“Belfast Bound”

Jennie and I are off to Ireland. Northern Ireland to be specific. Belfast.

Months ago, we registered for a retreat in the northeast quadrant of the Emerald Isle (“forty shades of green”) led by a man who grew up in Belfast during The Troubles. By way of reminder, I asked A.I. for a one paragraph précis of that strife-ridden era:

The Troubles was a violent thirty-year ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted from the late 1960s until 1998. The fighting primarily centered on the region's constitutional status, pitting unionists (mostly Protestant), who wanted to remain part of the United Kingdom, against nationalists (mostly Catholic), who sought a united Ireland. The era was marked by street riots, civil rights protests, and guerrilla warfare involving various paramilitary groups and British security forces, resulting in over 3,500 deaths. The conflict largely concluded with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which established a power-sharing government and decommissioning of weapons, though deep-seated social and political divisions remain a part of Northern Irish life today.

That’s what A.I. says, but Jennie and I want to hear what a real human being says. Enter Gareth Higgins. Gareth came of age in those turbulent decades during which he was a force for good – active in conflict de-escalation and resolution, bridgebuilding, peacemaking and reconciliation. He has given his life since the Good Friday Agreement to practicing those redemptive disciplines, linking arms and soul with others of like mind and spirit.  

Jennie and I want to be like Gareth when we grow up, so we jumped at the opportunity to meet him in his homeland with twenty or so others for an eight day “journey of hope, healing, creativity and community.” The blurb introducing the retreat reads:

Over the course of a week we experience landscape and music, rest and walking, conversation and silence. We typically meet with people including grass roots peace activists, community leaders, historians, writers & artists all experienced in helping transform society for the better. Opportunities are offered to visit museums, interpretive centres and other spaces in which the cultural and political history and contemporary realities of northern Irish society are well-versed. One highlight of the trip is often a walk that encompasses the "two sides" of the socio-political conflict, making a journey that most people in Northern Ireland have not yet taken. And yes, we visit the Giant's Causeway as well as other beautiful features of the astonishing northern Irish coastal landscape!

Over the past decade, over four hundred people have participated in our retreats, and many respond that the event both opened their minds and educated them about the possibility of learning how to live better as one diverse community in the US or wherever they may live, rather than many divided communities. We’d be delighted to welcome you.

I’m Irish. Sort of. When I was a child I was sent to school in green on St. Patrick’s Day with the reminder, “Your grandmother is Irish.” My redheaded paternal grandmother’s name was Mamie Mae McLaughlin. Born in Rowan County, KY, in 1906, she was orphaned at ten years of age and raised in what was called the Delaware County (IN) Orphans' Home. How she got from Kentucky to Indiana is anyone’s guess. She never spoke about her traumatic childhood years.

If her McLaughlin ancestors fled Ireland during the potato famine of 1845-1855 when over one million Irish left their homeland to seek refuge in the U.S., they were met by anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic vitriol and violence on these shores.

If, on the other hand, her ancestors were Scotch-Irish, they descended from Protestants from Scotland and northern England who emigrated to Northern Ireland in the 1600s at the encouragement of the British Crown to establish a beachhead of Protestant loyalty to Great Britain in independent-minded Roman Catholic Ireland. They in turn came to this country in the 1700s for land and religious freedom, settling in Virginia, North Carolina, and Appalachia (including eastern Kentucky). In contrast to their later-arriving Catholic countrymen and women, those Protestant Irish received a much more positive reception. My limited research indicates McLaughlin is a common surname in Ulster (Northern Ireland).

So, I’m either descended from immigrants who sought asylum from famine and were met by anti-immigrant hostility or from two-time immigrants – people who emigrated first from England/Scotland to go to Northern Ireland as uninvited settlers and then to this country.

Jennie’s ancestry is solidly Scotch-Irish Presbyterian. A portrait of her great-great grandfather, John Shaw Kennedy, who moved from Belfast to the U.S. in the early 1800s, hangs in our dining room.

Lest you’re Native American, we’re immigrants all.         

Last Wednesday morning, as I sat with my coffee during my morning devotional time, Jennie stuck her head in and asked, “Did you hear what’s happening in Belfast?”

I shook my head No.

She told me. The stabbing of a Northern Irishman by an asylum seeker from Sudan triggered malicious social media posts that maligned all immigrants and included a list of addresses thought to belong to immigrants and their families. A riotous wave of anti-immigrant protests ensued that turned violent. Marauding gangs of masked vigilantes set fire to homes believed to belong to immigrants, torched vehicles, and pelted police with bricks, bottles and firebombs. It’s called inflammatory rhetoric for a reason.

As I read the reports of the violence against immigrants by the ancestors of immigrants, I shook my head. “Man’s inhumanity to man,” lamented Scotsman Robert Burns.

“Lord,” I sighed tongue in cheek, “when I signed up to go to Belfast to learn about The Troubles, I meant doing it from a historical perspective. My desire was to learn about violence-defusing, bridgebuilding, and peacemaking … over a pint of Guinness.”

Whereupon the Holy Spirit said in a gentle voice like unto a dove: Shuttest thou up and go to Belfast!

I read this morning that thousands turned out on Saturday for a "Together Against Hate" rally at Belfast City Hall. The event started with the crowd chanting: "Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here. Who is Belfast? We are Belfast." Peaceful demonstrators carried signs saying, "The problem is evil & violence. Not race" and "Your racism is not patriotism." Prayers were offered for the victim of the stabbing. His family released a statement saying, "We want to make it absolutely clear that…unrest is not welcome, and peaceful protest is the only way forward…We have many migrants who make a deeply valuable contribution to our country...We do not want this terrible tragedy to be used ⁠to divide people or fuel hostility.” Accompanying stories published by the BBC detailed the courageous, compassionate ways people in Belfast are embracing, supporting, and securing the safety of the immigrant population of their city.

Sounds to me like people of Gareth’s ilk. Lights in the midst of darkness. Having lived through The Troubles once, they’re stepping up and speaking out to quell new troubles.

May their tribe increase. 

Jennie and I are Belfast bound.