Belfast's 'peace walls' treble after ceasefiresBuzz up!

Henry McDonald, Ireland correspondent guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 28 July 2009


The number of so-called "peace walls" separating Catholic and Protestant communities in Greater Belfast has trebled since the IRA and loyalist ceasefires, research has found.

There are now 80 permanent barriers dividing loyalist and nationalist areas of the city, according to a report by the Community Relations Council (CRC) in Northern Ireland. In 1994, when the Troubles were declared over, there were 26.

Interviewed in tomorrow's SocietyGuardian, Duncan Morrow, CRC's chief executive officer, is critical of the "terror tours" of the city that include the structures as must-see destinations. Tourists have taken to writing their names and leaving messages on some, such as the largest barrier, which runs between Northumberland Street and Lanark Way and divides the Catholic Falls from the Protestant Shankill.

"There is a sense that people from abroad want to see where big things happened – but there is something different between seeing a tourist attraction and something else which is still an ongoing reality for people living by these walls," Morrow said.

He estimated that it might take 10 or 20 years before any of the walls come down. "The walls went up because people didn't feel safe, and the tragedy is that once they are up people hardly imagine feeling safe without them. So we do have a big issue about not just taking walls down but how to make people feel safe after all that we went through," he said.

Morrow was also scathing about the way Northern Ireland's political leaders handled a racist gang's recent intimidation of more than 100 Roma people in south Belfast. Choosing to fly many of the targeted individuals back to Romania in June was a "minor victory" for the racists, he said.

During the week-long controversy involving the Roma and their racist attackers, a new media catchphrase was invented: "Racism is the new sectarianism." In his interview, however, Morrow objects to the phrase.

"In the same month, a man was beaten to death up in Coleraine simply because he was a Catholic. Sectarianism sadly is still very much with us."