3.2 Exploring different perspectives

In Belfast and across Northern Ireland, community groups have been working together to gather people’s memories and stories from different sides of the conflict mostly from the years before the walls were built, as one way to foster connections today. One of these projects in Belfast is called Dúchas. It was set up by people in the Falls community (who live on the other side of the wall to Matty and Dylan in the Shankill) to record experiences of the conflict. Members of the Shankill community are also working with Dúchas to include some of their stories in this community-led archive.

Activity 9: ‘Pieces of the Past’

Part 1: I was born

Timing: 10 minutes

Listen to these audios (or you can read the transcript) from the oral history project Dúchas, called Pieces of the Past, before answering the questions below. These are just two women’s stories which capture life in these communities from the perspective of Beatrice and Rosemary who were born in the late 1940s. Beatrice was born and grew up in the Shankill and Rosemary was born in the Falls and then moved between Ballymurphy [a mainly CNR area] and Donegall Pass [a mainly PUL area]. In their first stories, Rosemary and Beatrice describe life in these areas in the 1960s, before communities were segregated and the walls were built.

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Transcript: Audio 1: Rosemary: Where I was born

INTERVIEWER

I just want to start by asking you when and where you were born.

ROSEMARY

I was born in rooms above a pub in 1a Elizabeth Street, off, which ran between Albert Street and the Grosvenor Road [off The Falls Road]. (Interviewer: I hadn’t realised that). Nowadays they call them apartments, but we had rooms. It was actually my granny’s rooms that my mother lived with and my mother, my father and our family and my grandmother and her son, and at some stage along the way, her other son Mickey and his wife and child lived there as well.

INTERVIEWER

That was a lot of you.

ROSEMARY

A lot of us in the one room, in the one area now. I was two and a half when we moved to Ballymurphy, so that area I don’t remember. Well that’s where we came from first and we moved to Ballymurphy.

The streets were safe and the streets were great. But when the older boys Seamus and Liam and fellows of their age like, played football in the streets or they had card schools and all, the peelers came gave them a hard time, even in them days. Of course that was in the early 60s when they were teenagers. You used to see fellas caught in the card schools leaving the money on the ground and away flying because the peelers came. And kicking football in the street, the peelers would have come to your door. My da being the way he was used to say, ‘What do you want Mac’? He used to keep them at the door. He would never have let a peeler in through the door. Never would have. Our family never gave my mother any trouble in that sense, but the peelers provoked it.

At that time, Ballymurphy was 60/40. Maybe 70/30, but I think it was 60/40 at the time. We had Protestant neighbours in our street. The Crosbys across the street, I mean they were characters. I would still see people from the Crosby family and ‘Hello’, and we had a UDA, a B Special lived up the street. I didn’t even know what a B Special was, you know what I mean. You know I remember him, this man going out in his uniform and walking, but I didn’t know. Everybody lived together. I don’t remember, I basically had the best of both worlds. Everybody just helped one another, and the neighbours were fantastic, they were just brilliant.

In my teenage years, we had great times. I went to The Jig from a very early age, twelve. People can say what they like about the Jig in Coates Street I absolutely loved it and was there to the day they closed the doors.

In school, everybody used to borrow jumpers and batwing, skirts. Everybody exchanged clothes. That’s how you survived in the dance world, you borrowed everybody else’s clothes. Because there was no way my mummy could have afforded to keep up with the style then, because I was at the age where I was still getting my clothes for Christmas and in July. We all got dressed for July, the 12th of July. Isn’t that amazing? Everybody got dressed for the 12th of July. That was your new clothes and Christmas.

INTERVIEWER

When did you meet your husband to be?

ROSEMARY

I met Terry when I was about fifteen. I would definitely only have been about fifteen and a half. He thought I was older like, I’m sure. I met him outside the Plaza. We used to go up in the lift, with the bouncers and be the first into the dancehall.

We saw all the big bands. Like, we saw Dickey Rock and Joe Dolan and Eileen Reid and the Cadets. It was brilliant. So that’s where I met Terry.

End transcript: Audio 1: Rosemary: Where I was born

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Transcript: Audio 2: Beatrice: Where I was born

INTERVIEWER

Beatrice, where and when were you born?

BEATRICE

I was born on the Shankill Road, Mountjoy Street.

INTERVIEWER

How many would have been in your family?

BEATRICE

Including my three brothers and one sister, my mother and father, would have made seven.

INTERVIEWER

Was that a two-up, two-down house?

BEATRICE

No, a one-up, one-down. There was only the one bedroom.

INTERVIEWER

I’m sure it was very tight for you’se?

BEATRICE

It was very tight, very poor.

INTERVIEWER

In and around that area, what school would you have attended there?

BEATRICE

I went to Mayo Street School Primary first, and then when I came eleven I went over to Glenwood Intermediate. It was called Glenwood Intermediate on the Shankill Road. I was there until I was fifteen.

INTERVIEWER

And did you leave school then and start work?

BEATRICE

Yes. I left school on a Friday and started work on a Monday up in Ewart’s Weaving Factory, learning the weaving.

INTERVIEWER

During that time, Beatrice, would you have had Catholic friends then? Would you’se all run about together?

BEATRICE

Oh aye, yes, oh aye, certainly. Catholic friends, Catholic friends in work. We used to run about and go to the dances, down to the Jig, the Plaza and the Tudor Hall. And we would have went over to the Kashmir Road, I think it was 15th of August they had their bonfire, and we used to go over there and watch their bonfire and they would have come over to us on the eleventh night to watch our bonfire, the eleventh of July like. We just went about, danced together, got boyfriends and carried on and all that.

INTERVIEWER

So there was never any really bad feelings?

BEATRICE

No, no, there was no talk about politics or Orangemen or nothing like that. You were just talking about your boyfriends, and what clothes you were wearing, and how much money you had. We didn’t even smoke nor drink then. It was just good fun, good clean fun.

INTERVIEWER

So, moving on now, when you actually got a job and you were working and you had your own pocket money, you said you started going out around the dances and stuff like that. I take it you met your husband then?

BEATRICE

No, no, no. I would have went to the Jig that was in Coates Street that was near the Falls Road, the bottom end of the Falls Road. We would have went to the Plaza, you had to dress up and make yourself older looking to go to the Plaza. Then you would have went to the Tudor Hall, like, everybody just all mixed together. The Plaza, the ones from the Markets and all went to that, the other side, the Catholics.

INTERVIEWER

The Catholic side and the Protestant side both got on well together then?

BEATRICE

Yes, uh huh, yes.

INTERVIEWER

Moving on, Beatrice, when you met your husband and got married, where did you live then?

BEATRICE

I was married in 1963 and I lived in Kenmore Street, right at the bottom of Kenmore Street, that was, right at the bottom of Kenmore street, about three hundred yards from Cupar Street which is now the Peace Line. I lived there. My first daughter was born in '64, my second daughter was born in '68, my third daughter was born in 1972. Now the one, the first daughter, Joanne, we used to take her up to the Falls Park and the children from Kenmore Street walked up to the Falls Park; take them out for a wee day and went up to the Falls Park.

INTERVIEWER

And there was never any problems or anything; you could have gone anywhere?

BEATRICE

Anywhere, yes, certainly. Shopped anywhere, went anywhere.

End transcript: Audio 2: Beatrice: Where I was born

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Discussion

You might have noticed how these two women, Beatrice and Rosemary, have different perspectives and identities, but they also have things in common. They were born into working-class communities in the Falls and Shankill and grew up with Catholic and Protestant neighbours. As teenagers in the early 1960s they shared a love of music and dancing including going to the same dance halls – The Jig and The Plaza. They comment on how as young people they joined in events with their neighbours such as getting dressed up for The 12th of July. But they also describe different experiences, for example with the police.

Part 2: 1969

Timing: 10 minutes

In their second stories, Beatrice and Rosemary describe the changes that happened in their communities with the outbreak of violence in 1969.

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Transcript: Audio 3: Rosemary: Experiences of 1969

ROSEMARY

Terry and I had got a house in Pine Street in the Donegall Pass a year before we married, and I then worked in Magee’s on the Donegall Road, the famous Magee’s Tailoring. I used to walk down the Donegall Road at night after work and meet with Terry, his brother Robbie would have been there when they would have been ashore, and we would have been decorating the house, and doing it up, stripping it down, quite free and quite happy, not in any way afraid of anything.

INTERVIEWER

You were telling Terry about the woman next door.

ROSEMARY

I said, ‘That woman next door is nuts, Terry’. She said to me, ‘If anything happens, you can knock the wall. Like he’s got something on top of the wardrobe and all’. And Terry looked at me, and I said, ‘She said they would get us down into the Markets and all’. And he was going, ‘Aye, aye, Rosie, don’t be listening to people like her’. Then when the papers were full of the stuff and you know then, like that then the burning, the people started getting burned out in Bombay Street [a predominantly Catholic street] and areas like that there, I said to Terry, ‘Is there any chance that could happen to us down here?’

And it took months for it to develop. It became obvious that we were, we were living in danger, where we were. It became obvious. Clusters of people at night standing at the corner talking, whispering and abuse, you know, all that was going on. So, I said to my mammy about it and she said to me, ‘Don’t be saying to your, daddy. Rosemary, maybe you should come up here and stay with us for a wee while, you know’.

We would have been back and forward to our house down in Pine Street, you know. And it was during the day, but I took it upon myself to go down one day and I thought I was the bees knees with our Sean in his red pram and I pushed him all the way down. And I got down into it and out in the yard, there were all these bottles broke and my back windows were all broke, you know. And all these porter bottles were smashed in the back yard. (Interviewer: your own backyard?) Yes. And the woman next door wasn’t there. I came out and I tried to get her, and she wasn’t there. And this one across the street shouted, ‘Your Fenian neighbour’s not there. She’s away back to the Markets’. And I looked over and I said, ‘Oh my God, what am I going to do here?’ I was really petrified. Then I realised that the doors were all closed and there was a terrible feeling in the area.

INTERVIEWER

Did you feel you were being watched as you left the house?

ROSEMARY

Easy, yeah. The hair on the back of my neck was standing. And I said to Terry, ‘Will we get out? Will we get up back up to Ballymurphy’? He said, ‘Just keep walking’. So, we pushed our Sean’s pram down Pine Street, which ran in an L shape, went like that, like that, that. We lived this way, down, and they were all, kind of, you know... nobody was saying anything to us and nobody was giving us any abuse, but you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife, you know.

End transcript: Audio 3: Rosemary: Experiences of 1969

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Transcript: Audio 4: Beatrice: Experiences of 1969

INTERVIEWER

Moving on up into around about '69, that would have been sort of a real bad interface area where maybe a lot of the trouble would have kicked off?

BEATRICE

Yes, yeah. Especially around the Kashmir Road [off Springfield Road on the interface between the Falls and the Shankill] around that way. I remember the 13th August, that was 1969. My husband, he came home that night and he said, ‘There’s trouble on the Springfield Road,’ I think they were attacking the police station then, that was the 13th of August. And then the 14th I think it was the factories and all got it, the Falls Road factories and all round that way, and then the trouble just erupted. Then Bombay Street [a predominantly Catholic street], it was attacked. We were told the Catholics were coming down to put us out so my husband got me and my two children then up to Finaghy where mother and father lived, they lived up in Taughmonagh which was a mixed area, and I stayed up there for two days.

And I came back home. And when I came back home I went round to North Howard Street [on the interface between the Shankill and The Falls] because the Catholics were getting put out of their houses, the houses were burning, and I just stood shocked, I was more mesmerised than anything, when I saw the police sitting with their ties open, their shirts open, their ties hanging off them, and they were exhausted. And the wee ferret cars, we called them then, the wee ferret tanks, they were driving about and people were taking their furniture out of their houses and, just, houses on fire.

INTERVIEWER

Was this both Catholics and Protestants?

BEATRICE

Yes, they were both Catholics and Protestants, because they lived beside each other in Cupar Street [where the current wall is]-- next door to each other, before all that happened. Even the Catholics had their union jacks out and their streamers and all up celebrating the twelfth. They’d have joined in dancing and all like that, had all night music and parties for children.

INTERVIEWER

So what about, as I say the Troubles started then, how did you really feel about it then? Did you feel bitter against the Catholic community or any sectarianism towards Catholics? What way did you actually feel about it?

BEATRICE

I felt shocked that it was happening, but I didn’t think it would have lasted as long as what it did. And it wasn’t till one night, we were watching TV, now it was black and white TV we had then, that Father Philbin, I think, Philbin, you called him, he called for the Army to come in. Then I realised it was going to be serious. When the Army started to come in.

INTERVIEWER

What about your own children, your three daughters? Would you have been bringing them up in a way, during the Troubles, against Catholics or letting them make their own decision?

BEATRICE

Oh, I brought them up not to be hating anybody, to try and just to get on with people, make their own decision, you know. There’s bad and good on both sides, no matter what their religion was.

But when they were young, the things they seen, like you know, especially my older daughter in Kenmore Street, you weren’t allowed out to play after a certain time. Then when the Army there, the curfew was on and children weren’t allowed out and then, every night nearly, you just heard bombing and shooting and it just went off every night. And then the strike came on and trying to get food in and trying to make a fire and it was hard going, hard going for the mothers, like, with families. Not so much for the men, for they were out.

End transcript: Audio 4: Beatrice: Experiences of 1969

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Discussion

From 1969 onwards they both describe seeing their own communities close in, and how neighbours and friends moved or were driven out of their homes, and their areas became more and more segregated. As tensions, violence, fear and mistrust between their communities grew, opportunities to meet and talk to each other also broke down.

It’s important to remember these are just two people’s personal stories and memories and other people will have different experiences.

Hearing different perspectives can often raise new questions that you may not have thought of and different ways of looking at things. In times of conflict or times of hardship, however, community can become particularly important to a sense of identity and feelings of togetherness as well as a sense of safety in face of danger. People within these communities may choose to stay together for example, because of violence or the fear of violence from others. But over time this can also lead to barriers forming between communities (physical or otherwise), that are hard to break down and this can fuel more violence and mistrust when tensions rise.

This is one explanation given for the recent riots at the interface areas (locations where two different communities meet) in Belfast and other parts of Northern Ireland. This is something you might have experienced yourself in your communities or amongst groups of young people in your area.

In situations of conflict community members tend to have a strong sense of their existence in relation to other communities and so their awareness of particular social identities (or group memberships) becomes particularly important or significant. This can lead people to make comparisons with other groups and even feel that there is a sense of competition between groups or communities.

Sometimes it can be helpful to remember that you don’t have to be completely defined by your group membership or community, but rather that you have diverse identities, made up from a wide range of group memberships and your personal qualities.