Interviewer
This interview is being recorded. Any personal information or identifying information supplied in your answers will be kept private. You can choose not to answer any of the questions or stop the interview at any point. I will be making a transcript of this interview that you are welcome to check over. Are you happy to proceed?
Interviewee 9
yes
interviewer
All right, suppose I'll start with the first question. How do you feel about the peace walls in Belfast? Should they be removed, preserved, kept where they are? Any reason I'm particular for your answer?
Interviewee 9
Ooh.The problem. In my opinion and I mean just my opinion. And remember, I never grew up near any peace walls. And my experience of peace walls was [redacted] and his family and they lived about 500 meters from one. So, they didn’t, North Belfast and the peace walls were put up because they were genuinely fighting way back when. Do I think, well I think yeah, they could take them down, but I’ve never been a person who had to live in front of a behind and feel at risk.
It's easy for me to say I want them to be removed because, you know, I didn't I didn't have my house petrol bombed or anything like that. So, I understand, if you speak to those just behind those walls, do they like having them? some of them do, you know, it protects them, it makes them feel safe from the rest of the world. I would like if we’re in a situation in Northern Ireland that we don't need them any more about the.
interviewer
Yes. And thinking about the area you grew up and where there murals, painted kerbs flags and how did you feel about it from?
interviewee 9
Not Really? So, I grew up from my first 15/16 years, there were in the council estates nearby. places like [redacted]Yes.
There was a about three or four, Rough estates, you know, council estates. They definitely had murals, they definitely had kerbs painted.
And I didn't grow up with them being in my street So walking to school, no, I'd never see them walking to the forest or the park. No. You know, I grew up in a Protestant area. I was very aware it was protestant, but we weren't in. We weren't in that We weren't. There were very obvious sectarian places nearby but my street specifically no no
interviewer
Has your opinion often changed as you go older and if so, what do you think has caused the changes.
interviewee 9
As I got older, I thought it was waste of art. I thought it was a silly message. I thought it was a bunch of idiot Men doing stupid things and focusing on the wrong things. That's what I thought.
interviewer
So how do you feel about tourists having tours, taking selfies, taking photos at or places like the Europa?
interviewee 9
I don’t have an issue; I understand Northern Ireland doesn't have that much opportunity and there's not that many jobs and people are interested in our history. So, would I prefer that they get to know everything? Yes, but that’s not how life is. So, you know, the Europa is the most bombed hotel I think in the world so I can understand the draw. And if, I am, from Northern Ireland. If I was going somewhere, If I am going to, Poland and probably going to go to Auschwitz, you know, that's a reflection of history, not a nice history but it is a reflection of history, yeah. So, yeah, I don't know. Nothing to say. I don't know. Doesn't offend me in a way. Yeah, I completely okay with it.
interviewer
Yeah. So how do you feel about the neutral murals, such as the one of the Titanic, George Best, or even the sports ones?
interviewee 9
I like them, I like murals as street art, my thing is who are were celebrating with murals. We don’t put up; you wouldn’t see murals of like Fred West or like Hitler. You just wouldn’t so why do we have murals of murderers and mass murderers. And I get that people will say that one person’s freedom fighter is another person’s terrorist.
interviewer
So have you seen or are you aware of warnings and threats written on houses or walls and what's your opinion of them are very intimidating, necessary, harmless?
interviewee 9
Yeah, typically they’d say the name and the crime and how long they had to get out or whatever, And then when we moved to [redacted], you seen more of that. and do I say I want vigilantes? So, gangsters running the streets. No. But when, when situations where the police aren't doing anything then I can completely understand why it happens but it’s still is, well, you can’t , I mean, you know because we have to still have to have innocent till proven guilty. You can’t be judge jury and executioner.
Interviewer
You can’t take the law into your own hands?
interviewee 9
Yeah, especially if you’re doing far worse things, you know.
Interviewer
So how do you feel about the border between Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland or the lack thereof of a border?
interviewee 9
I’m quite happy without a border, I live in Europe now and I quite like the fact that we travel in Europe, when we travel, we don’t need borders. Then, you know, it's seen as you know one land mass. And even when you, when you fly. We just need our id we don’t need passport control. I’m happy about this. No real or no assumed border
Technical issues
interviewer
Hi. Hello. Yeah. What? Oh yeah, it Sounds nice. Clear from my end.
interviewee 9
I know. Yeah. I'll hold the phone as well, which I'll probably help.
interviewer
Yeah. So just trying to find where we were.
interviewee 9
The question that was about the border. Yeah.
Interviewer
Got it thanks.
How do you feel about potential new borders for Brexit? Because, you know, such as the Irish Sea border or a return to the hard border?
interviewee 9
And I mean, again, having a border. And for me personally, I think the less the border around, the more we have Ireland, I think I think it's absolutely fucking hilarious that the, you know, the whole thing with Brexit sorry to go off on a tangent. I kind of love the fact that the DUP are the ones that went into bed with the conservative Party.
They pushed for Brexit and Brexit will probably, in the next 15 years bring about a united Ireland and it will be because of the DUP. So as much as I hate the questions around borders and I hate Brexit, hence why I left Britain. What I do love is the fact that the DUP are stupid enough to have brought it up, brought it, possibly a united Ireland.
If it meant that we have to get a little border for a little while, then they have to go to court because it's actually illegal in the Good Friday Agreement. And then you know they have to go to court or whatever and then we'll get a united Ireland. I'm happy to have a little pause for a while if it just means we end up with United Ireland at the fault of the DUP.
interviewer
Yeah. So how do you feel about government buildings flying flags? Should they include both UK and Irish flags and they just include one or the other or none at all?
interviewee 9
Hm. I would prefer they have none at all. And I really don't like the situation with the, as we call it, the fleg. The reality is when it all happened and people were protesting and complaining there was no jobs in Northern Ireland, hence why everybody leaves. There was no prospects for the future. You know, everyone who's getting qualified leaves the country and there's, you know, it's really not a good situation to bring up families that, you know, there's a lot of poverty.
There's and we've got a government who couldn't be bothered going in and working and yet get paid. What was frustrating is rather than people being upset about that, having no, you know, future perspectives, having no growth opportunities as a country in Northern Ireland, we basically were too busy worrying about how often the flag is flown and considering most of the buildings actually weren't flying the flags all the time, that it actually stopped a very long time ago.
Yeah. So, to me, quite clearly, we're an absolute bunch of idiots, or eejits we get say in our local language, a bunch of eejits who literally can be distracted from real serious social economic problems by talking about a bleeding flag. So, to me, I would have all flags banned from Northern Ireland because we're clearly not intelligent enough to deal with anything else apart from a flag situation.
Yeah, so take it away from us because we're clearly effing idiots.
interviewer
Yeah. And how do you feel about things being written and both in English and Gaelic?
interviewee 9
I quite like that. And I think the reality is, as much as we would like to pretend Northern Ireland is a different country, we'd like to say it was always different. I mean, yes, this 12 counties or whatever it is that yeah, there was the 12 Kingdoms and tribes, whatever. But Northern Ireland as a border only existed in like 1921, I think it is, I could be wrong on that.
interviewer
no, I think you’re right, its 21 because it was the 100-year anniversary.
interviewee 9
And yeah, so to me, you know, it can't be Northern Irish unless you admit part of us is Irish. Like that's how we got it, right? So, you know, the more I travelled around the world, the more I think actually we should be more excited to learn about our indigenous culture. Yeah. You know, if we're Irish, which I see myself as [ redacted]
But reality is, I would have liked to know more about, you know, my indigenous culture, my indigenous language, because at some point my ancestors spoke that language.
interviewer
Yeah.
interviewee 9
And yet we've been, you know, because of our religion first, I mean that’s a ridiculous statement, because of our religious decisions, we abandoned all understanding or desire to understand our actual heritage, you know, and I was taught that we were Ulster-Scots. Or that we're Scottish. Well, I went to Scotland and realized I wasn't, you know, I lived there for a year, and I was like, this has got nothing to do with me, this is not my culture.
This is not my past. I'm Irish, that's what I am. And that's when I felt Irish. When I finally lived in Scotland and realized there, I'm not saying the next sentence because this is a Scottish audience, but I mean, we're very different.
So yeah, to me I feel like we, because of our pig headedness, because of our fear of that Irish means Catholic, which it doesn’t, we've abandoned and become aggressive at fighting our past and fighting our culture.
Interviewer
Well, that bleeds into the next question.so, should schools make a concentrated effort to include more of our Irish history and culture and teach Gaelic?
interviewee 9
Absolutely. I wish, you know, as a kid growing up in the early nineties, late eighties in school, we were taught things like the suffragette movement, which is fascinating. We were taught by the different kings and queens of England. We were taught by the Spanish conquistadors, but we were taught nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing about Irish history. Yeah, I don't we, Well, I wasn't even taught the potato famine.
I mean when I say that we were taught nothing of our Irish history or our Irish language, so to me we should stop fearing. And I think because we hide from it and fear it and almost treat it like, God forbid, if we actually knew a bit about ourselves,
But imagine we get to hear about the island of Ireland, what our culture was, what our our indigenous languages were, what we believed, you know, as much as we could get to defining people around me as a kid would say, we're Celtic. We are not allowed to say anything past that and always, Celtic meant Scottish and Northern Irish. You daren’t say the word, Irish. So, I feel like it's an amazing opportunity.
interviewer
Yeah.
interviewee 9
To really know our language, our, you know, how do we really know who we are if we don't really know who we were? So, we keep doing it and it keeps creating this, them and us, because we don't want to admit that we're Irish. We keep running away from it. And I see the Irish. There's a lot to be proud of, you know having Irish blood in us.
interviewer
Which bleeds into my next question, do you think the troubles be taught in schools?
interviewee 9
Yes, but I would say the real troubles have to be taught in school.
We need to get a neutral perspective, a real perspective, so we’ve got to hear from the people who experienced it on the well I suppose the front lines, not those who were out in the countryside safe.
interviewer
When you're a child where are you are things like faery rings or stone circles and thin places and so on and what did you think they were?
Interviewee 9
Yes, I remember, I have a lot of memories of faery rings, but basically my memories of those and we probably drove my mum and dad mad, were being in the car and drive between [redacted] and [redacted]. And there was always in Northern Ireland, there's always farms, right? Feels like that’s all we have. And you would always notice it would be, you know, field and field, lots of fields.
And then in the middle of the field is a circle of trees. Yeah. And every time because, because I like the story, I would ask why, knowing the answer. But I wanted, I wanted the story retold. You were taught by Faery rings and you know as I got older and and you spend more time probably with Irish Irish people then you learn, the stories of the darker side of faeries that you know as a child you know, we had friendly versions although you did, yeah, you knew even then, There was this sense of fear or curse, but there wasn't really a fear in the full sense. And but it always intrigued me, like the magicness of our our fables and our stories. And yeah, I liked I like that.
But obviously as I got older, I discovered there's it’s a really enriched culture that we have and then with that there’s horrific stories of you know burning Faery children alive to release them and then it turns out that they might have just been disabled children and their parents you know thought they were Faeries or whatever. So, yes, you know, there's the stories of the faeries, but we should probably tell the full story of the story of the faeries.
interviewer
Yeah.
interviewee 9
You know, so it's not just all nice, It's like you get a diluted version as a kid, and unless you are curious as an adult, you don't actually find out more than the exact same thing because we don't seem to share. Maybe it again, Kind of, It depends on how Irish you feel, how much you know?
interviewer
Yeah. And how do you feel about tourists taking selfies at thin places or faery rings or sacred places or even stand in the faery rings to take photos?
interviewee 9
I don't. It's like with all the tourism, I don't have a, I would prefer people to come and learn and listen. I don't have an issue with people taking selfies at tourist sites. I have more of an issue of people taking selfies, full stop. And what I have an issue with is when you're going in to what is considered by anyone, You know, if you're going into a church and doing a selfie or if you're going into or climbing up a sacred rock in Australia or going into, you know, the middle of an ancient burial site, you just go see it, ask the locals questions or pay a local tour guide to tell you the story and the cultural references.
Don't climb over it, don't walk through it, admire it from a distance. Yeah, there's no reason why we need to be in the middle of it. it's, you don’t need a photo in the middle of that, you know. So, to me, it's more.
interviewer
About being respectful.
interviewee 9
Yeah, it's a cultural piece. Like, I think we. We all need to be respectful you know. You don't like you walked around the graveyard, you don't walk across the tombs, you kind of you walk around them and you just take a minute. It's just a sign of respect. Yeah, but I don't have an issue with them. It's. It's nice that people are interested. And it would be good if they're being told the real story. So, you know, the why faeries are so important in the Celtic world.
interviewer
How do you feel about commercial versions of these being sold for profit, such as faery doors for trees?
interviewee 9
Yeah, I don't have an issue with them, and I think, you know, the reality, like I don't have an issue with people selling snow globes of ancient things. And I think it's always best to be if you go to a place like that, have a little tourists centre and sell the stuff like that, you know, by by the tribe, buy the stuff.
They'll go onto Amazon.com and then, you know, buy it from some place that was, you know, basically some random shop that's selling something from China, you know, pay a little bit more and give someone.
interviewer
Sort of support the local stuff.
interviewee 9
But yeah, support the locals and, you know, get it right then. I feel like the locals need to be doing a better job of, you know, selling it and giving them a leaflet to help people know what the history of it is. But absolutely, I mean I'd, I'd have no problem buying a kid a faery door, you know, even if they don't use it as a fairy door, they use it to put their teeth for the tooth fairy their teeth fairy. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like if it sparks a little bit of imagination, but I do think where possible, if you can buy it local to where the story comes from
interviewer
Yeah. So, what was it like to have a mixed marriage at a time when they weren't common or accepted?
interviewee 9
I would definitely say I had it easier than probably if it was five years earlier and it would be the easiest way to think about, to give you a response. You know, when we first met, I went to college. That was mixed. And so, the first so the first time it was mixed in any way. Schools are separate.
interviewee 9
When I went to North Belfast and actually, seen North Belfast, you know, so you're seeing like Tiger's Bay, which is really rough and all the murals, you're seeing serious amounts of peace walls and peace lines. And, you know, the army and the police were still patrolling with guns and everything. You know, he didn't live that far away from [redacted], but a few years before, kids weren't I don’t know if they weren’t allowed or they couldn’t get there, I can’t remember which it was but anyway bottom line was those uns didn’t go to school. You know, they were the primary school kids. But at the very start, it would just be like I remember the first time going into his house and to show how sectarian, I suppose is the word is, I was then they were redecorating the house so it didn't have wall in the hallway and the living room.
It didn't have wallpaper. And my initial thought was, oh, everybody's right, the Catholics don’t look after their houses. Yeah. And I felt that before I even realized and I just being basically sectarian I suppose. And so, you very quickly realize all the things that you have been taught that are actually incredibly offensive. That was the first thing you realize because you would say things that are not acceptable and shouldn't be said.
interviewee 9
You didn't know any better because everyone else was saying them. And that went both ways. Then the families definitely as much as they say, well, who knows what they say, but they didn't make it, they didn't make it easy, and they hmm well let’s say that the families, like both sides made their opinions very clear then.
I mean there was no, there was no option for us. I mean, I never had a desire to stay in Northern Ireland. I wanted to leave anyway. So, it's not that I was driven out but I 100% knew there wasn’t going to be a life in Northern Ireland if you’re catholic and protestant together cos first of where do you live? Yeah, I think there was one street I worked it out, right? I remember like because [redacted] didn’t always want to leave and it was the Lisburn Road. The Lisburn Road was the only place where you could live. And when I say what I mean, one street.
Because that was the only street that I knew to be safe and mixed. And that was because there was enough money, it was rich. And so, yeah, going into Catholic area on a weekly basis was a bit scary. There were definitely times where I had to get out of the area and, you know, so someone might, people knew I was Protestant, some people did, and there was a few times where it was made clear to his family that I should not be in the neighbourhood for the next few days.
And I didn't get the worst situations.
you know, you're very aware that because of small minded people in your life, people can make a decision and happily do some serious damage to you merely for the fact that you're in a relationship. [redacted] There was always a threat of violence. It was always, you know, someone would say something or do something, especially in Belfast. I remember [redacted] having to get off a bus, one time and he was on the [redacted] going down to the city centre to then get on the bus over to home. And it was during marching season, and something had happened and they were stopping the busses and burning them.
And and this is just before mobile phones. So I remember someone saying that, someone from my street, just happened to mention that they were burning busses and I had a leg it to see if I could get his bus on the [redacted], to get him off the bus and before he got forced off in a really dangerous area, because if he got forced off further down yeah that would have been worse, you know, I got, I got hold of the bus, thankfully, congestion, you know, and then [redacted] had to stay in and I mean inside my parents’ house for about six days, you know, before someone could safely drive him home. There were other examples . I mean that one was pretty mild
[redacted ]
interviewer
Where there any threats over where you could or couldn't live with [redacted]
interviewee 9
O I mean you just couldn't. I mean everybody in Northern Ireland, and everybody knows everybody's business, you know, I would go down to his local shop in North Belfast. No one really needed to say it. Everybody knew I was Protestant. I didn't run around with a sign on my back. But the way you speak, the way, the way you pronounce things your name, you know, so everybody, everybody knew, everyone. And then it really hit home for me when
[redacted]
interviewer
I was just going to say just a couple of questions before I wrap up. If you’re ok to continue, so would it be fair to say that being in a mixed marriage changed your views on your own identity and how you fit into Northern Ireland
interviewee 9
Yes. I mean, and what I just said, all of that, you know, It had to, I was confronted with everything, just like smacked in the face with it. Like this is never going to be safe, if we want a life together then we have to leave. [redacted ]
After experiencing their house getting petrol bombed and the threats painted on. I mean they knew who did it, like they weren’t hiding that it was them, you know. yeah, that, yeah that changes you. Yeah.
interviewer
And sort of the last question is what would you want to say to someone entering a mixed marriage in Northern Ireland today?
interviewee 9
Just don't, don't try to understand it. Don't try to take that with you because I try to say being my background . I tried to say being his background, and we kind of were like, we're two different, very different people. But actually, fundamentally there was some big things that both of us had there was anger about or, you know, we brushed all under the carpet because neither of us caused it.
[redacted]
I mean, I had not seen a successful mixed life relationship in Northern Ireland.
interviewer
Yeah, And that's it on the question front. So is there anything you want to say before I sort of stop recording.
interviewee 9
No, I think I pretty much said everything.
Interviewer
Thank you for taking the time.