Some of these stories of healing and hope are directly related to the Corrymeela Community, others are stories we have heard through groups that work with Corrymeela.

A Woman of Faith

I would like to share with you the story of Pauline - a woman of faith.

She was born in Belfast, one of eight children brought up by a single parent because her father left the family for a younger woman. Her mother kept a strong faith in God and passed it on to Pauline. Pauline married at 17 years of age and had four lovely children.

Then, after twelve happy years, her world was shattered one Sunday morning when she received a phone call from the police to come to the hospital fast. She arrived just to be told that her husband had died from gunshot wounds - she was devastated!

How to tell the children? After praying to God to give her strength, she returned to her little home and waited quietly for her wee ones to awaken. First to get up was her 5-year-old daughter who knew immediately something was wrong. “Where’s my Daddy?” she said. Pauline gathered her up and her three little boys together on the stairs and told them that their Daddy had gone to heaven.

Then the questions really started. Pauline, with the help of God, was determined that the cycle of hatred should not go into the next generation and told them that he had been shot by a sick man. “Did he have measles like me last year?” asked one of the children. “Sort of, only they were in his head”, replied his mother, trying to explain things to her son at his own level.

From that moment on, she has tried to keep her faith and that of her children strong against all sorts of odds, trying to rise high above all the sectarian problems in our society and knowing that there is a God who will take care of them all.

They didn't fit my stereotypes

 
In 1979 I was invited to join the Board of Visitors in the Maze Prison, otherwise known as Long Kesh. For the next eleven years I visited there regularly. I met prisoners, staff and sometimes prisoners’ families too.
I thought I knew beforehand what these men, the prisoners, were like. Many of them were serving life sentences. They were members of the IRA, UDA, UVF... The newspapers told me they were mindless thugs, ruthless dedicated criminals, psychopaths. I was afraid going in but thought I could perhaps bring some light into their lives - after all I am a Christian and a pacifist!

To my surprise I found, for the most part, intelligent, caring men, who had a lot to teach me. I had to confront my own judgmental bigotry. It was hard. It still is. It is a humbling experience.

The prisoners were people who had taken up arms because they cared deeply about the kind of society they lived in. They believed this was the only way open to them to improve that society. Some had risked their lives for what they believed in. They did not fit my stereotypes.

Peace Walls, Sign of Security, Sign of Fear

In Belfast there are huge barriers, 16-18 foot tall walls, erected to keep neighbours apart. They run down the interfaces where Catholic areas meet Protestant areas. These huge structures mean that some people have to keep the light in their kitchen all year round because they live in the shadow of these ‘Peace Walls’, as they’re called. At the one time they are symbols of security, and symbols of fear.

We have been bringing families who live on both sides of the Peace Wall together. They had decided to try to do something with the fear, and find a new way forward. The dialogue started with a feelings box. Each person put a single word on a piece of paper representing what it felt like to live in the shadow of the Peace Wall and put them into a slot in the box. Then the pieces of paper were taken from the box and read out anonymously. People were free to add something if they wished. It was impossible to tell from which side of the wall they came - whether they were Protestant feelings or Catholic feelings.

Sadness was the most common. Sadness at the loss of loved ones, the lost childhood for their young people growing up with constant violence on the streets where they lived. Several people put in the word hatred. As ‘hatred’ came out of the box one woman said, I don't mean to say that I hate anyone. What I meant was that I don't wish to carry on knowing that I am hated, and that my children are hated. That's what we hear, as the young people yell abuse as they see if they can throw bricks over the massively high wall.

The group went on to discuss what they understood as ‘community’. Both sides had no problem agreeing what was important for them. They talked about what they hoped for in the year two thousand. Both sides wanted peace, and better amenities for their children, and jobs. At the end of their residential the Catholic group and the Protestant group decided they needed to work together for the development of their area.

One of their dreams was to have a common community centre where both communities could continue to meet and support each other. Meanwhile the children were meeting. They watched a clown as he came into the room, dressed in an outlandish costume. The more the children laughed at him, the sadder he got until he was crumpled up on the ground sobbing. They recognised that feeling, being laughed at because you were different, and both sides talked about their experiences of bullying in school.

They then began talking about their favourite pastime throwing bricks over the Peace Wall. Since they met a day ago on arriving at Corrymeela, Paddy and William, a Catholic and Protestant had become the best of mates. Paddy was the best shot in the district. “Paddy what if you hit William”. “Oh I wouldn't” “How is that?” “I'm a good shot. I wouldn't aim at William” “But sometimes you can't see who you will hit, the wall is too high.” Paddy thought, long and hard. “Yea you're right. I'm going to have to climb up to the top of the derelict house where I can get a really good aim.” “But Paddy, last weekend you could have injured William with a stone, because then you didn’t know him. How would you feel about that now?” “Bad!” said Paddy. Eventually Paddy and the rest of the group decided that they would stop throwing stones.

The person who led that programme was passing through the area where they lived a couple of weeks later and saw some of the children hanging around opposite the one place where you could see through the wall. She was curious as to what was going on. So she stopped. The children said they wait there everyday on the way back from school, to wave to their new friends on the Protestant side. It’s the way they keep in touch with their new friends. When we hear one another, a new reality is created between us.

Challenged by a Prisoners Plea

I had put my name to a petition without much thought. There had been some publicity about 4 soldiers convicted of murder who were claiming that they were innocent. There wasn’t a lot of public sympathy because the regiment was very suspect - especially in the eyes of those from a nationalist background.

However, from what I had read the case did seem to be worthy of re-examination and I knew some of those who were promoting the petition to be people of integrity. Anyhow I thought that I had done my bit by signing it.

A few days later I received a letter from one of the prisoners. He asked me if I was really willing to hear his story? It was at this point that I realised that this was going to demand more serious involvement. I asked him to write to me in more detail. When I read his second letter I realised that there was a real case to answer here. The letter had the unmistakable ring of truth. I knew then that I was committed to some further action to test out the truth of this story.

I started to meet with other people who had become involved in the case. I went to visit him in prison. He looked me straight in the eye like an innocent man. I also met with his parents. The basis on which the soldiers had been committed seemed very flimsy and much of it rested on a bizarre witness who kept changing her story and on confessions which the soldiers claimed were partly fabricated and obtained under threat. The most credible witness had been ignored because she was 17 rather than 18 years old.

The more we went into the case the more it became clear that the actions of the police were at the very least irregular and the judgement of the court flawed.
Eventually after several years’ work enough evidence was produced to convince the Secretary of State to grant an Appeal. The result was not entirely satisfactory but three of the soldiers were released on the grounds that there was significant doubt about their guilt.

The whole experience was one that challenged the prejudices of people on all sides. Nationalists began to recognise that soldiers too could suffer injustice. Unionists had to recognise the fallibility of the police and the courts and to admit that they had often refused to acknowledge this when nationalists claimed it in the past.

We all began to walk a little in each other’s shoes; to learn that truth and rumour are not the same. We began to realise the cost of a commitment to search for the truth and to seek justice for all. For all of us it was a small step in reconciliation through real engagement.

Being Included

"Would you like to sign a petition against the earlier closing of the pedestrian gate?" she asked. "I certainly would." I answered.

The local police station had decided, without any local consultation, to close the pedestrian gate, upon which so many of us relied and which was our only link with "the other side", at 6.00pm. on weekdays and completely at the weekends. The reason for this, we presumed, was to save themselves having to respond to our almost nightly phone-calls for help with stone-throwing groups of teenagers and/or youngsters.

A hub-bub of voices the next morning made me look out the window to find some twenty local people, a local Methodist minister, a local politician and two community activists all gathered on the corner opposite our ‘Currach Community’ house. Naturally I joined them, suspecting that this unusual Saturday event could only be about the "peaceline" gate closure. Much discussion ensued about people's need for access through this gate and their satisfaction with the usual 10 o'clock evening closure. They agreed however that on occasions, whenever the young people's behaviour was too disruptive, the gate could be closed earlier.

The minister, politician and community workers were requested to approach the police to express, even more clearly than the petition could, the feelings and opinions of the local community. Should their approach fail, it was felt that a wider grouping of the community should plead their cause at the City Hall, the following day.

Names were then put forward for such a grouping, "someone from the Community House should go" was one of the suggestions. The Community House in question was Currach Community, the first house inside the so-called Protestant, unionist, loyalist side of the "peaceline”; the side unused to residential, intentional communities of people with no emotional or blood ties.

What a surprise and delight for me then, to find ourselves, members from both sides of the community, being publicly acknowledged and accepted. Being included gave such a warm glow to the two-year-old Currach Community that day.