12/13/2023 0 Comments War strife have come prosecco![]() ![]() But some hard-line unionists see the deal as a betrayal. He proposes a new customs border in the Irish Sea between Britain and Northern Ireland. In October, United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised no physical border will exist between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland when Brexit comes into force, so as not to undermine the Good Friday Agreement. Steven Grattan/The World Brexit in the mixīrexit is also another issue on the lips of Northern Ireland’s citizens as uncertainty over the border issue has stirred tensions. “The delayed progress has been because of the departments and the system rather than residents,” he said. Shannon and his colleagues also criticized the slow nature of the government who placed the 2023 peace walls removal goal in 2013, saying “no thought or strategy” had gone into it. The more stable the community is, the more difficult it is for them to operate,” he said, adding that these groups also exist in loyalist communities. On the republican side, you have dissident organizations who are criminal gangs, but they’re using this political cover. “There are still people who are opposed to moving forward in the peace and reconciliation process. Shannon said that although many residents want the walls to come down, there are some groups who still oppose it for their own interests. “A big part of what we do and how we bring change is about bringing people from either side of our community together, getting them to know one another and breaking down those mental barriers because they’re the hardest barriers to break down,” said Ciarán Shannon, DCP Manager. “A big part of what we do and how we bring change is about bringing people from either side of our community together, getting them to know one another and breaking down those mental barriers, because they’re the hardest barriers to break down." Ciarán Shannon, manager, Duncairn Community Partnership, Belfast, Northern Ireland “Since 2002, we’ve been inundated with bricks, stones, bottles, pipe bombs, shootings, and we just feel safe behind it.” ![]() In 2002, a huge spate of sectarian violence rose after the peace agreement. “I live on a peace line, and I feel safer with those walls up,” Brennan said, echoing the stance of many others in Short Strand. They are now promising to get back to work, but neither party is entirely satisfied after negotiations. These two parties continually butt heads over how they view the legacy of the "troubles" and the way Northern Ireland should run. Related: What the UK's new power deal means in the DUP's Belfast heartland Until this past weekend, however, the government was defunct for over three years after a row between the two major power-sharing parties: the majority Protestant and socially conservative Democratic Unionist Party, and majority Catholic Sinn Féin - once the Irish Republican Army’s political wing. In 2013, Northern Ireland’s government set up an initiative to remove all of them by 2023, but approximately 116 barriers remain “as visible symbols of community segregation and division,” reported the International Fund for Ireland, an organization that encourages contact and dialogue between nationalists and unionists. Many are high, harsh structures, while others are a mix of gates, mesh fencing and solid walls. More than half the peace lines that exist today were built after the peace agreement. In 1998, a peace deal known as the Good Friday Agreement was signed between the British and Irish governments and most political parties in Northern Ireland, but sectarian violence continued for many years. Today, many residents who live along these walls still want them to remain. The walls were meant to be temporary, but they helped to calm tensions and decrease attacks between the two communities living in close proximity and became permanent. In the '70s, the British government began to build separation barriers known as "peace walls" around Northern Ireland to separate Catholic and Protestant areas in an attempt to control sectarian violence. Related: Journalist's death stirs difficult memories of Bloody Sunday Catholics aimed to have a united Ireland, while Protestants fought to keep their British allegiance. Commonly referred to as "troubles," this period is defined by the conflict between Catholic republicans and nationalists, and Protestant loyalists and unionists. Since the late 1960s, a bloody, 30-year guerrilla war was waged throughout Northern Ireland, leaving over 3,600 dead. Frank Brennan vividly recalls the shootings and bombings in Belfast, Northern Ireland, when he was a young man in the early '70s as well as attacks on his own life.īrennan, a member of the Irish republican movement, grew up in Short Strand, a staunchly Catholic, working-class neighborhood in predominantly Protestant east Belfast. ![]()
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