political prisoner's self-education.  It's unsettling to simultaneously understand and even sympathize with someone's or some group's ideology (in terms of anti-colonial theory in this case -- don't worry, I'm not a communist!) and be appalled by their past actions.  He said that most of the IRA prisoners spent their time earning degrees and reading the likes of Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth, liberation theology texts, Marx, and anti-colonial/post-colonial theory.  I'm not sure why while sitting on the couch in my living room reading articles about these guys through the lens of post-colonial/anti-colonial theory I never pictured them actually reading the same stuff, but we are finding that part of what has allowed former IRA guys to find their way into government positions (via Sinn Fein) is that they spent their prison time earning degrees in philosophy and the like and developing a huge ideology -- socialist in nature clearly (as he said to me at one point "when you are reading you'll find that really he [T.A. Jackson] is a communist, but it sounds better to say socialist"  haha!).  I told him I was looking forward to going to the Queen's library to find books that I can't get in the States and he recommended a few titles and names important to these guys for me to search for -- obviously many of them are very biased authors/titles and I'm taking these recommendations well aware of that, fear not!  Two that he pushed strongly are T.A. Jackson's Ireland Our Own (the title says it all) and the writings of James Connolly.  Many of the texts he spoke of to me were, as I said, anti-colonial in nature and largely about the oppressed in Africa.  One thing he stressed several times was that for him (and many of his peers), the struggle is purely a colonial thing; it is not about religion, and he said that if there is ever a united Ireland, the new structure will need to respect a total separation of church and state.  He also told me that his partner is a psycho-therapist and that she has studied trauma theory in conjunction with colonialism.  I kind of wish I had gotten to speak with her as well!  Though his tour (like the Epic tour) was blatantly one-sided, it was heartening to see the two different guides shake hands with a smile as we were passed off to the second half of the tour.  See picture:      



Lee and Paedar shake hands! Progress!

Sidenote: as we were walking around Falls Road, a car passed and the man behind the wheel waved at Paedar and gave him a thumbs up.  I said "You certainly are popular," and he laughed and replied "Actually, that's the head of Epic so you may meet him later!"  Another good sign towards peace, I say!
So we walked through the peace gate and found ourselves back at the major peace wall near Shankill Rd. with Lee as our new guide.  Lee -- who has 8 children ranging in age from 6 months to 14 years!  See, it's not just the Irish-Catholics, it's the British-Protestants too! -- is a former UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force -- a loyalist paramilitary group) member though he has never been a prisoner.  What a 180 this tour took when we switched hands!  Just as fervently as Paedar declared the UVF was working with the British Police during the Trouble, Lee swore that the UVF was/is completely independent of the British Police, saying the police beat up the Protestant Loyalists in Shankill too, not just the Irish Catholics.  Phil made some interesting comments later that helped put some things in perspective.  One question people were asking is why former IRA men are now seen in Stormont, while there seem to be virtually no former Protestant Loyalist paramilitary men in government positions.  Phil pointed out that while the mentality of the Republican side has been based on this overarching ideology and they worked towards degrees in prison, the sense on the Loyalist side of town seems much more working class/I just want to defend my neighborhood -- sort of a working class pride -- and that they didn't try as much to educate themselves in a larger ideology.  It's all very interesting stuff.
Lee was a member of the C-Division, a special or elite division of the UVF to which both his father and uncle belonged.  Here is a picture of their mural, honoring the five most respected men in the division:

It was quite an eye-opening experience to hear such vastly different versions of the same story back-to-back, as you realize just how strong the bias is on both, and yet so hopeful to see how the narrators of these different versions can now interact positively, especially individuals who have literally shot bullets at one another and would never think of shaking hands just a decade ago.   * I really hope I'm not coming across as too biased as well!*  I'll post more pictures from the tour at the end of the post.
After our walking tour, we met up with fellow JCU/Orientation Staff alum Rory O'Neil at the Peace Players International office (http://www.peaceplayersintl.org/locations/northern-ireland).  It was great to see him and even more fantastic to hear about the work he and the organization are doing.  Essentially, the premise of Peace Players International is to bring the children of divided communities together through sport (particularly basketball).  Here is a link to the first youtube video of three covering a presentation at the 2007 ESPY awards giving the Arthur Ashe Courage Award to the program -- it's really worth watching all three parts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6iMh7DPsV4  They actually talk about the two elementary schools on Ardoyne Rd. I mentioned yesterday (Holy Cross and Wheatfield), which Peace Players Organization members have successfully brought together through their program so that those kids who once had to have police between them on the way to school are now socializing happily.  They are really doing important and effective work.  They are really doing more than I can write about here, but I strongly encourage you to visit the website and learn more about all of their initiatives.  We are hoping to go help out at one of their tournaments next week and hope to see more of Rory while we are here as well. 
After Rory, we made the natural progression and had tea in the Lord Mayor's parlor.  :) 

In fact, here's a picture of me in the Lord Mayor's chair.  I didn't get to try on his 14 pound gold chain necklace, but I'll settle for this.  This mayor, Niall O Donnghaile, is the youngest in Belfast's history at 26 years old, and he's a member of Sinn Fein.  One of the more interesting things -- at least to us -- that he's done in his 3 weeks as mayor so far is to remove the pictures of the Queen Mother and Prince Charles from the parlor and replace them with a poster commemorating Wolfe Tone and the United Irishmen's 1798 rebellion and a copy of the 1916 Irish Declaration of Independence.  He's also left two spots for Belfast minority groups to tell him what they would like to have hung honoring them.  He was very kind and presented our group with a gift plaque which will be hung up in the office of the Peace & Justice Department at John Carroll, and Phil gave him a nice JCU pen in return.  Here they are admiring their gifts:

Tomorrow we are off to the Antrim Coast to see the Giant's Causeway and the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge and to tour the Bushmill's Distillery.  I probably won't post since I've already been to the Causeway and Rope Bridge with WRA students last March and since it's more of a tourist day than an education day.
Feeling Very Lucky to be Here,
Jeannie