Beyond Belfast (Web)

8/8/2019 Beyond Belfast (Web)

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/beyond-belfast-web 1/64

Beyn

Belfas

ContestedSp

aces inUrban, Rura

l and CrossBorderSettin

gs

John BellNeil JarmanBrian Harvey



Beyn

Belfast

Report Commissioned by

Community Relations Council and Rural Community Network

Researchers

John Bell and Neil Jarman, Institute for Conflict ResearchBrian Harvey, Independent Social Researcher

November 2010



This publication is the culmination of a sustained and positive partnership approach between theCommunity Relations Council (CRC) and Rural Community Network (RCN). CRC has over manyyears been actively engaged in interface work within Belfast, acknowledging the complex features atinterfaces and developing the Interface Working Group as an attempt to provide a co-ordinated andfocused approach on all the issues that impact on communities in interface areas.CRC was also concerned to identify how communities could be supported to explore interface issuesand what might be needed to reduce/soften/remove barriers while ensuring safety.

Following the development of the ‘Challenge of Change’ report, CRC and OFMDFM identified theneed to develop a strategic approach and process of engagement with interface communitiesthroughout Belfast. During this same period, Rural Community Network was heavily engaged in

advocating for the need for community relations issues to be explored and addressed in rural areas.RCN actively highlighted that while there are perhaps no physical walls in rural areas, there arepsychological and emotional boundaries that impact on the daily way of life for rural communities.RCN had published a series of minority reports which explored the perspectives of those who wereminorities in communities in North Antrim and the border. RCN had completed a range of researchon community relations in rural areas and this was compiled in their Sharing over Separation: ARural Perspective, which led to the successful development of the Rural Enablers Programmesupported under Measure 2.1 of the European Union’s PEACE III Programme. This Rural Enabler Programme will work with rural communities and key institutions across Northern Ireland and the SixBorder Counties of Ireland.

On this basis and through a long standing relationship between both organisations, the Community

Relations Council, with support from the IWG, expanded their remit beyond Belfast in partnershipwith Rural Community Network and other key organisations.

As part of this, CRC and RCN commissioned this research to explore the issue of contested spacesbeyond Belfast. The development of a co-ordinated process to assist in the eventual creation of vibrant and sustainable communities across the region is vital in supporting peace-building throughputting in place a plan of short, medium and long-term actions to address social, community,physical and economic issues in contested spaces.

This publication goes some way to conceptualising and exploring the dynamics of segregation,division and community tensions in cities, towns and villages beyond Belfast. The production of thisreport is only one strand of much wider and more sustained work that needs to be carried out if weare to build a shared and equal society for all across the region.

It is vital that we all find interactive, engaging and visionary ways of working within and acrosssectors and in communities, particularly during this difficult economic climate. The continued costs toour society of cyclical conflict because we can’t or won’t share cannot continue to be sustained if weare serious about creating vibrant urban and rural communities for all.

01

Foreword

Duncan MorrowCommunity Relations Council Michael HughesRural Community Network



02

AcknowledgmentsCommunity Relations Council and Rural Community Network would like to take this opportunity toextend thanks to all those who have contributed in the production of this publication, particularly themembers of the Beyond Belfast Steering Group who have provided support, guidance and directionduring the planning, consultation and completion stages of its production.

CRC and RCN would also thank all those who attended and participated in the consultations; their input and local knowledge was an invaluable resource. To Neil Jarman and John Bell from theInstitute for Conflict Research (ICR) who carried out the research and to Brian Harvey, anindependent social researcher, and Caroline Creamer of the International Centre for Local andRegional Development, National Institute for Regional Spatial Planning Analysis, NUI Maynooth,who provided papers and presentations for several events.

Finally to Ray Mullan (CRC) and Linda Rogers (RCN) who carried out the design and printpreparation aspects of the publication.



Executive Summary 04

Organisational Background 09

1. Introduction 10

2. ‘Interface’: Contested and Protected Urban Space 13

3. Segregation and Contested Space in a Rural Context 17

4. Segregation in the Southern Border Counties 24

5. The Creation of Contested Space 31

6. Forms of Contested Spaces 39

7. Strategic and Policy Initiatives 49

8. Developing a Strategy for Contested Spaces 54

References 56

Appendix: Indicators of Contested Space 60

03

Contents

Beynd

Belfa st



demographic factors that impinge on thelocal geography:

1. Concentrated Population: In general thereneeds to be a concentration of population,which may be a town, village or other form of settlement. Contested space is less likely toexist among a scattered or widely dispersedrural population, although there may well bestrongly identified patterns of land ownershipand segregation in such areas, which are in

turn marked by patterns of avoidance andconcerns for personal safety.

2. Proximity: The members of the twocommunities must be within reasonabledistance of one another. Two villages, onepredominately Protestant and the other predominately Catholic, which are few milesapart, will not necessarily constitute acontested space given the geographicseparation, although trigger events andactivities may serve to consolidate social and

physical segregation into more formalisedcontested space.

3. Changing Demographic Balance: Anincrease (or decrease) in the size or proportion of either the majority or theminority community may lead to a perceptionamong the majority community that ‘their’town or village is ‘changing’. This mayincrease tensions as the longer establishedcommunity may seek to assert or re-assert itspolitical identity. Although contested spacesare generally viewed in terms of Protestant -Catholic relations, the presence of another ethnic or national minority community mayalso serve as the basis for hostilesegregation.

4. Residential Concentration: Members of theminority community must live close enoughtogether to enable them to claim parts of thelocal environment as ‘their’ areas. If theminority is scattered, or evenly distributed,throughout an area they are probably lesslikely to assert their presence in a public way.

5. Critical Mass: The minority communityneeds to achieve a ‘critical mass’ to be ableto assert itself within the local area. If theminority community is too small in numbers itis less likely to assert itself, but rather willadopt a ‘keep your heads down’ approach toissues that might cause offence or fear.

6. Minority Perceived as a Threat: Complaintsby a minority community against the activitiesof the majority or demands for space for its

cultural activities may contribute to feelings of hostility among the majority and be perceivedas further evidence of change for the worse.

7. Presence of Trigger Opportunities: Thesemay be associated with annual events suchas parades, cultural celebrations or sportingactivities; less regular events such aselections; a reaction to a specific incident; or be the culmination of factors such with accessto local services, resources or public space.

8. Presence of Negative Elements: Tensionsmay be actively encouraged or provoked bythe presence of individuals or a small number of people who actively desire to increasefear and hostility between communities.he active presence of dissident republicansor loyalists was identified as a growing issuein some rural communities.

9. Demographic Similarities: In larger settlements the process of contestedspace may be more likely to develop wheredemographic changes are occurring amongworking class communities or betweendiscrete working-class residential areas.It is less likely that contested space willdevelop between a working-class and amiddle-class area.

10. Demographic Dissimilarity: Members of the two communities may share space withfewer problems if their demographic profilesare dissimilar and there is less contestationover resources or physical space, for example, where one community has ayoung demographic profile and the other,an elderly one.

05



11. Site of Conflict: Depending on the scale or nature of local geography the contestbetween the two communities may occur near residential areas, at the geographicalcentre or may be displaced outside tosymbolic properties (churches, memorials,Orange Halls, GAA clubs) in the hinterlandwhich are often isolated, vulnerable and‘easy’ targets.

Contested spaces may emerge or be created

in situations where members of differentcommunities live segregated lives, have weakinter-community relationships, and wherepersistent or recurrent tensions result in thepatterns of segregation being manifested insome physical form or in the ways that peoplebehave. Contested spaces thus assume apattern of segregation but are also more thanjust segregation. The research identified avariety of forms that a contested space maytake in towns and villages across NorthernIreland:

• As a relationship between a populationcentre and its hinterland;

• Where tension or violence occurs in thecentral area of a town or village; and

• Where tension or violence occurs betweenresidential areas.

Furthermore each form may display slightlydifferent characteristics depending on the scaleof the settlement, the nature of the interaction

between communities and the transience or permanence of the division. From this weidentified eight broad types of contested space:

1. Centre – Hinterland: A single identity smallrural settlement, surrounded by a hinterlandwith a large percentage of the ‘other’community.

2. Neighbouring Villages: The area betweentwo highly segregated but physically closevillages or small communities.

3. Divided Village: A small rural settlementwhere tensions are worked out in the centrerather than between residential areas.

4. Contested Centre: Similar to the above butin larger towns, which may have largelysegregated central areas where tensions areplayed out on occasions.

5. Thoroughfare: A single identity communitywhich members of the ‘other’ communitypass through.

6. Neighbouring Estates: The boundary areabetween two single identity residentialestates.

7. Protected Territories: Residentialboundaries that are marked by a physicalbarrier as in the majority of Belfast interfaces.

8. The Border: The border is a particular type of contested space, with differentcharacteristics in different areas.

The report identifies a range of events andactivities that may serve as indicators of thelevels of inter-community tension that areillustrative of communities living with contestedspace. These include incidents of sectarianviolence, attacks on symbolic properties,disputes over parades, the use of bonfires anddisplays of flags. Good quality data is availablefor some of these indicators, but there is a needto gather more consistent data and to integratethe different elements to enable a more

coherent picture to be developed.Finally the report provides a brief review of aseries of key policy and strategy documents(Good Relations Strategies, PEACE III ActionPlans, Policing Plans) that might be expected tohighlight responses to problems associated withcontested space. A Shared Future did make abrief reference to sectarian problems in ruralcommunities, but it is predominately focused onBelfast and urban centres and many of thePeace III Action Plans do make reference tothe need to address issues associated with

06



contested space, but there is no overallcoherent strategic framework that focuses onsegregation and contested spaces in smaller towns and rural areas.

The research suggests that there has been apiecemeal approach to addressing the issue of segregation and division in rural communitiesand areas beyond Belfast, but the currentconsultation on the Programme for Cohesion,Sharing and Integration provides an opportunity

to ensure that such issues are addressed withina strategic framework that encompasses eachof the government departments and mainstatutory agencies.

This research has identified a number of areas where work will need to be undertakento support any strategic approaches tosectarianism and segregation in ruralcommunities and we make a number of recommendations to that end.

1. OFMDFM should ensure that the finalisedProgramme for Cohesion, Sharing andIntegration clearly reflects the context of sectarianism and division and the problemsassociated with contested spaces within ruralcommunities and areas beyond Belfast.

2. OFMDFM should identify and monitor a rangeof relevant and appropriate key indicators thatcan be used to identify contested spacesand identify the key organisations to beresponsible for gathering and disseminatingsuch data.

3. The Department of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment, in developing effectiveprogrammes and policies should ensure thatwhere relevant these address sectarianismand conflict.

4. All Departments should ensure that relevantfuture rural orientated strategy or policy whichimpacts on rural areas acknowledges theproblem of sectarianism and division in ruralcommunities and includes clear aims andobjectives to address such matters.

5. The Department for Justice should review thenecessity for the continued presence of security barriers in Derry/Londonderry,Lurgan and Portadown.

6. The PSNI should continue to record allincidents of sectarian violence and hateincidents and make such data available tolocal councils in an agreed manner thatallows for the identification of hot spots andcontested space.

7. The PSNI should systematically record allattacks on an agreed list of symbolicproperties and structures across NorthernIreland and make this publicly available in anappropriate format on an annual basis.

8. The NIHE should record all incidents of sectarian violence and harassment that occur in its properties and aggregate and publishsuch data on an annual basis in anappropriate format.

9. Each local council should include a clear strategy for addressing segregation anddivision in its Good Relations Plan; thisstrategy should be integrated with other strategic plans and programmes of work.

10. Each local council should map the variety of contested spaces within its area. Theseshould be based on a mixture of the hardindicators identified in this report pluslocal knowledge. The status of suchcontested spaces should be monitored onan ongoing basis.

07



11. Each local council should take responsibilityfor gathering together data on key indicatorsin their area. This may include, in particular,sectarian violence and hate crimes,contested parades and public events,bonfires, displays of flags, graffiti andmurals, and attacks on memorials andkey symbolic structures.

12. Each local council should undertakea review of defensive architecture in

their area.13. CRC and RCN should take forward the

work on contested spaces in rural areasthrough a similar structure to the InterfaceWorking Group.

14. CRC and RCN should develop a strategy for promoting shared learning in responding tosectarian division, tension and violence inrural communities.

15. The persistence of segregation and divisionon either side of the border and thepresence of the border as a contestedspace should be an issue that is consideredand discussed on a cross-border level andon an initial basis by the North SouthMinisterial Council.

08



Community Relations Council

09

Organisational Background

Rural Community Network

The Community Relations Council (CRC) wasformed in January 1990 with the purpose of supporting and promoting community relationswork at all levels within the community, a rolewhich it continues to carry out. It originated froma proposal of a research report commissionedby the NI Standing Advisory Committee onHuman Rights, titled ‘Improving CommunityRelations’ (Frazer and Fitzduff, 1986). CRC isthe regional body for community relations inNorthern Ireland, established as an independentcharity and acting as an arm’s length bodythrough sponsorship by the Office of the FirstMinister and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM).Since its establishment in 1990 the CRC hassupported practical initiatives underpinningprogress towards a society whose principles arefairness and justice, the peaceful celebration of

variety and difference, and the importance of sharing, trust and inclusion. By supportingpartnerships, co-operation, dialogue, meetingand friendship, and by promoting better practiceand policy, CRC is the leading independentvoice championing change to achieve andmaintain a shared and open society basedon fairness, the celebration of diversity andvariety, and genuine reconciliation andinterdependence. CRC’s vision is of a peaceful,inclusive, prosperous, stable and fair societyfounded on the achievement of reconciliation,equality, co-operation, respect, mutual trust andgood relations, of an open society, free fromintimidation and threat, where peace andtolerance are considered normal.

Rural Community Network is a regionalvoluntary organisation for rural communities andwas established by community groups from ruralareas in 1991 to articulate the voice of ruralcommunities on issues relating to poverty,disadvantage and equality. RCN is amembership organisation which adopts acommunity development approach to its workwhich includes rural community development,action research, policy analysis, communityplanning, peace building, consultation,mediation, facilitation and technical support.Rural Community Network is committed to arural community development and networkingapproach to the planning and development of rural communities in order to address poverty,social exclusion and equality and to support

work towards ‘A Shared Future’. RCN’s vision isof vibrant, articulate, inclusive and sustainablerural communities across Northern Irelandcontributing to a prosperous, equitable, peacefuland stable society. RCN seeks to provide aneffective voice for and support to ruralcommunities, particularly those who are mostdisadvantaged. Core to the organisation are thevalues of social justice, promoting fairness,equality and equity of opportunity and access,challenging discrimination (in all its forms) andvaluing diversity.



This report was commissioned by theCommunity Relations Council (CRC) and RuralCommunity Network (RCN) as a follow up toresearch which brought together informationrelating to interfaces in the Belfast urban area(CRC 2008). The aim of the Beyond Belfast research is to explore the ways in which thephysical geography of cities, towns, villages,rural communities and border areas outside of Belfast are segregated, and how suchsegregation is maintained and extended throughforms of behaviour that range from simple actsof avoidance to serious acts of violence. One of the objectives was also to consider the extent towhich the notion of an ‘interface’, a term whichis principally used to describe the boundaries of sectarian division within Belfast, is alsoapplicable to areas beyond Belfast, or whether we need different terms to describe segregatedand contested spaces in more ruralcommunities.

The concept of an interface is necessarily

predicated on some form of residentialsegregation, but segregation on its own doesnot necessarily result in interfaces. The interfaceareas in Belfast, which are most readilyidentifiable by a variety of walls, fences, gates,barriers, security cameras and areas of wasteland, are the most visible manifestationsof social segregation and polarisation inNorthern Irish society. But it is the physicalnature of these barriers that is distinctive.However, there are few such physical barriers intowns or villages beyond Belfast, and it isquestionable whether the term ‘interface’ is themost appropriate term to describe the patternsof physical segregation in which public space ismarked in a way that suggests it ‘belongs’ toone community, or is translated as excludingthe other.

In most towns, villages and smaller settlements,there are no physical barriers dividingresidential areas. This raises a series of questions in relation to territorial division andboundary marking in rural communities?What are the specific means of delineating theboundaries between the two main communities?Are these markers as obvious as the display of

flags, political/cultural murals and other symbolism, or are the boundaries simply lessvisible to the untrained eye? Some previousresearch on segregation in rural areas hasdrawn upon the terminology of a ‘rural interface’(Murtagh 1999; Osborne 2009), however inreality this research has largely discussed‘patterns of avoidance’ among members of thetwo main communities, and appears to haveadopted the terminology of interfaces as ashorthand for high levels of segregation rather than as a reflection of the existence of tensionand violence.

Segregation and the perceived division of publicspace into ‘our’ spaces and ‘their’ spaces hasthe potential to create more evident forms of contest and division than the relatively privateact of avoidance, and might ultimately lead tothe imposition of physical barriers, similar tothose in Belfast. This might occur if an area isheavily segregated and tensions are raised over demographic changes in the locality, through the

growing use of visual displays, through themarking of space by memorials, graffiti, electionposters and the like, through disputes aroundparades and other events, or through acts of violence on individuals or symbolic properties.All of which may lead to an increasing contestover territory. However, without such ‘trigger events’, the residents of segregated towns andvillages may co-exist with their neighbours withlittle interaction or tension and with few or noincidents of violence. It is important therefore tomake the distinction between patterns of segregation which result in relatively peacefulparallel lives and those which generate tensionsand some form of hostile segregation over contested space.

This paper uses the term ‘contested space’ todescribe the situation where there is tensionover access to public space in a largelysegregated community but where no physicalbarriers have been constructed to reinforcethose divisions. We reserve the term ‘interface’to describe those areas where divisions andcontest over space have resulted in persistentand recurrent acts of violence and,subsequently, in the construction of walls,

10

1. Introduction



fences and other visible barriers to divide andseparate, protect and secure.

This research explores the different forms thatsegregation and division take in the wide rangeof different types of communities that are found‘beyond Belfast’. At one extreme the large urbancentres, such as Derry/Londonderry, Lurgan andPortadown, have much in common with Belfastwith heavily segregated social housing estates,marked by flags and murals and in places

protected by security barriers. At the other extreme are the numerous small villages andrural communities which display few of thevisible trappings of sectarian division, but inwhich an individual’s behaviour, movementand sense of safety may be dominated byknowledge of such things as ownership of landand patterns of residence. Then there is theborder area, which at one level divides northfrom south, but which also includes diversepockets of minority communities. Suchcommunities may be subjected to a dual form of

segregation: in relation to their local neighboursand to their historic hinterland. The patterns of segregation and division, of tensions andcontested spaces are considered in each of these different environments.

The research acknowledges that there aresimilarities in the ways that segregation anddivision are mapped into the practical lives of people and communities across NorthernIreland, but also that there are very realdifferences in the ways that such realities are

experienced in different physical environments.In some urban areas, the intensity and scale of violence has resulted in the construction of physical barriers to divide and separate. Suchbarriers do not exist in most towns and no suchphysical barriers exist in rural communities(although much of the border existed as afortified and protected barrier through thecourse of the Troubles). This must beconsidered as a very positive situation giventhe tension, fear and violence that have beenexperienced in many areas over many years.However, the research also found that barriersdo exist in many rural communities. These maynot be physical or visible barriers, but they are

barriers nonetheless and they have real effectsin constraining and shaping the behaviour andattitudes of both individuals and communities.

We begin this paper by reviewing research oninterfaces as an urban form of extremesegregation (Chapter 2). We then continue byexploring how these distinctions have beenanalysed in research that focuses on other areas and rural communities (Chapter 3),before considering the specific history and

characteristics of the border area, andparticularly the southern border region, in achapter drawn from a paper especially preparedby Brian Harvey for this project (Chapter 4).

Chapter 5 includes a discussion of a wide rangeof factors and issues that may impact upon thedevelopment and maintenance of contestedspaces within a segregated environment,including a range of demographic and socialtriggers that increase tensions. Chapter 6 thenoutlines a variety of the forms that physical

segregation takes in towns, villages and ruralcommunities across Northern Ireland. Chapter 7reviews some of the different policies andstrategies that impact upon the issues under discussion and suggests a number of actionsthat might be promoted or supported to limit thepotential for the creation of an increasinglysegregated and contested rural environment.We end by making a number of recommendations for Government, localauthorities and other bodies which will benecessary in developing a more strategic

approach to contested spaces on rural areas.Research ProcessThe initial work for this project took placebetween July and September 2009, duringwhich time ICR undertook a review of theliterature on segregation and division in ruralareas of Northern Ireland and held interviewsand conversations with a range of keyinformants who had experience of working oncommunity relations issues in ruralcommunities. A draft report was presented to

the Beyond Belfast steering group and to anumber of public consultation events inBanbridge, Ballymena, Derry/Londonderry andOmagh in October 2009, which were attended

11



by people from the community and voluntarysector as well as those working for a variety of statutory organisations.

After this first phase, CRC/RCN commissionedfurther work on segregation and division in andaround the border areas. This was undertakenby Caroline Creamer (2010) of the InternationalCentre for Local and Regional Development,and Brian Harvey (2010) and their papers werepresented for discussion at two further

consultation events in Cavan and Enniskillenduring March 2010.

Finally, ICR was commissioned to draw on thefindings of the various consultation events andon the papers prepared by Creamer and Harveyto prepare a revised and extended draft of theBeyond Belfast report for CRC and RCN.

Definitional NoteThroughout the report, our understanding of the term ‘rural’ is based upon the discussionand framework in the Report of theInterdepartmental Urban-Rural Definition Group 1

(NISRA 2005). This divides Northern Ireland intoeight broad settlement bands ranging from theBelfast Metropolitan area to a small village,hamlet and open countryside as shown in thetable below.

This research is largely focused on those areasbeyond the Belfast Metropolitan Urban Area,although some towns on the fringe of the BMUAare included in this study as they are distinctfrom the core ‘urban’ centre of the city.

Rural Community Network draws on the NISRAframework to define ‘rural areas’ as thosesettlements within bands F, G & H and with apopulation of 4,500 people or fewer. This alsoserves as the basis for any use of the term ‘ruralcommunities’ in this report.

12

Band Settlement Type Population Size

A Belfast Metropolitan Urban Area c580,000

B Derry Urban Area c90,000

C Large Town 18,000-75,000

D Medium Town 10,000-18,000

E Small Town 4,500-10,000

F Intermediate Settlement 2,250-4,500

G Village 1,000-2,250

H Small Village and open countryside up to 1,000

1 Available at http://www.ninis.nisra.gov.uk/mapxtreme_towns/Reports/ur_report.pdf



There is a high level of residential segregationacross Northern Ireland. A Northern IrelandHousing Executive paper from 1999 indicatedthat 71% of its housing provision acrossNorthern Ireland was located in segregatedestates; these are estates where more than90% of tenants were from one of the two maincommunities (NIHE 1999). Segregation can, intheory at least, result in a relatively peacefulform of parallel living based on mutualavoidance of the ‘other’. But context is never static, populations may both increase anddecline, social events celebrating onecommunity or the other take place in publicspace and some types of activity cannot becarried out in complete separation from the ‘other’.

In reality, segregated living involves living withtension, fear, suspicion and mistrust. It is basedon claiming and exercising rights over publicspace through local demographic dominanceand in denying, or limiting, those same rights tothe ‘other’. Segregation leads inevitably to

contest over access to public space and socialresources. This can be expressed throughaccess to shops, bars, doctors, health centres,places of employment and leisure centres, asmuch as to the right to display or celebratewider cultural identity. Contest over access tospace and resources may impact on all aspectsof communal life, or it may largely haveparticular resonance at specific times of theday or of week or at certain times of the year.

Segregation and the contest over space is most

visible in Belfast, where the numerous interfacebarriers have served to divide the city’s workingclass residential areas into a patchwork of ‘Protestant’ and ‘Catholic’ territories. But many, if not all, towns, villages and rural communitiesacross Northern Ireland are also divided andfragmented to some extent, even if the divisionsare not visibly marked as in Belfast.

Defining ‘Interface’Interfaces are most commonly associated withthe numerous walls, fences, gates and barriers

that have been erected to provide a degree of

protection to already segregated working classcommunities across Belfast, and to a lesser extent with Derry Londonderry (Byrne 2007).Definitions of an interface have focused on thejuxtaposition of two predominantly single identityterritories ‘against’ one another. In line with this,O’Halloran et al. define an interface as:a common boundary line between apredominantly Protestant/Unionist area and apredominantly Catholic/Nationalist area . Aninterface community is a community which livesalongside an interface (O’Halloran et al. 2004: 5).

When one thinks about an interface in Belfast,visual images of a steel or brick wall physicallyseparating two communities immediately cometo mind. In this sense, the presence of aphysically built structure separatingcommunities is an indicator that relationshipsbetween the two main ethno-politicalcommunities are not ‘normal’ and remaincharacterised by insecurity, threat and anxiety:

By creating clear physical indicators where onecommunity ‘begins’ and another community ‘ends’, barriers have sometimes served asmagnets for exploiting or expressing community tensions for political ends, or for youths and other people wanting to indulge in what hasnow become known as ‘recreational rioting’ (CRC 2008: 3).

While Barack Obama spoke in Berlin on 24 July2008 suggesting that, ‘ Not only have walls comedown in Berlin, but they have come down inBelfast, where Protestant and Catholic found away to live together’ ,2 in reality there are nowmore interface barriers presently than therewere in the pre-ceasefire period. A report in2006 noted that the NIO had authorised thebuilding of at least nine new peace walls andthe strengthening of a further 11 since 1994 inBelfast (Jarman 2006). More recently a CRCreport (2008) documented 88 interface barriersand structures across Belfast; others have beenbuilt since this report was published. Althoughthe NIO built barriers in other locations have not

been subjected to the same level of interest,

13

2.‘Interface’: Contested & Protected Urban Space

2 http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/obama-northern-ireland-is-an-example-to-all-the-world-13920720.htmlAccessed September 8th 2009.



some additions have been made to the securitystructures in Derry/Londonderry and Portadownover the course of the peace process.

Although most interfaces generally manifest inthe form of physically built structures such as asteel fence or a brick wall, even here the realityis at times more subtle, and an interface may bedefined by a particular landmark or someelement of urban geography. With more subtleforms of interface structures, there is the

potential that interfaces may go unnoticed byoutsiders and one may need a degree of localknowledge to even be aware of their existence(O’Halloran et al 2004). There are therefore anumber of ways in which territory can bedemarcated aside from the traditional steelfences or brick walls. These include:

• A ‘turn in the road’, local landmark or rowof shops;

• Low level barriers used to close roads andentries;

• Redevelopment which distances residentialareas by the construction of industrial or commercial zones;

• New road lay-outs or developments;

• Flags, murals, election posters and streetnames; and

• Grills and bars used to protect privateproperties (Jarman 2004: 6).

While early definitions of an interface as aboundary between a Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist and Catholic/Nationalist/Republicanareas provided a useful initial framework,Jarman argued that the traditional definition of an interface was limited and that essentiallythere needed to be something more than twocommunities in close proximity with oneanother. To this end, Jarman broadens thedefinition of an interface as:

the conjunction or intersection of two or more

territories or social spaces, which aredominated, contested or claimed by some or all members of the differing ethno-national groups (Jarman 2004: 7).

The two crucial components to this definition arefirstly that there is a “ process of domination,contest or claim ” which indicates it is notenough to have two communities juxtaposedwith one another physically, there needs to besome form of contestation over this physical‘space’. Secondly, this definition includes thefear, threat or actual use of violence as keyindicators of a potential interface site:

and it is violence or the threat of violence that

transforms otherwise peaceful locations and boundary areas into interfaces (Jarman 2004: 7).

An interface is therefore a product of a process of contest over domination of a social space andthis contest contains the fear, threat or actual useof physical forms of violence (Jarman 2005).

Previous work suggests that interfaces are notfixed, clearly defined or static, and newinterfaces or flashpoints may emerge which canspark tensions in already established interfaces.Indeed, interfaces and sectarian violence mayoccur in areas which do not fit the ‘traditional’model of an interface as the intersection of segregated working-class residential zones(Jarman 2004). These locations include:

• The intersection of middle-class residentialareas and working-class areas;

• The emergence of interface issues insuburban residential areas;

• Sectarian violence in parks and other open

spaces;• Segregation of shared spaces such as

shopping centres and town centres; and

• Violence in relation to schools and sites wherechildren can be defined by school uniforms(Jarman 2004: 6).

CRC (2008) documents that a defining featureof interface areas in Belfast is the recurring actof rioting, disorder, criminal damage and violentassault, while research on inter-communal

tensions in Derry/Londonderry identified asimilar range of factors, issues and problems(Byrne 2007, Hansson 2005, Roche 2005).Jarman (2006) identified a number of ‘trigger’

14



events that often increased tension and thepotential for violence in interface areas. Theseevents include parades, football and GAAmatches, bonfires, and Halloween. Jarmanfurther suggests that activities related todisturbances around these issues include: useand abuse of alcohol; growth of the night-timeeconomy; flying of flags; and use of fireworks.

As such, tensions and violence at interfaceareas in an urban setting are generally linked

with a particular type of event, with a limitedrange of activities, or with a certain category of person (Jarman 2006: 7). In terms of categoryof people typically involved in disturbances,Jarman found this included young peopleattracted to interface areas to engage in‘recreational rioting’ (which can have thepotential to escalate into sectarian violence),anti-social elements who have little involvementin the local community and tend to causetrouble to antagonise the ‘Other’ side, andfinally, people from outside the immediate area

who participate for enjoyment and whosubsequently do not have to live in the area inthe aftermath of any trouble (Jarman 2006).

Violence associated with interface tensions maynot necessarily occur at the interface itself, itmay be ‘displaced’ elsewhere as interfacesbecome more policed and subject tosurveillance through the use of CCTV (Jarman2004: 18). Jarman contends that this violencemay move to otherwise neutral or generally non-contested spaces which then become a site of

conflict, particularly between groups of youngpeople. Indeed, commercial spaces maybecome ‘subtle’ forms of interface, as was foundduring the course of this research, where a car park at a shopping centre in a town outside of Belfast was one example of a space that wascontested between young people from the maincommunities. As such, unless space ismaintained or managed to be shared andneutral, there is a danger that what waspreviously a shared social space can become‘abandoned’ by one community (Jarman 2004:19). It is also possible that town centres can

over time (and dependent on a number of factors which may include demographic change)become divided or contested, such as has beenthe case in recent years in Glengormley andLurgan. While these locations may not clearlybe identifiable to the outsider as an interface,there can be effective barriers in accessing localresources (Jarman 2004: 21).

There has been a significant body of workrelating to disadvantages which have come to

be associated with living on either side of aninterface, including high levels of socio-economic deprivation, 3 high levels of ongoingviolence and intimidation and restricted accessto facilities and services as being located withinthe ‘Other’ community (Murtagh 1994, GarvaghyResidents 1999). Indeed, Hargie et al. (2006)and Roche (2008) note the impact that aphysical barrier has in restricting the movementand subsequently options available to youngpeople in interface areas. Hargie et al refers tothis as a ‘ Bubble Syndrom e’ and Roche

referring to a process of ‘ Bounded contentment ’,in which the young people limit their life choicesin part as a result of perceived, and indeed, realbarriers they face and their ‘fear’ of entering intothe domain of the ‘other’ community to accessshops, services, schools and employment.

In terms of attempting to address difficulties atinterfaces in an urban setting, Jarman (2006)highlights seven different approaches whichOsborne (2009) suggests are also applicable torural areas:

• Communication – within and betweencommunities;

• Relationships – between individuals fromboth sides can reduce tension;

• Networks – with a variety of stakeholders thatcan engage in preventative work andintervention;

• Inclusivity – of all actors through discussionand the community’s ability to choose its own

representatives;

15

3 More than three-quarters of the physical interfaces in Belfast lie within the top ten most deprived wards in Northern Ireland(Shirlow and Murtagh 2006).



• Young people – as part of the solution rather than as part of the problem;

• Trust – to sustain relationships and networks;

• Connections – link to other forms of community activity including social andhealth issues

While our understanding of these issues islargely based on research which has beencarried out in interface areas in Belfast, and toa lesser extent in Derry/Londonderry, thesedynamics are also relevant in other urbanareas where physical security barriers havebeen built by the NIO, such as Lurgan andPortadown. This includes the role of youngpeople, and particularly young males in levelsof inter-communal violence, primarily for the‘craic’ and disputes in and around interfaces,which were viewed increasingly through ananti-social as opposed to a sectarian lens(Byrne 2007; Garvaghy Residents 1999;

Hansson 2005; Roche 2005).

In ConclusionThis discussion of research on interfaces andissues associated with interfaces draws on theexperiences of the segregated nature of workingclass residential communities in Belfast, butequally applies to parts of Derry/ Londonderry,Lurgan and Portadown. Each of these arelocations that marked and divided by a varietyof forms of physical barriers and securitystructures, and which have become the siteof persistent and recurrent acts of violence.The key components of an interface are thusdefined as the presence of not simplysegregation, but also the physical barriers thatboth divide and act as visual reminders of suchdivisions.

In contrast, there has been a more limitedamount of work relating to segregation, divisionand the nature of contested space beyondBelfast. The next chapter reviews research onsegregation and contested spaces in smaller settlements and rural areas beyond the

boundaries of Belfast and in so doing, questionsthe value and relevance of the term interface asa descriptor of the physical environment andrelationships between the two maincommunities.

16



The concept of interfaces in a rural context ismuch less well considered and the limitedconsideration of the dynamics of spatialsegregation and contestation in a rural settingperhaps underpins a feeling within some ruraldevelopment organisations that there hasconsistently been a lack of a coherent strategyacross government in developing and applyinggood relations policy to rural areas. Peter Osborne (2009), for example, noted that whileA Shared Future made substantial reference toreducing tensions at interfaces, this wasprimarily based on an understanding that thiswas an urban phenomenon and thus it did nothighlight the issue of how to address similar tensions and problems in rural areas. Thischapter briefly reviews some of the researchthat addresses the issues of segregation,contested spaces and ‘interfaces’ in areasbeyond Belfast.

Rural Segregation and DivisionA number of anthropologically based studies

have explored sectarianism, segregation andthe dynamics of social interaction in small ruraltowns across Northern Ireland (Leyton 1975;Harris 1972; Darby 1986). One of the firststudies of this kind was that by Rosemary Harriswhich was based on ethnographic fieldworkcarried out in the 1950s and first published in1972. Harris found that while basic levels of social interaction tended to be ‘amiable enough’in the village of ‘Ballybeg’, 4 Protestants andCatholics within the village tended to have ‘littlecontact’ and completely distinct social sphereswhich related to division based on churchattendance, endogamy, difference in politicalbelief, educational division, and the patronageof local shops, whereby Protestants would tendto give custom to shops owned by their ‘own’,and the same was similar for local Catholics.Any interactions between the two communitiestended to be limited to farmers lending oneanother equipment, and there was a generalavoidance of discussing any topics which couldbe perceived to be ‘contentious’:

Often explicitly connected with one side or the other and that it was only with membersof the same side that individuals could relax totalk freely to say what they thought (Harris1972: 147).

The contact between communities was limitedand interpersonal relationships fragile, withpeople learning to co-exist without any depth of communication or partnership. In a later study,Crozier similarly found that the pattern of

religious affiliation in ‘Ballintully’ resulted inmost co-operation following kin andneighbourhood lines with ‘co-religionists’(Curtin and Wilson 1989).

Other studies have focused on the importanceof the demographic breakdown of a town or village influencing relations and levels of interaction between members of the two maincommunities. McFarlane (Curtin and Wilson1989) in relation to ‘Ballycuan’ and Buckley andKenney (1995) referring to ‘Listymore’ all noted

the importance of local demography on relationsand subsequently tensions in the locality. Theresearch found cases in which some membersof the majority community came to ‘resent’ theincreasing minority population expanding into‘their’ neighbourhood. According to McFarlane:

where, as in ‘Ballycuan’, the ‘Other’ is only asmall minority, everyday life is likely to have adifferent character from life in settings where thepopulation is more mixed (Curtin and Wilson1989: 42).

In addition:

The definition of such areas is, in large part,decided by the ethnic affinity of the majority living there . Sometimes a minority from theother side can be tolerated. In other cases,where the ethnic body of an area is in dispute,there can be consternation when somebody of the other side comes to live locally (Buckley andKenney 1995: 155).

17

3. Segregation and Contested Space in aRural Context

4 In many anthropological studies towns/villages were given fictional names to protect the anonymity of the real locations acrossNorthern Ireland in which the research was carried out.



This majority/minority dynamic in areas outsideof Belfast was also highlighted by Buckley andKenney (1995), who cited Poole’s work inrelation to the ‘Double minority’ and ‘Doublemajority’ theory, whereby both Catholics andProtestants are minorities in relation to twodifferent territorial units (Poole 1983). Therefore:

In Northern Ireland, Catholics are a minority but they form a majority in Ireland as a whole .Protestants, conversely, are in a majority in the

north, but would form a minority in any futureunited Ireland . The territorial arrangement preferred by each side, therefore, is the one inwhich its own side would dominate (Buckleyand Kenney 1995: 3).

Adams’ study (1995) of Cashel, CountyFermanagh, focused on co-operation betweenmembers of the two main communities while atthe same time documenting extensivesegregation of schools, sports and socialinfrastructure, while Larsen’s (1982a) study of

‘Kilbroney’ highlighted how Catholics andProtestants in the town attempted to live withthe conflict by ‘avoiding interaction with eachother in a ritualised and systemic fashion’ (Larsen 1982a: 133). Segregation became anextreme way of avoiding forms of contact withthe ‘other’, which in turn reinforced perceptionsof hostility and otherness through a lack of contact or understanding of the ‘other’s’interests and concerns (Hamilton 2008: 23).Larsen (1982b) also described how Protestantsand Catholics perceived the marching season

differently, the former as a cultural andcommemorative event expressing identity in apublic fashion, while the latter viewed marchesas demonstrations of power and territorialcontrol.

In considering patterns of segregation anddivision, one must also consider what couldloosely be conceptualised as the largest‘interface’ on the island, and one of the principaldrivers behind the political conflict in Irelandboth historically and in more recent times,

namely the Irish border.5

In his study of border

minority communities, Hastings Donnandescribes the border as pockmarked by smallhamlets and groupings of a few houses, whichfunction as former or future flashpoints thatserve as the rural equivalent of urban interfacesand that are to be driven around and avoided.Unmarked by barriers, these are boundariesthat are invisible to the external observer.Particular pathways in the border region, whichto the outsider might just be another windingcountry road, are ethnicised and emotionalisedfor local people with a knowledge of who livesthere and what has happened in them. Peopleare acutely aware of the precipitousness of thetransition zones, where places imbued with asense of national pride or heroic loss canquickly shift to places of fear and threat(Donnan 2006: 11). Indeed, Donnan found ageneral feeling of vulnerability among border Protestants in his research who feel themselvesto be ‘ at the hard edge of an increasingly soft border ’ (Donnan 2006: 2). Donnan further contends that in particular, border Protestantsunderstand their identity in terms of the border:

As a material marker of difference from thosewhose loyalties lie beyond, and towards whomtheir own identity exists in oppositional terms(Donnan 2006: 3).

He refers to boundaries in a rural context as‘fuzzy frontiers ’ which are blurred, particularly for the outsider (Donnan 2006), while local peoplealso internalise and reproduce these boundariessubconsciously through their everyday routines

in terms of working, shopping, using servicesand socialising. Accordingly:

Rural boundaries between ethno-political groups bear some resemblance to theresidential interfaces already well-known fromthe literature on urban Northern Ireland, wherethey are characteristically zones of frequent violence, tension and mistrust betweenantagonistic neighbourhoods of Catholicsand Protestants (Donnan 2006: 1).

18

5 For further discussion of the ‘Irish boundary problem’, see Joan Vincent’s paper ‘Local knowledge and Political Violence in County Fermanagh’, inIreland from Below: Social Change and Local Communities , edited by Chris Curtin and Thomas M. Wilson (1989). Galway: University Press.



Donnan, like Jarman (2004), thus highlightssome comparison between urban and ruralsegregation and in particular focuses on theexistence, or history, of tension and violencebetween communities over a physical space askey indicators of the nature of relationships withthe physical environment.

In a review paper for CRC and RCN, Peter Osborne (2009) argues that the definition of aninterface as a physical barrier keeping

communities apart is inappropriate in a ruralsetting and he suggests that the separation of communities in rural areas may be understoodas relating to four distinct categories:

• Physical division – which may manifest itself through townlands and a ‘patchwork’ quilt of communities, villages, farms or the use of separate buildings/services rather than anactual wall or fence;

• Mindset division – as affiliations differ andpeople feel a sense of belonging incommunities;

• Patterns of behaviour – manifest in howthose from differing backgrounds attend social,sporting, church or cultural organisations; and

• Background – as people from different ages,gender, racial background, sexual orientationor other categories interact differently withpeople from different religious/politicalbackground and have differing views andbehaviour.

According to Osborne, rural ‘interfaces’ areprimarily based on the nature of relationshipsbetween members of the two communities andunderstanding these requires consideration of:

how people from different religious, political and racial backgrounds interface with each other and within their own communities, on the basisof physical, mindset, behavioural and grouppatterns (Osborne 2009: 6).

In a similar vein, Murphy (2009a) contendedthat ‘interfaces’ in rural areas are ‘geographic,social and cultural’ . However, it may be more

pertinent to apply these definitions to relationsbetween communities in terms of strategies of avoidance and segregation rather than aninterface as such.

We suggest that the terminology of ‘interface’should be reserved for those locations in whichfirstly, space or territory is contested and has ahistory of being contested; secondly, where thatcontest over the space involves fear, threat or actual use of violence; and, thirdly, where

physical structures have been built to providesome level of security. To be defined as an‘interface’ in a rural context requires somethingmore concrete and tangible than the quality of relationship (or the lack thereof) and thepresence of strategies of avoidance, it alsorequires the presence of physical structures thatdivide and separate, and which mark and definespace, but which also aim to provide somedegree of protection and reassurance.

Rural Interfaces

There are a number of other factors that impactupon rural areas and which make them distinctfrom urban locations. Murtagh’s work (1999)highlights the issue of land in a rural setting andhe notes how members of one community aregenerally reluctant to sell land to a member of the ‘out-group’, with 61.2% of Protestantrespondents in ‘Oldtown’ stating that theygenerally did not sell their land or property tomembers of the opposite religion, while 38.8%of Catholics stated that they would not sell up toProtestants. Similarly Kirk’s research in

Glenravel found that of all sales of land between1958 and 1987, only 12.8% occurred betweenCatholics and Protestants (Kirk 1993: 496). Kirkhighlighted the importance of land ownership inrural areas at concluded that:

Group interests are best served by theexistence of social closure with an absence of land transfer across the religious divide (Kirk1993: 334).

In a sense the issue of land and territory andsubsequent control of it are key drivershistorically behind the conflict in NorthernIreland (Murtagh 1999: 45):

19



There is no question that in a rural context,issues of attachment to area, locality and insome cases the very land itself, are emotive(Murphy 2009a: 8).

This link to territory and a physical space isimportant when considering demographicchanges that have taken place in many townsand villages across Northern Ireland over theyears. Murtagh noted that there was a general‘greening’ of rural areas in 20 towns between

1911 and 1981 and a general demographictrend for a younger Catholic and an ageingProtestant population (Murtagh 1999).

Murtagh’s research focused on an area with justunder 27,000 residents (59% Catholic, 28%Protestant), but centred on the two smallvillages of ‘Whiteville’, a predominantly Catholicvillage of 170 people, and ‘Glendale’, a mainlyProtestant village with 140 residents. The twovillages were one mile apart but there was littlecontact between residents of the two villages.

Murtagh focuses on ‘strategies of avoidance’ asthe key to ongoing segregation, with Protestantresidents of ‘Glendale’ looking mainly to larger Protestant towns further north for shopping andservices such as Markethill, while Catholics tendto look south to Newry and over the border for services. These factors do not necessarilyindicate an interface as such but rather highlightpractices of segregation and avoidance of the‘other’ which are predicated upon communitybackground. The lack of any recurrent violenceor contestation over public space or resources

suggests that he is describing rural segregationrather than an ‘interface’ as such.

Nevertheless, Murtagh’s study is useful in that itbrings to the fore some of the trends which maylead to an increase in tensions betweenmembers of the two main communities, andwhich might result in the creation of aninterface. In particular, Murtagh’s survey of ‘Oldtown’ found that the Protestant populationwere more likely to have lived in the town alltheir lives (63.3%) as opposed to 41.3% of their

Catholic counterparts, and Murtagh states thatthe increasing Catholic population in the townhas had a powerful impact upon the behaviour and attitudes of isolated communities.

Protestants were more likely to describe thetown as ‘Protestant’ (75.5%) compared to 27.5%of their Catholic counterparts who believed thetown was ‘Protestant’, and this may haveimportant repercussions in terms of visiblydisplaying the perceived political affiliation of thetown in terms of flags, parades and other political symbols. In terms of attitudes towardsspecific cultural events, 53.8% of Protestantrespondents in rural areas believed that‘traditional’ parades should be allowed to marchunhindered while 18% of Catholic respondentsbelieved this should be the case (Murtagh1999). Similarly Dunn (1995) acknowledged theconvergence between a distinct sense of identity and a desire to live separately and‘mark out’ territory:

The determination to remain distinctive and separate leads to drawing of boundaries or building of walls, to marking out territories and to a physical and emotional distancing fromothers (Dunn 1995: 4).

However, Hughes and Murphy (nd) contend thatthe manifestations of such divisions in ruralareas are often more subtle than those in urbancommunities:

with sectarian interfaces reflected less inphysical demarcation of territorial boundariesthan in shared ‘mental maps’ of ‘no go’ areas,and business and recreational behaviour patterns that serve to maintain and reinforcedivision (Hughes and Murphy nd: 4).

They suggest that a key issue in ruralcommunities is the extent to which the minoritycommunity is permitted to display its culture andcustoms. Rural Community Network’s Lost inTranslation report (2006) highlighted theprevalence of social exclusion in rural areaswhich was ‘either enforced by the majority or embraced by the minority’ , and concluded thatminority communities, whether in areasdominated by Protestants or by Catholics, oftenchose a strategy of withdrawal and played aminor role in wider community life, which in turncreates ‘communities within communities’ (Hughes and Murphy nd: 4; RCN 2006).

20



acceptable to Catholic neighbours . Oppositionto parades was generally equated with arejection of Protestant expression of identity (Crawley 2002a: 61).

Indeed in one area, Crawley found that therewas a sense of resentment that the majoritypopulation are content to have Protestantcustom in the village for most of the year butthey are not granted the right to march (Crawley2002a). A similar study, carried out in four

minority Catholic rural communities, foundmixed responses towards parades. While somerespondents stated an acceptance of the ‘right’to parade through the towns, others found LoyalOrder and/or band parades ‘triumphalist’ andthat they ‘should not walk where they are not wanted ’ (Crawley 2002b: 35).

An RCN study also found parades andopposition to parades to be a source of tensionin five communities in counties Antrim andDown with a Catholic minority. RCN found that

in one community, the small number of Catholics living in the area impacts upon theability of the community to organise activitieswhich are attractive to members of their community, primarily due to fears around safetyand identifying oneself as a Catholic. The reportindicated there was a general fear in expressingtheir identity in one area where Catholicsdescribed themselves as a ‘minority’ and thissubsequently impacted upon the sense of belonging of members of the minoritycommunity in such locations (RCN 2005).

As a result, many Catholic members of thecommunity ‘withdrew’ and did not involvethemselves with community life. In another townin the study where the Catholic population wasgrowing and the Protestant population declining:

in community E where the Catholic population isincreasing (with a corresponding decrease inthe Protestant population), participants spoke of Catholic antagonism towards Protestants on theTwelfth (RCN 2005: 20).

The Impact of the TroublesPeter Shirlow (2003) has noted that one-third of all politically motivated murders in Belfast duringthe Troubles took place within 250 metres of aninterface. However, a number of rural andborder areas were also significantly impactedupon by the violence of the Troubles. To thisextent, Morrow et al. (2000) commented that inthe rural setting:

local historic memories stretch much further into

the past, sometimes centering on memories of previous land ownership patterns or onatrocities whose implications remain alive today .Less mobile property relationships and thecontinuity of family and community memory inrural communities mean that injuries in rural communities have additional depth and length(Morrow et al. 2000: 14).

As touched upon earlier in the paper, Murtagh(1999) found that history of the conflict alongwith an associated perceived ‘need’ to sustain

one’s own community contributed to high levelsof segregation and avoidance of one another inrural towns. Similarly, Vincent (Curtin andWilson 1989) notes the impact of the high levelsof paramilitary violence in the early years of theTroubles on community relations in Rosslea andthe perception, particularly by members of theProtestant community in this border area, thatthe IRA killing of Protestant farmers wereattempts to ‘ ethnically cleanse ’ the area.Therefore, memory of events from during theTroubles, of ‘who did what, and to whom’,

(which are likely to be particularly strong in smallrural communities), combined with demographicchanges may result in a minority communityasserting its identity in a stronger fashion, asmore recent research has found to be thecase in Castlederg, County Tyrone (Hamiltonet al. 2008).

22



In ConclusionThere are clear distinctions betweensegregation and an interface. While an interfaceimplies a large degree of residentialsegregation, segregation by itself does notnecessarily result in an interface. There are anumber of examples across Northern Ireland of towns and villages that are dominated by thedynamics of sectarianism and segregation, butwhere residents employ ‘avoidance’ tactics andmaintain their social networks within their ‘own’community (Hamilton et al. 2008).

Some of the literature on segregation,sectarianism and divisions in rural areas hasadopted the terminology of ‘interfaces’ todescribe the physical demography of ruralsegregation and patterns of avoidance that helpsustain and perpetuate inter-communaldivisions. However, in the process of discussionand consultation with people living and workingin rural communities, there was strong feelingthat the concept of an ‘interface’ was also

strongly associated with a specific form of segregation, which was both urban and markedby recurrent outbursts or violence, which in turnhas necessitated the construction of variousforms of physical barriers. It was the presenceof barriers or ‘peacewalls’ that distinguished theinterface areas of urban environments from thefragmented and divided geography of rural areas.

It was acknowledged that the situation in sometowns, villages and rural communities boresome resemblances to the situation in Belfast

although they lacked the presence of barriers.At one end of a continuum, this included theexistence of patterns of segregation acrossmany aspects of social life, the existence of strategies of avoidance and limited forms of interaction and at the other end were areasmarked by inter-communal tensions, competingassertions of control and ownership of publicspace and acts of violence against individualsand property. We argue that such ‘contestedspaces’ stop short of being ‘interfaces’ as theylack the physical structures that both protectand deepen segregation.

Furthermore, the visible nature of the Belfastinterfaces and the scale and persistence of violence associated with such environments hasalso ensured that practices have beendeveloped and strategies put in place in anattempt to manage tension and conflict. Incontrast, there has been little attempt to defineor map those ‘contested spaces’ beyond Belfastand few discussions of the best ways to addressthe persistence of tensions that sustain andextend contested space.

23



Historical studies suggest that rural patterns of segregation and division are ultimately rooted inthe plantations of the 17th century (Rankin2005). Despite their deep historical roots in theplantation and the continued strongconsciousness of the land in vernacular tradition, these patterns of segregation are stillevolving. The Catholic population is expandingwhile the territorial boundaries of the older Protestant community are, on the whole,contracting, with its people moving inward intothe hinterland of Northern Ireland. In such acontext territorial divisions and inter-communalboundaries can be mobile and constantlychanging; in some areas the boundaries may‘soften’ while in others they ‘harden’. Newspaces of context may come into existence andold ones wither. There are parts of ruralNorthern Ireland where the ‘other’ community isnot present, has died out or has moved on.Where a minority dwindles below a criticalmass, it is no longer considered to bethreatening and the segregated communitybecome unviable and the territorial boundariesdisappear or move (Newry is one such example).

The most prominent event that has an impacton such divisions and transformations is theperiod leading up to partition, and particularlythe years immediately preceding the First WorldWar. The situation of communal tension thatsurrounded the Third Home Rule Bill wasdocumented in such a way as to give us thecontours of what can be identified assegregated spaces. The period 1912-14 saw alarge scale military mobilisation, first of Protestants, then of Nationalists, in the southernborder counties, with well-armed UVF unitsformed in Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal; alarge rally in Newbliss addressed by EdwardCarson in 1913; and widespread disturbancesbreaking out in summer 1914. The Protestantparts of these counties were well identified inthe RIC police reports and local press and arewhere the Protestant communities can still befound today. For example, in Monaghan alongan axis that stretches from Clontibret toCastleblayney, Drum, Newbliss and Clones, with

concentrations in other towns and villages suchas Glaslough (O’Donnell 2005), their social lifeis still well connected to Protestant communitieson the northern side of the border. No less sothan in Northern Ireland, the Protestantcommunity is unevenly spread. In Donegal, for example, there are concentrations in Raphoe,Ballintra, Donegal town, Dunkineely, Ardara andthe Finn valley. In other border counties, theProtestant communities can be identifiedthrough the presence of a local church or minister, with sub-categories of Church of Ireland, Presbyterian, Methodist and others.Many date back to individual local settlementsfrom the 16th century onward.

Further live evidence of rural interfacesstraddling the border may be found in thedocumentation of the Boundary Commission.This was set up, as part of the Treaty in 1921, todetermine the border between the two parts of Ireland (this is not unusual: India had theRadcliffe Commission in 1947). It did not report

until 1925 and the alterations of the border proposed, although minimal, so frightened thethree governments of Dublin, Belfast andLondon that they agreed to suppress the report.Eventually, with an uncanny sense of timing,judging it safe to release in 1969, just in time for the Troubles. The Boundary Commissionconsulted extensively along the border and tookin representations from interested parties. Theprincipal determinant was the religious (andtherefore political) identification or allegiance of each District Electoral Division (DED), asmapped in the 1911 census and this rawanalysis formed the basis of the subsequentproposed re-allocation of territory. The BoundaryCommission of course took in all the border counties, including Louth and Leitrim. If we wantto identify the trajectory of segregation, we needlook no further than these maps from 1925, for they give us its shapes and contours along theborder. Indeed, the Unionist representative onthe Commission, JR Fisher, spoke brutally buthonestly on how the border should beconstructed around religiously-identifiable DEDsto form, in his words, an ‘ethnographic frontier’.

24

4. Segregation in the Southern Border Counties 6

6 This chapter is edited from a longer paper commissioned from Brian Harvey (2010) to inform discussion as part of the consultation process.



The Commission’s coloured maps showed howit struggled to redefine the border along thesefractures, delineated by towns, rivers, uplandsand lowlands, former fortresses, enclaves andcorridors (Anderson & Bort 1999).

The Boundary Commission proposed astraightening of the border (and by implication arationalisation of segregation and division), withthe transfer of 32,000 people from the north tothe south and 7,500 from the south to the north

(Northern Ireland would have been smaller).Specifically, it proposed the transfer of a number of areas:

• The largely Catholic districts of south westFermanagh, south and south west Armaghwould go to the Free State;

• The Protestant enclaves of Drum (or Drumally), Mullyash, Church Hill andCarrickaslane, County Monaghan, would moveto the north, as would the Protestant salient ineast Donegal;

• The prosperous market town of Clones,County Monaghan, then dominated byProtestant traders, would have regained itshinterland in south-east Fermanagh, whichwould be transferred to the Free State.

Regardless of communal segregation, prior to1925 the border had been an area of considerable mobility for education, trade,commerce, the professions and transport. Andpartition transformed the region from a trading,

prosperous one into one of prolonged economicdecay, which was accelerated by restrictions ontrade (mainly by Dublin, not Stormont) and theroad closures introduced from 1969. Even if day-to-day activity, trade, economic prosperitywere brutally altered, there was no reason whythe underlying topography or allegiances of 1925 should have been much changed by theborder, nor are they in other countries visited byfresh borders (Todd 2005). Despite that, therediscovery of contested spaces along andacross the border seems to be a surprise.Paddy Logue’s engaging The Border (1999)committed to writing many views about the

border that people had hitherto been reluctant tocommit to paper but, interestingly, only onecontributor, English Quaker Janet Quilley,suggested that the interfaces of Belfast might bereplicated, in a different form, along the border.

The balance of evidence suggests thatsegregation and communal territorialism alongand across the border retain an underlyingintegrity, but have diminished in intensity.Southern Protestants knew that the political

question had, for them at least, been finallysettled, thereby removing some of the sharpedges of the antagonisms that had governedrelationships with their neighbours over 1912-25. But some qualifications are necessary:

• Many southern border Protestants continuedand still continue to have a ‘northward’orientation, be that for trade, shopping,education and schooling, media, employment(e.g. police) or associations.

• Even if the political question was closed,displays of identity assertiveness by southernborder Protestants were not welcome (andsome still are not). A minority of southernborder Protestants continued their associationwith the Orange Order, but intimidation forcedthe end of Orange marches in Monaghan inthe 1930s. Southern Orangeism persisted withbands and music, but their members learnednot to draw attention to themselves.

• Just as interfaces in the north had a seasonal,diurnal and intensity character, so too didtensions in the south. Tensions occasionallyflared in the southern border counties,especially whenever there was exceptionalviolence in the north, leading to sporadicattacks on rural Orange halls, for example.

• The Protestant community declined innumbers, due largely to differential emigration,a long-term trend halted only recently.

• The Emerald Curtain and other researchidentified the persistence of issues concerning

the Protestant community, such as lack of political recognition, funding for halls andsupport for community development. This is

25



confirmed by Walsh (2005) who reportedproblems in the area of schooling (bullying inmixed schools), employment, with some jobshaving a discomfort level (e.g. local authorities,Gardai) and politics (a reluctance to engage).Intermarriage levels are low (6% of marriages),confirming in her view an evident level of religious segregation.

Walsh’s research provides a modification to thesoftening theory, suggesting that it happens in

some areas of life rather than others. For theProtestant community in the southern border counties, separate identity became lessimportant in the areas of business, land, whereto live, healthcare and work, but remainimportant for family, marriage (or intermarriage),the church (its associations and facilities) andschooling. There were positive indicators of theProtestant community becoming, in the last tenyears, less isolated and more engaged with itsneighbours and the political administrativesystem, with good participation rates in national,

non-Church associated voluntary organisations.On the whole, indicators for the quality of community relations were more positive thanon the northern side of the border.

All these had the effects of ‘softening’ the earlier hard edges of segregation of the southernborder areas. Although population movementsduring the Troubles is often considered to besomething that happened only within NorthernIreland, between 22,000 and as many as 60,000people were displaced from the north, with most

people resettling in the southern border counties(such resettlement is again entirely typical of thecontested border region experience in post-reformation Europe). Many would have comefrom interface areas of the north and thosedisplaced were quick to note both the morerelaxed atmosphere of the south and thedistrust extended to them not by southernborder Protestants but by Catholics wary of republicans in their midst. Either way, they wererelieved not to find the hard sectarian interfacesthey had left behind.

Just as interfaces can both soften and harden,so too can their related borders. The Triskelestudy documents many ways in which the Irishborder has both hardened and softened since1925, sometimes with contradictory forcesworking simultaneously (Harvey et al 2005).There is a general assumption amongcontemporary border researchers that theEuropean Union provides a framework andenvironment in which borders weaken or ‘unfreeze’, concepts of multi-level governanceeclipse borders and benign regional identitiesand structures emerge (Bray undated; Todd2005). Hastings Donnan (2006) blends ananalysis of interfaces with the changingunderstanding of the nature of the border.Although borders to a greater degree andphysical interfaces to a lesser degree are, bydefinition, static, he argues that both are, inpractice, changing and dynamic. Just as ruralinterfaces contract and expand, so too does theborder. Even if the political border is more fixedand more certain, it is paradoxically less visible.The ‘real’ border is a line behind which theProtestant community feels strong, but it iscontracting all the time. Donnan quotesextensively from Protestants in Armagh, whorefer to - and some despair of - ‘holding their ground’ on the borderland against a tide of advancing nationalism. Even if the coerciveadvances of the Troubles are over, they nowtake the form of challenges to parades on thenarrowing periphery, all the time weakening thewill of the Protestant community to carry on. Asa result, the ‘real’ border gradually moves northall the time, a process he calls ‘re-bordering’.

Can one identify interfaces or contested spacesin the border areas now? Creamer et al (2008)published figures for religious affiliation alongthe border and refer to ‘pockets’ of Protestantpopulations but like most cross-border researchfocuses on the technical and administrativeissues to be overcome around co-operation(which can have the effect of sanitising the issueof the rural interfaces). Her maps thoughprovide a tantalising glimpse into thecontemporary topography of segregationand division.

26



Contact Across the Border The shelving of the report of the BoundaryCommission in 1925 not only made the sixcounty border permanent but was accompaniedby a decision by the three governments toshelve the intergovernmental structures agreedunder the Anglo-Irish treaty. Both cross-border co-operation and north-south intergovernmentalco-operation rapidly declined to theinconsequential. Civil society co-operationthough was relatively unaffected, with mostexisting 32-county bodies continuing to operateon an all island basis in fields such as thechurches, sport, academia and voluntaryorganisations. Where new organisations wereestablished in the north though, they tended tobe either Northern Ireland only or the NorthernIreland branch of a UK body.

The O’Neill-Lemass rapprochement of 1965,which inspired ambitious plans for north-southand cross-border co-operation, quickly iced asthe Troubles broke out in 1969. In the event, it

was civil society co-operation which proved themost sustainable. What entered the lexicon as‘track 2 diplomacy’ was the attempt to build upnon-coercive co- operation around commoninterests that would promote peace, theeconomy and mutual understanding (e.g. theJoint Business Council), doubly important at atime when governmental relationships werepoor. The University of Limerick tracked theevolution of this process, noting how thenumber of civil society bodies co-operating rosefrom 330 in 1995 to 500 by 1998, a trajectoryaccelerated both by the INTERREG cross-border programme from 1989 and the Peaceprogramme from 1994. The Good FridayAgreement restored and amplified the north-south architecture of the Treaty, but it isinteresting that one important part of theAgreement, the North South Civil SocietyConsultative Forum, has never beenimplemented, a poor reciprocation for thecontribution of civil society to the process thatmade the agreement possible.

The reopening of the roads in the 1990senabled a restoration of some of the cross-border activities ruptured earlier. The single

European market had the effect of eliminatingsignificant trading barriers and reduced, but didnot entirely eliminate the cross-border activitythat had prospered most in the interveningyears, that of smuggling. InterTrade Ireland hascatalogued a significant growth in north-southtrade, while entrepreneurial local authorityregions (eg ICBAN) have made major strides inco-operation in local government. Anderson(2006) has attempted to measure the nature of cross-border social and personal interaction,finding that the principal cross-border contactsrevolve around visiting friends and relatives,followed by shopping (following the currencydifferentials), then work and associationalactivity. The prime determinants of involvementare not religion (in many areas, Protestants aremore involved), but social class, being low for the most disadvantaged. Few showed muchinclination, desire or need to move home to theother side of the border, conveying animpression of stable, settled, rural communities.

Crawley (2002, 2003) shed some interestinglight on the northern Protestant community andthe border. She confirms the widelyacknowledged preparedness of northernProtestants to cross the border since theceasefire and the reopening of the roads;support for practical cross-border co-operationmatched by reluctance to embrace some formsof north-south co-operation. One of her (unidentified) four study areas was of particular interest, for here northern Protestants hadalways crossed the border into a Protestantcommunity that extended 5km into the south.

Information is available on civil society co-operation from a number of sources (Anderson2006; Acheson 2007; Harvey 2007). Takingthem together, the following picture emerges:

• Informal cross-border co-operation iswidespread, but still a minority activity,focused on sport and church-related activities;

• Formal cross-border co-operation byorganised civil society is a majority activity.It has become routine to the point that it is nolonger newsworthy. The proportion of community organisations participating in cross-

27



border activities is 85% (RoI) and 62% (NI).For north-south activities, the proportions aremuch lower, between 27% and 9% of voluntaryorganisations;

• Most formal co-operation is in ‘soft’ areas non-contentious to the national political agenda,the exception being ex-prisoner groups whoare prepared to look at and work on the issuesarising from the Troubles;

• Recent formal co-operation of communitydevelopment groups dates to the 1980s, butdid not receive meaningful funding until the1990s. The dominant areas are groupsworking with young people, older people,unemployed people and integration to thelabour market;

• More projects were initiated on the southernside than the northern side, the southern sidepressing for the relationship to be more regular and more formal. Having said that, most of thetraffic of ideas and new project fields has beenin the other direction, from north to south, insuch areas as the physical environment,mental health, conservation and communityhealth;

• Individual leadership plays an important role innorth-south co-operation, most projects owingmuch to an individual person of vision, energyand imagination and a strong belief in thedesirability and benefits of such co-operation;

• The organisational models of cross-border co-

operation take a variety of form: win pairs, jointtwin pairs, trans-boundary projects, clustersand, the purest of them all, the singlepartnership;

• There is an identifiable strand of co-operationbetween organisations in Northern Ireland andthose in the Republic far from the border (asfar as Cork). Such co-operation is ambiguous,for on the one hand it permits a broader agenda including ‘hard’ issues, but does sofrom a safer distance.

• These studies did not pay attention to and didnot examine the issue of contested spacesassociated with rural segregation on the twosides of the border, but two observations areworth making. First, community developmentprojects along the border are overwhelminglyclustered in two main concentrations, Derryand Newry, with three minor concentrations,Armagh, Enniskillen and Strabane. Evenallowing for low population density, the number of groups in the ruralised areas (especially theborder along the south-west of NorthernIreland) was small. Second, as alreadyobserved, the projects tended to focus onsofter issues and, barring ex-prisoner associations, few projects appeared toaddress segregated or contested space(the Border Protestant group is a possiblythe most forthright).

International ComparisonA significant weakness in the research has beenthe lack of international comparators. The

Peace programme did fund useful internationalwork on borders, especially the mammothMapping Frontiers, Plotting Pathways project.Although the research found some uniquefeatures of the Irish border, by and large itidentified the fact that problem borders havebeen an enduring theme of European history.Irish history is less distinctive than we mightimagine. Thanks to this research, and thebroader work of the Centre for InternationalBorders Research based in Queen’s University,we now have a substantial new body of knowledge of borders, their origins, formationand impacts.

What does not appear to have featured stronglyin border research generally is an examinationof contested or defended spaces in rural areas.One country which strongly invites comparisonis Bosnia Herzegovina, where there is abundantevidence of segregated living patterns - of Serbvillages, Croat territories and dispersed ruralcommunities and Muslim towns (Glenny 1999).The Balkan war was full of the language of contested spaces, of the Pale enclave, of besieged towns where one community abuttedanother (Sarajevo), while the map of the Pax

28



Americana with which it concluded could havebeen transposed over the maps of our ownBoundary Commission of 1925. Indeed, thenegotiations that led to the Dayton accordsrevolved around maps and prospectivepartitions, maps which attempt to setboundaries according to these rural divisions.The experience of that region providesexamples of how a country attempted toaddress the problem of the rural segregationduring the Yugoslavian period, unsuccessfully inthe event, and invites comparison in its presentattempt to reconstruct and build a new andmore enduring political settlement. TheEuropean Union, in its Democracy programmein the Balkans, provides examples of projectsthat conceptually go far beyond the peaceprogramme in trying to break barriers and buildnew relations in ethnographically dividedsocieties.

There are several reasons why it is important toaddress the issue. First, just as the peace

process was built on community supportstrongly promoted through the peaceprogramme, there is always the danger that itcan be undermined by the continued failure toaddress underlying tensions and issues.Second, segregated and contested spaces arenot just socially but economically inefficient,distorting trade, employment and education.Border regions can be some of the mostprosperous parts of the European Union (look atthe Rhine triangle), but not if held back bysubstantial levels of community conflict or ill-ease and intractable concentrations of poverty.People in the border counties are aware that thePeace programmes are drawing to a close, butthe issue of segregation and division providesan on-going challenge and unfinished businessto resolve or at least ameliorate.

In ConclusionThe issue of the ‘interface’ is a recent one in ananalysis of the Troubles that has evolved over the past forty years and continues to do so.It may have come to prominence because it isthe most visible reminder of the conflict. ‘Theborder ’ is a relatively recent field of studyrelated to the Troubles, which did not emergeuntil the late 1980s and owes much to freshEuropean thinking on borders.

Rural segregation, along and across what isnow the border had similar historical roots to thepatterns of division in Northern Ireland. Itstopography is very evident in the militarisation of the border counties in 1912 and in the reports of the Boundary Commission in 1925. The patternof settlement of the Protestant community in thesouthern border counties has similar features tosegregated communities in the north. In effect,the past five years have seen the rediscovery of the rural segregation in the southern border counties, which has softened in some areas

(e.g. business, location) but not others (churchallegiance, schooling, intermarriage).

There is evidence from some researchers of aneffective re-bordering of the border, with theperceived boundary in effect moving north.As the inter-governmental border becomes lessvisible, the border between the communitiesmoves northward as the segregated, older Protestant communities retreat. The picture iscomplicated by the population movement of 60,000 displaced persons to the border

counties, mainly northern nationalists frominterface areas. Displaced northern nationalistsfound the southern border counties relaxedcompared to their former homes, the mainnegative reactions coming from suspicioussouthern nationalists.

The border had a severe negative economiceffect on the prosperity of the border countiesand severed many trading links, with socialconnections cut by road closures. Despite this,civil society co-operation survived and indeed

sustained dialogue between both parts of theisland. Civil society co-operation accelerated

29



markedly in the 1990s and is now routine.There is a high level of cross-border co-operation between community organisations,focused on young people, old people,unemployed people and labour marketintegration. The number of communitydevelopment groups in the most ruralised areasis quite small. Only a small number of projects,mainly involving ex-prisoners, deal with the‘hard’ post-conflict issues, while hardly anyappear to deal with issues of the ruralsegregation in the southern border region.

The border in Ireland, although it has someparticular features, is not unique by Europeanstandards. Other border areas are characterisedby similar partitions, segregation, ruralinterfaces and topographies, notably BosniaHerzegovina, which offers us usefulcomparisons in how such issues may beaddressed. Issues of segregation and divisionare not immutable and can be addressedthrough policies, programmes, projects and

funding. Governments have already worked todesegregate workplaces and the RuralCommunity Network has outlined ways in whicha community development approach offers thepromise, step by step and over a long period of time, to address patterns of segregation andcontest over space in rural areas.

The following sections of the report outlinesome of the factors that can impact upon thedevelopment and maintenance of contestedspaces, and identifies some of the differenttypes of contested spaces that can be found intowns, villages, rural areas and border regionsbeyond Belfast.

30



Our working definition of contested space is of ‘a largely segregated environment in whichelements of the local geography are contested by members of the two main communities and involves current or recent acts of violence,threat of violence or fear of violence’ . Our research suggests that a number of key factorsare necessary if segregated space is to becomecontested space. These include:

• Demographic factors that impact upon a sense

of control or dominance over space;• The emergence of a degree of contest over

space, resources and or services;

• The quality of relationships between membersof the Protestant unionist and Catholicnationalist communities, including the qualityof political and community leadership;

• The presence of trigger events and activities;

• The existence of temporal triggers;

• The availability of target sites; and

• The experience of acts of sectarian violence.

These factors assume that contested space isnot a fixed entity but is something that emergesas a result of the intersection of territoriality,demographic change and commemorative, ritualor cultural events that raise tensions betweenthe two communities. The dynamics of contested space will differ from location tolocation and may be influenced by the location

of key buildings and resources and by factorssuch as the time of day, time of year, thepresence of ‘trigger’ events and the presence or absence of individuals who may aim to stir tension and provoke acts of violence.

As such contested space may be relatively fluidor ‘temporary’. It may become more permanentif tensions are raised, but in smaller towns andrural areas may also be rather porous, and evenignored, for much of the time in a way thatinterfaces marked by physical barriers cannot

be. This section briefly reviews some of thefactors that may impact upon when and wherecontested space develops.

One should also note that the area ‘beyondBelfast’ includes a wide range of communitiesand environments which range from cities, suchas Derry/ Londonderry, through towns of varyingsize to villages and more scattered settlementsfocused on townlands. It is difficult toconceptualise a framework that applies equallyand comprehensively to such a range of settlements.

Geographic/Demographic Factors

Contested space requires the emergence or development of a number of demographicfactors that impinge on the local geography.

1. Concentrated Population: In general, thereneeds to be a concentration of populationwhich may be a town, village or other form of settlement. Contested space is less likely toexist among a scattered or widely dispersedrural population, although there may well bestrongly identified patterns of land ownershipand segregation in such areas which are in

turn marked by patterns of avoidance andconcerns for personal safety.

2. Proximity: The members of the twocommunities must be within reasonabledistance of one another. Two villages, onepredominately Protestant and the other predominately Catholic, which are few milesapart, will not necessarily constitute acontested space given the geographicseparation although trigger events andactivities may serve to consolidate social andphysical segregation into more formalisedcontested space.

3. Changing Demographic Balance: Anincrease (or decrease) in the size or proportion of either the majority or the minoritycommunity may lead to a perception amongthe majority community that ‘their’ town or village is ‘changing’. This may increasetensions as the longer established communitymay seek to assert or re-assert its politicalidentity. Although contested spaces aregenerally viewed in terms of Protestant-Catholic relations, the presence of another ethnic or national minority community mayalso serve as the basis for hostile segregation.

31

5. The Creation of Contested Space



4. Residential Concentration: Members of theminority community must live close enoughtogether to enable them to claim parts of thelocal environment as ‘their’ areas. If theminority is scattered or evenly distributedthroughout an area they are probably lesslikely to assert their presence in a public way.

5. Critical Mass: The minority communityneeds to achieve a ‘critical mass’ to be ableto assert itself within the local area. If the

minority community is too small in numbers itis less likely to assert itself, but rather willadopt a ‘keep your heads down’ approach toissues that might cause offence or fear.

6. Minority Perceived as a Threat: Complaintsby a minority community against the activitiesof the majority or demands for space for itscultural activities may contribute to feelings of hostility among the majority and be perceivedas further evidence of change for the worse.

7. Presence of Trigger Opportunities: Thesemay be associated with annual events suchas parades, cultural celebrations or sportingactivities, less regular events such aselections, a reaction to a specific incident; or be the culmination of factors such as accessto local services, resources or public space.

8. Presence of Negative Elements: Tensionsmay be actively encouraged or provoked bythe presence of individuals or a small number of people who actively desire to increase fear and hostility between communities. Theactive presence of dissident republicans or loyalists was identified as a growing issue insome rural communities.

9.Demographic Similarities: In larger settlements, the process of contested spacemay be more likely to develop wheredemographic changes are occurring amongworking class communities or betweendiscrete working class residential areas.It is less likely that contested space willdevelop between a working class and amiddle class area.

10. Demographic Dissimilarity: Members of the two communities may share space withfewer problems if their demographic profilesare dissimilar and there is less contestationover resources or physical space, for example where one community has a youngdemographic profile and the other an elderlyone.

11. Site of Conflict: Depending on the scale or nature of local geography, the contest

between the two communities may occur near residential areas, at the geographicalcentre or may be displaced outside tosymbolic properties (churches, memorials,Orange Halls, GAA clubs) in the hinterlandwhich are often isolated, vulnerable and‘easy’ targets.

The list of factors highlights that change inpopulation demographics can result in theestablishment of ‘new’ or shifting boundarieswithin local geographies. Demographic changes

may result in an increase in tension which maymanifest itself in disputes over the nature androuting of parades, sporting events, culturalcommemorations and policing. A growing andconfident minority population may desire todisplay their own identity and resist claims bythe ‘other’ community to ownership of territory or public space, whereas a small number of individuals living in a dispersed patternthroughout a settlement may be more inclined to‘keep their heads down’.

Indicators of demographic change may includean increasing display of flags, street signs in thelanguage/dialect of the ‘other’, protests or objections to ‘traditional’ activities and aperceived curtailment on ‘traditional’ culturalevents and commemorations which all mayindicate to some members of one communitythat the ‘other’ community has increased itsinfluence in an area.

Age/Gender There is an increased likelihood of contestedspace emerging if the two communities have asimilar mix of a young age demographic. Theconsultation events highlighted the negative rolethat young people can play in raising and

32



sustaining tensions whether this was associatedwith cultural activities, anti-social behaviour or,more simply, the night time economy (Hamiltonet al. 2008). In particular, young males play aprominent role as perpetrators of both interfaceand antisocial violence and ‘defenders’ of their community. In contrast research has found thatfemales are less likely to be perceived as athreat when crossing perceived communalboundaries and may also perceive suchboundaries as less of a barrier to movementand interaction (Lysaght and Basten 2003).However it must be noted that females do attimes play their role in raising tensions andencouraging acts of aggression towards the‘other’ community.

Older people may also view the nature of contested space differently than the younger members of the community. On one hand, theyfeel less threatened by the risk of attack or assault, on the other hand their routines andmovements may be marked by the memories of

activities and incidents that took place manyyears ago, or of how the geography of spaceand place, and the orderings of social hierarchyhave changed for better or worse over time.

RelationshipsThere is more likelihood of tensions buildingbetween communities and of these developinginto acts of violence if the relationships betweenmembers of the two communities are poor or if there are limited opportunities for interactionbetween them. Many researchers and

commentators have noted the prevalence, evendominance, of various avoidance strategies inmany rural areas as people keep to themselvesand their ‘own’, use different services andresources and live together in parallel lives,while research on inter-communal conflict inSouth Asia has highlighted that such conflictswere more likely to occur in areas where therewere limited cross community networks(Varshney 2002). In highly segregatedenvironments, attitudes to members of the other community tend to be based on stereotyping,suspicion and mistrust which in turn helps tosustain and further extend practice based onavoidance and reduces lines of communicationwhich could be mobilised to defuse tension.

It was suggested that a strong presence of single identity organisations such as the GAA or the Orange Order might be a further factor thatinhibited opportunities for contact andinteraction, particularly among younger people.Although it was also noted that suchorganisations can and do play important roleswithin single identity communities, they couldperhaps explore ways in which they could domore to build links across the divide.

Politicians and other community and religiousleaders were also highlighted as having aprominent role to play in either facilitatingcontacts or furthering segregation. But all toooften, people felt that such figures abrogatedtheir responsibilities to build bridges and further interaction in favour of building their statusamongst a single section of the community byemphasising threats and risks and the need todefend partial interests.

Trigger Events

There are a variety of events and activities thattake place in many communities that do notcreate tensions or problems in and of themselves, but when some degree of tensionalready exists then such events may ‘trigger’ aresponse or reaction that can lead to anincrease in tension and even to attacks andviolence.

Protests or opposition by members of onecommunity to events and activities organised bymembers of the other community on a singleidentity basis may be viewed as a significantindication of a contestation over territory. Thesignificance of many single identity social or cultural activities is in their implied ‘claim’ to theterritory or a specified physical space:

Processions and bonfires have a similar territorial implication. One of the things that aprocession or bonfire asserts is the right of theethnic group to march or build a bonfire in aparticular area. It is this aspect of such public demonstrations that makes them likely to becomeviolent (Buckley and Kenney 1995: 155).

33



The demonstration by one community of whatthey believe to be a visible affirmation of their political and cultural identity and a display,particularly in rural areas significantly impactedupon by the Troubles, that they are ‘still here’ isgenerally viewed very differently by members of the ‘other’ community (Hamilton et al. 2008). 7

The main forms of trigger events that have beenidentified are parades, bonfires, sporting events,displays of flags and election posters.

Parades and ProtestsMurtagh (1999) found that attitudes towardsparades differed significantly betweenProtestants and Catholics (perhaps notsurprisingly). In one rural town surveyed, 98% of Protestants felt that traditional parades shouldhave the complete freedom to parade comparedto just 33.5% of Catholics (Murtagh 1999). 8

In recent years it has been well documented that the tension and violence associated with paradesand opposition to parades have served to deepenthe sense of difference between the two maincommunities (Hamilton et al. 2008: 28).

As Murtagh (2002: 31) points out, ‘ territory isvital to the expression of identity ’ and accordingto Hamilton and McBride (forthcoming):

in rural areas, the lack of ‘peacewalls’ has led communicative acts, such as parades, attackson symbolic buildings, and displays of identity tobecome the primary methods and tools to exert domination over social space and clearly

demarcate territorial boundaries (Hamilton andMcBride forthcoming: 6).

The cyclical nature of the marching season andprotests against parades in some areas canresult in tensions peaking and troughingthroughout the year. Hypothetically speaking, aSt Patrick’s Day parade may cause tensions inMarch with tensions again increasing throughthe loyalist marching season in June and Julyand then again in August during nationalistcommemorative events and, if a GAA team is

doing well, public celebrations may extend into

September. In such an environment, there islimited time and space for dialogue to bedeveloped and reactions to events will be dealtwith in more of an ad hoc manner.

A 2004 survey of sectarianism and communityrelations in the Limavady District Council areafound that parades through Limavady towncentre could impact upon interaction andrelations between the two communities and thata growing nationalist community in Limavady

may be a future source of conflict:It was clear even though there had not beenviolent confrontations between the two major communities, the growing issue of paradescombined with the changing demographics hasthe potential to escalate tensions within theborough (Byrne 2004b: 18).

It is also the case that the Parades Commissiondeterminations may actually ‘create’ or demarka contested space by designating a locationwhich a parade may not proceed past. InPomeroy, for example, the Parades Commissionissued a determination restricting a march to apoint on Main Street which clearly demarcatesthe territory along Orange/Green lines, while inDunloy, the Parades Commission determinationspecifies that loyal order parades may notproceed beyond the Orange Hall which againset a clear physical boundary. The presenceof contentious parades in any locationmay therefore be a useful indicator of acontested space.

Bonfires

Bonfires are used to mark a variety of anniversaries by both communities, with themain events taking place on the Eleventh Nightin July, the anniversary of internment in August,at Halloween in October, and Lundy burnings tomark the Closing of the Gates which marked thebeginning of the siege of Derry in December.

Eleventh Night bonfires are closely associatedwith the Twelfth parades and have been subject

to council led initiatives in many areas in recent

34

7 In her study of a small rural town in Northern Ireland, Cecil (1993) describes the pattern of settlement in the town ‘Glengow’ which is described as apredominantly Protestant rural town located near to a republican area, and Cecil argues that issues relating to identity and the ‘telling’ of one’s religionand expression of identity occurs on ritual occasions for both communities, mainly during the marching season. For further information on the processof ‘Telling’ another’s identity, see Burton (1978).



years in an attempt to reduce their negativeimpact on the environment and to limit sectariandisplays. Internment fires have greatly reducedin number over recent years and in many areas,bonfires have been replaced by festivals or cultural activities but in contrast there is someevidence that Halloween bonfires have becomemore prominent and are associated with risingtensions in some communities. Young peoplehave been at the forefront of inter-communityviolence in Annalong in recent years during theHalloween celebrations, which has highlightedthe presence of a contested space in theharbour area of the town. Young people fromboth communities have been involved inlaunching fireworks at one another andindependent monitors have been deployedin an attempt to prevent such incidents.

Arches

The erection of Orange arches (the nationalisttradition of erecting arches barely survived the

nineteenth century) remains a feature of themarching season in many rural communitiesand as transient structures, they often have adramatic impact on both the visual and thesymbolic appearance of an area during thesummer months. There have been a relativelysmall number of occasions in which the erectionof an arch has been a source of contention, butdemographic changes may make the erection of arches in some locations be seen as aprovocative marking of public space.

Sporting EventsCertain sporting events and particularly Old Firmmatches have proved to be a trigger event for violence (particularly amongst young males)over a number of years. Research has foundthat Celtic versus Rangers matches can beparticularly problematic when the two maincommunities live in single identity estates inclose proximity to one another (Jarman 2006).GAA matches have occasionally triggeredincidents of sectarian violence, particularly whena club side or one of the six northern countieshas been successful at a national level, but GAAhas more readily been associated with sectarian

violence when a GAA hall has been attacked or a prominent individual in the organisation hasbeen targeted. More recently the success of various local counties has led to an increase indisplays of GAA flags.

Flags/Symbols

For the purposes of this study we havesuggested that the presence of flagsrepresenting the traditions of both maincommunities may indicate a contestation over territory. Bryson and McCartney highlighted theoften divisive nature of specific flags and other national symbols in Northern Ireland which are:

associated with allegiance, loyalty, territory and authority (Bryson and McCartney 1994).

Deloitte (2008) found that if a particular areadevelops a reputation as being unsafe for onesection of the community, people are less likelyto cross community boundaries to use facilitiesor access services while Bryan et al. (2008)

found that extensive displays of flags impactedupon members of the ‘other’ community andtheir decision to shop in such a location. Thiswas supported by findings of the NorthernIreland Life and Times survey which showedthat 38% of respondents would be ‘less willing’to shop in an area with displays of loyalist flags,while 46% would be ‘less willing’ to shop in anarea dominated by republican flags (ARK 2008).This may in part be linked to a widespread belief that paramilitary groups are responsible for putting up flags: 66% of respondents to the NILTin 2008 believed that loyalist paramilitaries putup flags in loyalist areas and 69% of respondents believed that republicanparamilitaries were responsible for displayingflags in nationalist/republican areas (ARK 2008).RCN has highlighted work by Noelle Donnellwhich argues that the issue of flags andemblems in rural areas has not been addressedin the same way as in Belfast, citing the lack of uptake by community groups outside of urbanareas in relation to funding under the Re-Imagining Communities programme (RCN 2008).

35



While the flying of flags often tends to beassociated with the Protestant/unionistcommunity, there are also notable displays of Irish nationalist emblems at Easter and again inAugust to commemorate internment and thehunger strikes. Additionally, if a particular Ulster GAA team is doing well in the All-Irelandcompetition, whether at a county or club level,there is often a dramatic increase in the flying of their flag to ‘support the team’. However, from aunionist perspective, this is likely to be viewedas another means of demarcating‘nationalist/republican’ territory.

Elections

The pre-election period was highlighted as atime when polarised identities could becomeprominent and raise tensions. Such times wereoccasions for speeches and events thathighlighted the different interests of the twomain communities, when politicians emphasisedthe needs and fears of highly polarised

electorates and when posters are erected tohighlight the different candidates, but which mayalso served to visibly demarcate sectariandivisions within the physical landscape.

Road Signs

The practice of scoring out parts of the namesof towns or villages on road signs in some areaswas also highlighted as an indicator of hostilityor antagonism towards the ‘other’ communityand which could serve as a chill factor ininfluencing people’s behaviour.

Other Displays that ‘Tell’

A small number of other factors were identifiedthat might serve to act as indicators of howpublic space was being differently regarded bydifferent sections of the two communities andwhich might be considered as being used toassert a collective claim over elements of thephysical environment. These signs included thewearing of school uniforms, particularly whenchildren gather at bus stops and the presence of

people displaying religious or commemorativesymbols such as on Ash Wednesday or thewearing of poppies close to RemembranceSunday. Wearing of football or GAA shirts has

long been recognised as behaviour that evokesa variety of positive and negative responses butso too was the presence of public taxis whosename suggested a sectarianised identity andalso the presence of cars with southern number plates in some border areas.

Temporal FactorsContested space may become more evident ondifferent days of the week, at different times of the day or at different times of the year. An

individual who may feel free to move around alocation through the week may be more fearfulof doing so on a Saturday evening, particularlyin small rural towns where there may be asignificant degree of residential segregation anda vibrant night-time economy including anumber of bars, clubs, fast food outlets etc.Segregated spaces may become moreprominent at night-time when the fear of beingattacked because of one’s communitybackground is heightened.

Research by Hamilton et al (2008) found thatthere were tensions associated with the nighttime economy in a number of smaller towns. InCastlederg, Co Tyrone, segregation betweenthe predominantly Protestant bottom of the townand the predominantly Catholic top of the townwas more evident at weekends when the towncentre became a more evidently contestedspace. The numerous bars were divided bycommunity background and the presence of avibrant local night-time economy heightened thesense of territorial demarcation. At night the

centre became contested between someyounger members of both communities and fastfood outlets and taxi depots divided alongcommunity background. Thus the night timeeconomy of a town or village may play animportant role in defining when exactly spacemay be considered as contested.

The time of year may impact upon the dynamicsof contested space as community tensions mayincrease in many areas during the summer marching season. Although this is largely

associated with ‘Orange’ parades, bandcompetitions and nationalist or republicancommemorations including Easter commemorations, the anniversary of the hunger

36



strikes and of internment, may also impact oncommunity relations in different communities. Infact, in some areas tensions may rise and fall inresponse to a variety of parades or sportingevents over a period of months from Easter onwards. Although the situation may return tonormal between key events, the repetition of events and activities may increase tensions to acrescendo over the summer period.

Presence of Negative Elements

The presence of a potential trigger event or temporal triggers may not automatically provokea reaction, sometimes an individual or group of individuals was required to exploit its potential.Such ‘negative elements’ might be a group of youths, political opponents or supporters of adissident position who were willing and able toexploit an opportunity by vocalising objectionsand mobilising people onto the streets. Similarly,events or activities that had previously takenplace without any contention may becomecontentious as a result of the efforts of a

relatively small number of people to use this asan opportunity to increase tensions in a locality.

A number of people highlighted the role of dissident republicans in increasing sectariantensions in some rural areas. At one level, thisoccurred simply as a result of knowledge of dissident activity in the vicinity, but it might alsooccur in response to public mobilisations either for a protest or a commemoration or due to theresurgence of interest in cross-communityissues that had previously been resolved or

addressed.This factor highlights the often fragile nature of inter community relationships, the ongoingpotential of trigger events to raise tension, theunderlying possibilities for segregatedcommunities to be transformed into oppositionalcommunities and for the need for activenetworks and political leadership to counter such uncertainties.

Targets of Sectarian ViolenceThe outcome of an increase in inter-communaltensions may be a violent attack on people or property belonging to the ‘other’ community.PSNI data on hate crime reveals a persistent

annual figure of around 1,500 sectarian incidentseach year. In Belfast, police data indicates a highlevel of sectarian violence in or near manyinterface areas and it may well be that mappingsectarian incidents could be a means of identifying contested spaces in other towns andvillages.

Attacks on Symbolic Properties

Although residential property may be the mostcommon target of sectarian violence, attacks onsymbolic property may have more significance ata community level. By a symbolic property, wemean a building that can be readily identified withone of the two main communities such as Orangeor AOH Halls, GAA clubs, churches, chapels,cemeteries and other religious buildings,memorials and other structures. An attack onsuch a property may be considered as a symbolicattack on that community and will also beindicative of tensions in an area. Lysaght andBasten (2003) found that even one act of

sectarian violence can affect community wideperceptions of safety and danger and suchattacks will impact upon an individual’s spatialbehaviour.

RCN (2003) found that the majority of participantsin their study engaged in community activitywhich was overwhelmingly church related andwhich provided the main channel of communication for Protestants, particularly inrural areas, while a 2005 report by RCNhighlighted the important community orientatedrole played by the GAA (RCN 2005). Osborne(2009: 5) points out that ‘ in rural areas thereappears to be a greater utilisation of church-based services and of community support offered by organisations such as the GAA and Loyal Orders ’, while Murphy notes that given the trendin rural areas for community activity to be basedaround these predominantly single identityorganisations, it is worrying that attacks onsymbolic properties increased from 30 attacks onchurches and chapels in 2001 to 83 in 2005,while during the same period, attacks on Orange

Halls increased from 16 to 35 (Murphy 2009b).Murtagh found that attacks on symbolic buildingswere viewed as an attack ‘ not just on a building,but on a people ’ (Murtagh 1999: 41).

37



Criminal damage to symbolic buildings is oftenhighly emotive due to their communal andcultural significance and may serve toperpetuate revenge attacks. Attacks may takeplace on buildings in an isolated and vulnerablelocation as they are relatively easy to hit andthen ‘get out’ without being identified. The socio-cultural importance of these social institutionsmeans that such attacks are likely to havepractical and emotive implications that willreverberate throughout the community fuellingmistrust and creating inter-communal tension.

Memorials

Formal and informal memorials to those whohave died in wars, during the Troubles, or as aresult of other incidents, are emotive remindersof the troubled past that many communitieshave lived through, but they may be a source of contention in local communities. What may toone community be designed to offer a point of reflection on the past may be considered as

offensive to members of the other community.Murtagh (2002: 111) suggests that memorialsact ‘as a mark of territorial ownership.Monuments are potent symbols of hurt,community defiance and security and are locked deeply into the social consciousness of bothcommunities as well as the landscape ’.Disputes over memorials or commemorativeevents, like parades, may serve as an indicator of contestation over territory.

Isolated Individuals

The existence of segregation may be lessevident in areas with a low population density or one dominated by isolated households. But thevery fact of such low density and relativeisolation may lead people to be or to feelvulnerable to attack, particularly if there havebeen acts of violence against other individualsor properties. This in turn may lead people torestrict their movements at certain times or inmore extreme situations may lead them toabandon their homes and move to an areawhere they feel safer.

In ConclusionThis section has outlined some of the keydemographic factors that are associated withthe emergence and sustenance of contestedspace and has also discussed some key trigger events and activities that may serve to increasetensions and consolidate patterns of segregation into a more formalised physicaldivide. From this we can postulate that acontested space will require a particular demographic profile, with a sizeable minoritycommunity. This community will also need to beliving in a concentrated area which is confidentenough to begin to assert its public presencethat the majority community begins to perceivethem as a threat to previous relations andcontrol over geography.

The latent tensions may be triggered into amore active conflict as a result of the impact of trigger events such as parades, bonfires or sporting events and subsequent sectarianviolence may be directed against individuals,

residential and symbolic properties, while suchattacks may occur both at the contested spaceor it may be displaced to accessible targets inmore isolated rural areas.

While this report has identified a series of indicators of segregation and division, there islimited data available at a level that can be usedto map contested spaces at a local level (seeAppendix for an overview list). For example,PSNI data on sectarian hate crimes is usuallyonly available at DCU level, while the police do

not gather data on attacks on symbolicproperties in all areas; data on contestedparades is available from the ParadesCommission but only by individual parade; flagdisplays have only been mapped on the mainthoroughfares; while councils have only a veryrough idea of the numbers of bonfires in their areas. It is therefore very difficult to gather acoherent picture of the scale of violence or conflict at a local level and therefore impossibleto map contested spaces or identify temporaltrends in a clear manner. Systematic gatheringof data on core indicators of sectarian tensionswould therefore be a clear step forward.

38



Contested spaces will emerge or be created insituations where members of differentcommunities live segregated lives and wherepersistent or recurrent tensions result in thepatterns of segregation being manifested insome physical form or in the ways that peoplebehave. Contested spaces thus assume apattern of segregation but are more than justsegregation. The research has identified avariety of forms that contested space may takein towns and villages across Northern Ireland.It may occur in three main forms:

• As a relationship between a population centreand its hinterland;

• Where tension or violence occurs in the centralarea of a town or village; and

• Where tension or violence occurs betweenresidential areas.

Each form may display slightly differentcharacteristics depending on the scale of the

settlement, the nature of the interaction betweencommunities and the transience or permanenceof the division. From this we have identifiedeight broad types of contested space; these arebroadly listed in an order which begins withthose patterns that are more evident in ruralareas and moves to those which are moreevident in an urban environment. The exceptionis the border which is broadly rural but is also adiverse environment and is considered last:

1. Centre – Hinterland: A predominately single

identity small rural settlement, surrounded bya hinterland with a large percentage of the‘other’ community.

2. Neighbouring Villages: The area betweentwo highly segregated but physically closevillages or small communities.

3. Divided Village: A small rural settlementwhere tensions are worked out in the centrerather than between residential areas.

4. Contested Centre: Similar to the above butin larger towns which may have largelysegregated central areas where tensions areplayed out on occasions.

5. Thoroughfare: A single identity communitywhich members of the ‘other’ community passthrough on a regular basis.

6. Neighbouring Estates: The boundary areabetween two single identity residentialestates.

7. Protected Territories: Residentialboundaries that are marked by a physicalbarrier, similar to those in Belfast.

8. The Border: The border has been identifiedas a specific type of contested space, butwhich has different characteristics in differentareas.

It is also important to acknowledge that thereare other forms of segregation or factors thatinfluence segregation in rural areas of NorthernIreland. In particular these include elements of the physical landscape such as rivers, lakes,mountains and hills which provide barriers thatmay socially be perceived as ‘natural’ forms of

segregation; or patterns of land ownership,particularly when land ownership is alsoassociated with community background andwhich results in restrictions on willingness to sellland out of the community or to members of the‘other’ community. Whilst it is acknowledged thatan attachment to a particular area of land andintergenerational ownership and stewardship of land can be a positive factor in ruralcommunities, such assertions of ‘natural’ controlmay also be factors that further consolidatesegregation. We consider that without theexistence of an element of contestation over space, such features or activities do not on their own meet our criteria for being classified ascontested space.

The following section discusses some of thedynamics of the seven different types of contested space, set out above, in greater detail.

39

6. Forms of Contested Spaces



Centre-HinterlandA number of villages display similar characteristics: a centre populated by onecommunity and a surrounding hinterland with alarge percentage of the ‘other’ community.Historically, and often until relatively recently,the centre may have been a more mixedenvironment which served both the residentsand the population of the hinterland by providingshops, services and resources and may also

house key symbolic properties. However, theTroubles, demographic changes and localtensions have led to subtle or overt reframing of local boundaries, such that the hinterland isconsidered separate from the centre and accessto the resources of the centre are denied toresidents of the ‘other’ community living beyondthe boundaries of the settlement.

This centre-hinterland model of contested spaceexists in villages such as Dunloy, Pomeroy andRosslea, which have become synonymous in

the public eye in recent years as a result of disputes over parades. In such locations,symbolic buildings or sites such as churches,graveyards, memorials and Orange Halls arelocated in or on the edge of the village and haveserved as a key point of attachment for peopleliving in the hinterland. Such sites serve as apoint of attachment for the minority communitybut may be the target of attack by a smallnumber of members of the majority community.

A number of centre-hinterland communitieshave experienced tension most readily throughdisputes over parades, which have generallyarisen following a growth in the nationalistpopulation and a proportionate decline in theunionist population.

The dynamics of the centre-hinterland contestedspace are different to an urban area. For muchof the year, the contested space may berelatively porous and geographic boundarieslargely ignored but at certain times, a trigger event may transform the centre into contestedspace. While the impact of certain trigger eventson patterns of behaviour may reduce the moretime passes from the event itself, indeed theday after an event/parade ‘things may havereturned to normal’ , the psychology of demarcating territory will remain in the mindsof local residents.

In this sense, there is also the distinct possibilitythat a decision relating to a parade will have adifferential impact upon the residents of a townor village. This may particularly be the case intowns with a nationalist majority in whichcontested space created by the paradedissipates after the event and the nationalistresidents may ‘go about their business asusual’ , while Protestant residents of the villageand/or the hinterland may feel less of a sense of belonging to the town and turn to neighbouringtowns (with a Protestant majority perhaps) toaccess shops and services and thus further entrenching rural segregation.

40

M M



Divided VillageA third variety of contested space relates tosmall settlements which have a mixedpopulation, but with members of the twocommunities being residentially segregated.The village may have a number of single identityareas or housing estates but with no commonboundaries between the individual areas. Insuch communities, the contested space may bemost evident in the town centre as members of

the two different communities ‘compete’ over access to resources.

The influence of the night-time economy may becrucial to this type of contested space assegregation, fear and actual use of violencemay increase at night and weekends and beparticularly associated with bars, pubs and taxidepots. This type of contested space is rarelypermanent, as most residents may have fewproblems negotiating the town centre during theday. However, tension may also be increased by

the presence of ‘trigger’ events such as paradesor through the use of symbolic displays such asflags, whereby one community effectivelyasserts dominance over the centre at key times.

One example of this type of contested space isCastlederg, where young people in particular were very aware of divisions in the town centrebetween Protestant spaces and Catholicspaces. These were demarcated by thevarious pubs/clubs and fast food outlets whichappeared to be segregated in terms of thecommunity background of their clientele(Hamilton et al 2008), while parades at various

times serve to reinforce tensions and highlightcompeting claims to territory within and onroutes through the centre. Kilrea was another area with a history of parade related disputeswhich displayed a number of characteristics of contested space at particular times of the year.Disputes over parades had resulted inresidential segregation ‘hardening’ intocontested space. However, the boundaries of this space was considered as rather porousas it was not practical for residents to remaincompletely divided given that the town centrecontained the shops and services that are usedon a daily basis.

42

M

M



Contested CentreMore specific forms of contested space mayoccur within some towns where high levels of polarisation may lead to extreme patterns of division and territorialisation. This may result inshopping areas or shopping centres beingassociated specifically with one community,as for example was noted has occurred inBallymena. Similarly bus stops, which wereassociated with usage by pupils from specific

schools, were also identified as potential localflashpoints while bars, pubs and taxi companiesand other physical locations associated with thenight time economy were also identified aspotential contested spaces.

A variation on this model is Glengormley, whereit has been recognised that a contested spacehas emerged in the central area in recent years.The Catholic population of the town has grownin recent years with the predominantlynationalist Elmfield estate close to the towncentre. Tensions between the two maincommunities are played out in the commercialcentre and particularly involve young people

who are easily identifiable in terms of community background as a result of their school uniform or who seek to dominate keyresource areas after dark.

43

MM

MM

M

M



ThoroughfareIn some locations, tensions may be experiencedin a single identity community when members of the other community seek or need to use routesthrough the village or estate as an access toanother location. The issue of access is largelyassociated with a ‘trigger’ event rather than as aresult of routine daily activities but this may inturn have a negative impact on longer termrelationships and hospitality to members of thenon-resident community. Thus, although thecontested space may be most readily

experienced as a temporary or transientsituation and as resentment of encroachmentby the host community, residual tensions mayremain after the trigger event and may also beexperienced in other locations.

The Garvaghy Road in Portadown might beconsidered as an example of a contestedthoroughfare, where the Orange Order seekson an annual basis to walk along a road which

is bordered on both sides by a predominatelynationalist estate.

44

MM



Neighbouring EstatesThe location of two predominantly single identityestates in close proximity to one another is astrong indicator of a contested space and it maybe that all that is required is a contentious‘trigger’ event for incidents to occur. TheNorthern Ireland Housing Executive hasproduced statistics mapping residentialsegregation on their estates beyond Belfast(Shuttleworth and Lloyd 2001), which could be auseful tool in identifying potential contestedspaces within their jurisdiction.

Neighbouring estates may contain a significantnumber of flags and other overt politicalsymbols. In Coleraine, for example trigger events such as Rangers v Celtic footballmatches, parades or the erection of flags haveincreased tensions in the area in recent years tosuch an extent that the bridge over the River

Bann in the town is now viewed as a contestedspace. In Antrim, there are perceptions of acontested space between the neighbouringStiles and Rathenraw estates, while inLimavady there is a contested space at theBallyquin Road between the Greystone(Catholic/nationalist) and Bovally(Protestant/unionist) estates, an area which isalso heavily flagged. In Magherafelt, acontested space was identified between theneighbouring Leckagh (predominantlyProtestant) and Kilowen (predominantlyCatholic) estates.

In smaller towns such as Ballynahinch andKilkee,l slightly different patterns emerge; herethe town is a predominately unionist area buteach has a distinct geographically containednationalist estate. In both towns, parades serveto increase tensions but, in each case, the smallnationalist community also marks out its spacewith flags or symbolic displays.

45



Protected TerritoriesA small number of locations beyond Belfasthave physical barriers or ‘peacelines’ similar tothose found across Belfast, which have beenbuilt by the NIO, with the aim of protecting theresidents of the area behind the wall fromviolent attacks by members of the ‘other’community. The NIO has identified four suchbarriers in Derry/Londonderry (Bishop Street;Bennett Street; Harding Street andTullygally/Currynerin), one in Lurgan (MargrettaPark) and five in Portadown (Bann Boulevard;Charles Street Railway Embankment; CraigwellAvenue/ Charles Street; Corcrain Road/ObinsAvenue; Duffy’s Field).

However, research carried out in Belfast (CRC2008) has revealed that there are many moredefensive barriers protecting houses, estatesand commercial buildings, closing off roadsand dividing parks across the city, which hadbeen built by bodies other than the NIO,including the NIHE and city council. It istherefore quite possible that there may well besimilar examples of defensive architecture thathave been built in some of the other townsacross Northern Ireland but which have notbeen documented or noted as such.

46



This research suggests that segregation anddivision are prominent elements of life in manyareas beyond Belfast, across Northern Irelandand the border region although the true scaleand nature of such segregation and theconsequent location of contested spacesremains poorly documented. Currentgovernment policy on rural communities,including the Programme for Government, theRural Development Programme, the RuralDevelopment Strategy, Planning Reform andTransport Strategy are orientated more towardssustaining the economic basis of ruralcommunities rather than addressing the realitiesof segregation and sectarian division thatpervade many areas.

The research also reviewed a number of localpolicy and strategy documents with the aim of identifying knowledge about contested spacesand approaches that were being developed toaddress such issues among council, police andcommunity safety bodies. We reviewed a

selection of good relations plans, district policingplans, community safety plans and PEACE IIIaction plans. The various documents use avariety of terms to describe the sites of tensionsand violence. Some councils refer to segregatedor divided communities, others focus oncreating shared space, while a number discussthe presence of ‘interfaces’ in their areas. Thereis no particular consistency in the terminologyused and our review reflects the specificterminology utilised in each document.

Good Relations StrategiesThe various Good Relations Strategies tend tobe framed around the issues that have been setout in the A Shared Future document, withgeneral commitments to tackling the visiblemanifestations of sectarianism and racism andreclaiming shared space, as opposed to anyspecific identification of where actual or potential contested spaces are within anyparticular council area.

A limited number of councils did specify

interface locations within their jurisdiction,

for example, Derry/Londonderry 9 andCraigavon 10 (in relation to Northway and Lurgantown centre) although councils with less visiblecontested spaces tended not to identify thelocations. However, Strabane District Council’saudit of good relations conducted in 2007 (andreferred to within the updated Good RelationsStrategy) highlighted ‘Castlederg as an effectiveinterface’ and the document also identified other potential interface locations including Strabanetown itself, Donemana, Magheramason,Newtownstewart and Ballymagorry. Aim 3 of Strabane District Council’s existing GoodRelations Plan states the council aims to:

Develop shared space, reduce tension at interface areas and tackle the visiblemanifestations of sectarianism and racism(SDC 2007).

Council documents tend to refer tomanifestations of sectarianism or trigger eventswhich may potentially cause problems at

various times during the year, for example,parades, flags, territorial marking andmemorials. 11 In relation to this, CarrickfergusBorough Council outlined its commitment to the‘promotion of shared space ’ and is due toconduct an audit of the location of flags andemblems throughout the borough. Down DistrictCouncil has developed a Flags Protocol whichdenotes examples of flags that the councildeems to be ‘reasonable’ to fly and when it isappropriate to do so. The document notesexamples in the council area of flags which are

put up and taken down soon after an event,preferably as soon as possible after the event,as ‘examples of good practice’ .

Coleraine Council’s Good Relations planhighlights the role of ‘spoilers’ and refers to thenegative impact that politicians and their comments can at times have on communityrelations and noted that ‘harassment and intimidation in Coleraine’ can be ‘fired up’ bysome politicians. A number of councils(including Coleraine) also reported that a key

issue within their jurisdiction related to

49

7. Strategic and Policy Initiatives

9 Derry City Council Good Relations Strategy and Action Plan 2008/2009 – 2010/2011 (2008).10 The Craigavon Good Relation’s Strategy contains a commitment from the council to “ identify local interface areas ” with a view to reducing

tension at these localities.11 Strabane Councill refers to reducing contention surrounding parades in the area.



Protestant alienation in small, isolated and ruralcommunities in particular and one of their priorities was engagement with these small,isolated minority communities.

Since the re-establishment of the Assembly inMay 2007, the devolved Government has beenworking on a replacement strategy for A Shared Future , with a consultation document entitledProgramme for Cohesion, Sharing and Integration published in July 2010. When a

finalised draft is published, it is assumed thatcouncils will also be required to draw up their new approaches to support a localimplementation of the overall strategy.

Policing PlansThere appears to be even less informationrelating to contested space in policingdocuments relating to areas outside of Belfast.A brief review of Policing Plans between 2007and 2010 and 2008 and 2011 and PolicingBoard and District Policing Partnership reports

generally highlighted that the focus on policingoperations, targets and objectives relates moreto ‘general crime’ such as domestic burglariesrather than specifically anything relating tosectarian incidents or violence at interfacelocations (other than reducing hate crimes).In fact, the terms contested space and interfaceare conspicuous by their absence in all of thesereports related to policing.

PEACE III Cluster Action PlansA review of PEACE III Cluster Action Plansdoes highlight a number of areas within their jurisdiction which are impacted upon bysectarian incidents/crimes, legacy of the conflictand the need to create ‘shared spaces’ . Thissection discusses the plans in alphabeticalorder, beginning with those plans drawn up bythe CAN Peace III Partnership. We should notehowever that we have been unable to find suchaction plans for Armagh, Banbridge, Craigavonor Newry and Mourne council areas.

CAN Cluster (Carrickfergus, Antrim,Newtownabbey): The Action Plan highlights thatthe cluster area has a Protestant majority with72.5% of residents coming from a Protestant

community background and 22.4% from aCatholic community background, with manywards in the cluster area predominantly singleidentity. The plan does note that demographicchanges have taken places in areas such asCrumlin and Mayfield in which the Catholicpopulation in these areas has increased, whichhas subsequently increased tensions within theareas. Sectarian division is exacerbated at nightwith an even greater reluctance of residents totravel into areas they perceive to be dominatedby the ‘other’ community.

Newtownabbey is viewed as having a number of interfaces such as Whitewell/Longlands,Glengormley town centre and Valley Park at theValley Leisure Centre. Disputes over parades inthe centre of Glengormley coupled withchanging demographics are believed to haveraised tensions and ‘hardened the boundaries’in the area. In Antrim, the Stiles (predominantlyloyalist) and Rathenraw estates (predominantlynationalist) are viewed as being ‘ occasional

interfaces’ particularly during the summer months. The report notes that there are ‘ nointerfaces of note in Carrickfergus ’, but thatthere are a number of ‘ invisible territory lines ’ intowns and villages across the cluster such asRandalstown.

Objective 1.3 of the Action Plan refers tosupporting communities in reducing the visiblemanifestations of sectarianism and to increasethe number of areas which can be regarded as‘shared space’.

Lisburn and Castlereagh Cluster: This plannotes ongoing tension and conflict at someinterface areas in west Belfast and Dunmurryhighlighting ‘an absence of leadership’ as oneproblem which does not help to reduce tensionin these areas. It is indicated that demographicchanges occurring within the cluster area havethe potential to increase sectarian/racialtensions and there remains division relating toflags, bonfires and other manifestations of political identity.

50



Interface areas are regarded as key targetareas for future work and the action planincludes a list of target areas the cluster partners aim to work in, although these targetareas are not specifically referred to asinterfaces. One named area, the Areema estatebetween Dunmurry and west Belfast, isidentified as needing targeted work to maintainthe area as a mixed environment given thatrecent research indicated that demographictrends suggested the area was in transition andcould become a single identity estate in thefuture (Byrne et al. 2007).

North Down, Ards and Down Cluster: Theaction plan focuses on residential segregationbetween predominantly unionist and nationalisthousing estates, particularly in the North Downand Ards council areas and identifies areas inwhich relations between Protestants andCatholics may deteriorate over the next fiveyears including Ballyrainey, Kircubbin, Scraboand Loughries. The night-time economy is

viewed as increasing tensions and the potentialfor violent clashes in the centre of Ballynahinchat night. However, the plan also states that: thecouncils within the cluster have no interfaces or peacewalls .

North East Cluster (Ballymena, Ballymoney,Coleraine, Larne, Limavady, Moyle):Segregation is identified as an issue of pressingconcern in the north-east region, with districtcouncil areas such as Limavady and Moyleidentified as becoming increasingly

Catholic/nationalist while towns such asBallymoney and Coleraine have a relativelydominant Protestant majority. As such the planidentifies a general lack of shared space acrossthe cluster area and highlights the issuesrelating to inter-community transfer of land asstill being important today.

Strategic Objective Two refers to ‘ reducing physical segregation ’ while the vision of the planrefers to addressing the physical manifestationsof division such as parades, flags and emblems.

The plan notes the cluster area’s involvement inthe cross-council ‘Community Dialogue andExchange Programme’ which includes an

interface programme, which aims to identify sixinterface locations across the cluster area.Similar to a number of the other action planshowever, the document does not indicate whichlocations within the cluster area may bepotential interfaces.

North West Cluster (Derry Londonderry,Strabane, Omagh): The only accessible NorthWest Cluster Action Plan was the interim reportwhereas most other action plans have been

finalised by the other cluster areas. The cluster area includes the council areas of Derry/Londonderry, Omagh and Strabane andaims to ‘ transform contested space and promoteshared space ’ and give residents the confidenceto feel safe in using services and accessing allareas within the cluster area

With this in mind, one objective of the plan is totransform ‘ two contested spaces’ (six overall)into ‘safe, shared space’ . One means of achieving this is through ‘assisting Protestant

participation, especially in disadvantaged urbanand rural areas ’.

The plan highlights three specific interfacelocations in Derry Londonderry: Bishop Street /Fountain; Irish Street / Gobnascale; andTullyally / Curryneirin. In Strabane the plannotes that there are interface issues inCastlederg and other locations where there maybe ‘interfaces without walls ’ such as Donemana,Magheramason, Newtownstewart andBallymagorry. The plan also identifies ‘other’interfaces but does not specify where theseinterfaces are within the cluster area. It doeshowever state that particular work will have tobe done with ‘sectarian interfaces’ and‘displaced persons’ who are those who havebeen involuntarily moved from areas of violenceor interface areas.

Strategic Priority 1, ‘ Moving TowardsAcceptance of Cultural Identity and InclusiveCelebration ’ refers to: developing sharedcelebrations; development of protocols aroundflags and celebrations; and developing a sharedspace programme.

51



Strategic Priority 2 ‘ Influencing Young People’sAttitudes at an Early Stage Through AppropriateMedia ’ stated that the cluster partnership aimedto create shared spaces and reduce interfaceswhere they exist. There is slightly more mentionin this report of interface issues than some of the other cluster action plans given that the areacontains Derry/Londonderry and therefore someof the most notable interface areas outside of Belfast. In particular the plan outlines ongoingproblems in relation to interface areas involvingyoung males between 12 and 20 years of agewho are using social networking websites toorganise disturbances at the interface and theplan notes that interface violence is moreprevalent at weekends and during ‘commemorative’ events.

As such, one area of focus for the cluster will beto work with young people in terms of educational and cross-community work whilealso promoting the concept of shared spacethrough regeneration of the Clondermott School

at the Irish Street/Gobnascale interface as wellas the fence between the Fountain andBrandywell.

South West Cluster (Magherafelt, Cookstown,Fermanagh, Dungannon): The South WestCluster Action Plan highlights high levels of segregation in the area, partly as a result of thelegacy of the Troubles, and notes that there is‘little to no integration ’ between the twocommunities. The plan further notes a number of ongoing attacks on symbolic properties within

the area and highlights that Magherafelt has thesecond highest level of sectarian incidents(increasing 23% between 2007-2008 and 2008-2009) after North Belfast. In terms of interfacesin the cluster area, the plan cites RCN’s 2006‘Lost in Translation ’ report as identifying‘invisible peace lines’ across the cluster areaand notes:

there are invisible walls scattered across towns,villages and rural areas. People can still work,shop and socialise for most of their lives without

really engaging with members of the oppositecommunity .

In the statement of need, Theme 1 refers to theneed to target those areas and individuals whoare in most need of assistance regarding peaceand reconciliation issues, such asdisadvantaged housing areas and interfaceareas, while Theme 3 discusses the need tocreate ‘shared space’ across the cluster area.Under Priority II ‘Contributing to a Shared Society’ , Measure 3 refers to exploring andaddressing interface issues in rural and urbanareas and breaking the ‘cycle of fear’. However,there is no reference as to how an interfacearea is to be defined, nor is there any indicationof which areas in the cluster area may indeedbe interface locations. The plan lists as one of its objectives:

To devise a specific programme aimed at promoting cross-council and cross-border dialogue at interface areas in urban and rural areas and aimed at addressing the cycle of fear and intimidation in local areas.

The plan states that the cluster will aim to workin ‘at least six interface areas per council area,which should include rural and urban and estatebased area s’. As a result, the South West PeaceIII Cluster commissioned a research projectearlier in 2009 to identify interface locationsacross the four council areas.

Shared Neighbourhood ProgrammeThe Shared Neighbourhood programme waslaunched in August 2008 as a 3-year pilotprogramme aimed at supporting andencouraging 30 shared neighbourhoods acrossNorthern Ireland. The central purpose is todevelop ‘shared housing neighbourhoods’where people choose to live with othersregardless of their religion or race, in aneighbourhood which is safe and welcoming toall. The programme was developed as aresponse to the fact that social housing inNorthern Ireland remains deeply segregatedwith over 90% of Housing Executive beingsingle identity. In order to take steps to addressthis issue, the Housing Executive through its

Good Relations Strategy secured funding fromthe International Fund for Ireland (IFI) to

52



promote a Shared Neighbourhood Programme.Areas were selected to participate in theprogramme based on the prevailing levels of integration within the neighbourhood andnominated on the basis of scoring indicatorsbased on qualitative and quantitativeinformation. Communities were invited to jointhe programme and it is only progressed if thecommunity wishes to be part of the programme.To date all 30 neighbourhoods (which includes23,000 households and 60,000 people) haveagreed to participate in the pilot Programme.

In ConclusionThere are a variety of regional and local plansand strategies that might be expected to aim toimpact on issues of segregation, division andrelations between the two main communities.However, few of the available good relationsstrategies published by local councils or policingplans produced by the DPPs make anysignificant reference to issues relating tocontested space.

In contrast many of the PEACE III action plansproduced by local authority ‘clusters’ do makereference to forms of contested space, with ageneral commitment to undertaking work insuch areas to counter tensions, reducesegregation and increase ‘shared space’. Somecouncils have commissioned work to identify‘interface locations’, with the aim of developingprojects and activities to address the problemsassociated with such spaces, but in generalthere has been a limited engagement with this

issue beyond the larger urban centres. This isnot perhaps surprising given the limited amountof research that has focused on contestedspace and conflict in smaller towns and ruralcommunities and the extent to which the issuehas been subject to strategies of avoidance.

These various policy documents were draftedwithin a broader policy framework that was setby A Shared Future , but this document did notaddress the issue of rural sectarianism anddivisions in a significant manner. The section on

‘reclaiming shared space’ focused on‘developing and protecting towns and city centres as safe and welcoming’ , while the

section on interface areas was largelyorientated towards issues in Belfast, althoughthe document does make reference to ruralareas in paragraph 2.3.7, which states:

The triennial action plan will provide detail of such an integrated planning framework : it will look at a range of interventions to addressstrategically the issues at interface areas,including specific action in other areas, including those in rural communities, potentially at risk of

becoming ‘interfaces’ (OFMDFM 2005).However, in the absence of any clear or agreedunderstanding on the nature of segregation,division and ‘interfaces’ in rural communities,this aim necessarily had limited impact. Thesubsequent list of Good Relations indicatorsidentifies issues such as flags, parades andsectarian hate crimes as key indicators of sectarianism and division, but there is limitedevidence of systematic mapping of these data inrural areas and the baseline report presents the

data on a Northern Ireland-wide basis andtherefore offers little guidance on the differentdynamics in different areas (OFMDFM 2007).

There are currently a number of governmentand other programmes that have the potential toimpact on the quality of life and good relationsissues in rural areas across Northern Ireland.These include the Rural DevelopmentProgramme, the Rural White Paper and theNeighbourhood Renewal Scheme. However whilst these contain several quality of lifemeasures, there is no specific measure todirectly address good relations issues. It couldtherefore be argued that there is a lack of acoherent strategic approach across governmentdepartments in terms of good relations planningin rural areas when compared to the urbansetting. The current consultation on theProgramme for Cohesion, Sharing andIntegration, however provides an opportunity toprovide coherence and focus to addressingissues of sectarian division and segregation inrural communities.

53



The research suggests that there has been apiecemeal approach to addressing the issue of segregation and division in rural communitiesand areas beyond Belfast, but the currentconsultation on the Programme for Cohesion,Sharing and Integration provides an opportunityto ensure that such issues are addressed withina strategic framework that encompasses eachof the government departments and mainstatutory agencies.

This research has identified a number of areaswhere work will need to be undertaken tosupport any strategic approaches tosectarianism and segregation in ruralcommunities and we make a number of recommendations to that end.

1. OFMDFM should ensure that the finalisedProgramme for Cohesion, Sharing andIntegration clearly reflects the context of sectarianism and division and the problemsassociated with contested spaces within

rural communities and areas beyondBelfast.

2. OFMDFM should identify and monitor arange of relevant and appropriate keyindicators that can be used to identifycontested spaces,and identify the key organisations to beresponsible for gathering and disseminatingsuch data.

3. The Department of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment, in developing effectiveprogrammes and policies should ensurethat where relevant these addresssectarianism and conflict.

4. All Departments should ensure thatrelevant future rural orientated strategy or policy which impacts on rural areasacknowledges the problem of sectarianismand division in rural communities andincludes clear aims and objectives toaddress such matters.

5. The Department for Justice should reviewthe necessity for the continued presence of security barriers in Derry/Londonderry,Lurgan and Portadown.

6. The PSNI should continue to record allincidents of sectarian violence and hateincidents and make such data available tolocal councils in an agreed manner thatallows for the identification of hot spots andcontested space.

7. The PSNI should systematically record allattacks on an agreed list of symbolicproperties and structures across NorthernIreland and make this publicly available inan appropriate format on an annual basis.

8. The NIHE should record all incidents of sectarian violence and harassment thatoccurs in its properties and aggregate andpublish such data on an annual basis in anappropriate format.

9. Each local council should include a clear strategy for addressing segregation anddivision in its Good Relations Plan. Thisstrategy should be integrated with other strategic plans and programmes of work.

10. Each local council should map the varietyof contested spaces within its area. Theseshould be based on a mixture of the hardindicators identified in this report plus localknowledge. The status of such contestedspaces should be monitored on an ongoing

basis.11. Each local council should take

responsibility for gathering together data onkey indicators in their area. This mayinclude in particular sectarian violence andhate crimes, contested parades and publicevents, bonfires, displays of flags, graffitiand murals and attacks on memorials andkey symbolic structures.

54

8. Developing a Strategy for Contested Spaces



12. Each local council should undertake areview of defensive architecture in their area.

13. CRC and RCN should take forward thework on contested spaces in rural areasthrough a similar structure to the InterfaceWorking Group.

14. CRC and RCN should develop a strategyfor promoting shared learning in respondingto sectarian division, tension and violencein rural communities.

15. The persistence of segregation and divisionon either side of the border and thepresence of the border as a contestedspace should be an issue that isconsidered and discussed on a cross-border level and on an initial basis by theNorth South Ministerial Council.

55



Acheson, N. et al (2007) Voluntary action and community relations in Northern Ireland.Coleraine, University of Ulster.

Adams, L. (1995) Cashel : A Case Study inCommunity Harmony . Cashel: CashelCommunity Development Association.

ARK (2008) Northern Ireland Life and TimesSurvey 2008 . Available online at:http://www.ark.ac.uk/nilt/2008/

Anderson, J. (2006) Living along the border .Paper presented to conference on Mapping Frontiers, Plotting Pathways , Armagh.

Anderson, M. and Bort, E. (1999) The Irishborder - history, politics, culture . Liverpool,Liverpool University Press.

Belfast Interface Project (1998) Young Peopleon the Interface. Belfast: Island Publications.

Bray, Z. (un dated) Boundaries and identity onthe Franco-Spanish border . Belfast, CIBRworking paper.

Bryan, D., Stevenson, C., and Gillespie,G. (2008) Flags Monitoring Project – 2007 Report . Belfast: OFMDFM.

Bryson, L. and McCartney, C. (1994) Clashing Symbols? A report on the use of flags, anthemsand other national symbols in Northern Ireland .Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, QUB.

Buckley, A. and Kenney, M. (1995) Negotiating

Identity : Rhetoric, Metaphor, and Social Dramain Northern Ireland . Washington: Smithsonian.

Burton, F. (1978) The Politics of Legitimacy :Struggles in a Belfast Community .London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Byrne, J. (2004a) Sectarianism in the LarneDistrict Council Area. Belfast: ICR.

Byrne, J. (2004b) Sectarianism in the Limavady Borough Council Area . Belfast: ICR.

Byrne, J. (2005) Interface Violence in East Belfast during 2002 : The impact on residents of Short Strand and Inner East Belfast . Belfast:Institute for Conflict Research.

56

References

Byrne, J. (2007) Review of Interfaces in theCity of Derry . Belfast: ICR.

Cecil, R. (1993) The Marching Season inNorthern Ireland : An Expression of a Politico-Religious Identity in McDonald, S. (ed.) InsideEuropean Identities: Ethnography in WesternEurope. Oxford: Berg.

Community Relations Council (2008) TowardsSustainable Security : Interface Barriers and theLegacy of Segregation in Belfast . Belfast: CRC.

Cownie, E. (2008) The Whitewell YouthMediation Project : Engaging with Disaffected Youths in an Interface Context . Belfast: BIP.

Crawley, M. (2002a) Protestant Communitiesin Border Areas Research Report .Cookstown: RCN.

Crawley, M. (2002b) Report on Catholic Workshops . Cookstown: RCN.

Crawley, M. (2003) Border Protestants and community development. Cookstown, RuralCommunity Network.

Crawley, M. (2004) Experiences of Catholic minority communities in counties Antrim and Down. Cookstown, Rural Community Network.

Creamer, C., Blair, N., O’Keefe, B., Van Egeraat,C., and Driscoll, J. (2008) Fostering mutual benefit in cross border areas . Armagh,International Centre for Local and RegionalDevelopment.

Creamer, C. (2010) Rural Interfaces:Reconciling Perception with Reality . Paper prepared for Community Relations Council andRural Communities Network.

Curtin, C., and Wilson, T. M. (eds.) (1989)Ireland from Below : Social Change and Local Communities . Galway: University Press.

Darby, J. (1986) Intimidation and the Control of Conflict in Northern Ireland . Syracuse: SyracuseUniversity Press.

Deloitte (2008) The Implication of Providing Shared Services in a Divided City . Belfast:Belfast City Council.



Department of the Environment (1998)Shaping our Future : The Family of Settlements .Belfast: DoE.

Derry City Council (2008) Good RelationsStrategy and Action Plan 2008/2009 –2010/2011 . Derry Londonderry: DCC.

Donnell, N. (2009) ‘Flags and Emblems’ inSharing over Separation : A Rural Perspective .Cookstown: Rural Community Network.

Donnelly, P. (2006) ‘Interfaces’ in Sharing Over Separation : Actions Towards A Shared Future .Belfast: CRC.

Donnan, H. (2006) Fuzzy Frontiers : The Rural Interface in South Armagh . Mapping Frontiers,Plotting Pathways Working Paper No.26.

Dunn, S. (1995) Facets of the Conflict . London:Palgrave Macmillan.

Garvaghy Residents (1999) Garvaghy: ACommunity Under Siege. London, Pluto Press.

Glenny, M. (1999) The Balkans, 1804-1999nationalism, war and the great powers .London, Grant.

Hamilton, J. and McBride, R. (Forthcoming) SW Cluster Area Peace III Programme :Development of an Evaluation Framework for Peace-building at Interface Areas . Belfast: ICR.

Hamilton, J., Hansson, U., Bell, J. and Toucas,S. (2008) Segregated Lives: Social Division,

Sectarianism and Everyday Life in NorthernIreland . Belfast: ICR.

Hamilton, J. (2004) Sectarianism in Armagh City and District Council Area. Belfast: ICR.

Hansson, U. (2005) Troubled Youth? Young People, Violence and Disorder in NorthernIreland . Belfast, ICR.

Hargie, O., Dickson, D., and O’Donnell,A. (2006) Breaking Down Barriers :Sectarianism, Unemployment and the Exclusion

of Disadvantaged Young People from NorthernIreland Society . Jordanstown: University of Ulster.

57

Harris, R. (1972) Prejudice and Tolerance inUlster : A Study of Neighbours and Strangers ina Boarder Community . Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Harvey, B., Kelly, A., McHearty, S., and Murray,S. (2005) The emerald curtain - the social impact of the border in Ireland. Carrickmacross,Triskele.

Harvey, B. (2007) Audit of Community Development in the Cross-Border Region .Dundalk, Cross Border Centre for CommunityDevelopment, Dundalk Institute of Technology.

Harvey, B. (2010) Sharing Our Space:Overcoming Division in Rural Communities .Paper prepared for Community RelationsCouncil and Rural Communities Network.

Hughes, J. and Murphy, P. (2009) ‘CommunityRelations and Community Development’ inSharing over Separation: A Rural Perspective .Cookstown: RCN.

Jarman, N. (2002) Managing Disorder :Responses to Interface Violence in NorthBelfast . Belfast: ICR.

Jarman, N. (2004) Demography, Development and Disorder : Changing Patterns of InterfaceAreas . Belfast: ICR.

Jarman, N. (2005) ‘Changing places,moving boundaries: The development of newinterface areas’ in Shared Space 1, pp.9–19.Belfast: CRC.

Jarman, N. (2006) Working at the Interface :Good Practice in Reducing Tension and Violence . Belfast: ICR and BIP.

Jarman, N., and O’Halloran, C. (2001)Recreational Rioting: Young People, InterfaceAreas and Violence. In, Child Care in Practice ,Volume 7, Number 1, January 2001, pp. 2-16.

Jarman, N., Rallings, M-K, and Bell, J. (2009)Local Accommodation: Effective Practice inResponding to Disputes over Parades. Belfast,ICR and BIP.



Kirk, T. (1993) The Polarisation of Protestantsand Roman Catholics in Rural Northern Ireland :A Case Study of Glenravel Ward . UnpublishedPhD Thesis. Belfast: Queens University.

Larsen, S. S. (1982a) ‘The Two Sides of theHouse: Identity and Social Organisation inKilbroney, Northern Ireland’ in Cohen,Anthony P. (ed.) Belonging : Identity and Social Organisation in British Rural Cultures .Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Larsen, S. S. (1982b) ‘The Glorious Twelfth:The Politics of Legitimation in Kilbroney’ inCohen, Anthony P. (ed.) Belonging : Identity and Social Organisation in British Rural Cultures .Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Leyton, E. (1975) The One Blood .Newfoundland: Institute of Social andEconomic Research.

Lloyd, C., Shuttleworth, I., and McNair,D. (nd) Measuring Local Segregation in

Northern Ireland . Belfast: QUB .

Logue, P. (1999) The border - personal reflections from Ireland, north and south.Dublin, Oak Tree Press.

Lysaght, K. and Basten, A. (2003) ‘Violence,Fear and the Everyday: Negotiating SpatialPractices in the City of Belfast’ in Stanko,E. (ed.) The Meaning of Violence . London:Routledge.

McAlister, S., Scraton, P., and Haydon,D. (2009) Childhood in Transition: Experiencing Marginalisation and Conflict in Northern Ireland.Belfast, Queens University, Save the Childrenand The Prince’s Trust.

Morrow, D., Wilson, D., and Eyben, K. (2000)Reconciliation and Social Inclusion in Rural Areas . Jordanstown: University of Ulster andFuture Ways.

Murphy, J. (2009a) ‘Housing’ in Sharing over Separation: A Rural Perspective .

Cookstown: RCN.

58

Murphy, J. (2009b) ‘Rural Institutions’ inSharing over Separation: A Rural Perspective .Cookstown: RCN.

Murray, M., and Murtagh, B. (2002)Reconnecting Rural People through Authentic Dialogue : Equity, Diversity and Interdependencein the Northern Ireland Rural Development Area .Cookstown: RCN.

Murtagh, B. (1994) Ethnic Space and theChallenge to Land Use Planning : A Survey of Belfast’s Peace Lines . Jordanstown: Universityof Ulster.

Murtagh, B. (1999) Community and Conflict inRural Ulster . Coleraine: Centre for the Studyof Conflict, University of Ulster.

Murtagh, B. (2002) The Politics of Territory :Policy and Segregation in Northern Ireland .New York: Palgrave.

Northern Ireland Housing Executive (1999)

Towards a Community Relations Strategy:A Discussion Paper. Belfast, NIHE.

Northern Ireland Statistics and ResearchAgency (2005) Report of the Interdepartmental Urban – Rural Definition Group . Belfast: NISRA.

Office of the First Minister and Deputy FirstMinister (2005) A Shared Future . Belfast:OFMDFM.

O’Donnell, C. (2004) Cultural identity of theprotestant community in border counties

Donegal and Monaghan in the Republic of Ireland . Belfast, Institute of Irish Studies.

O’Halloran, C. Shirlow, P., and Murtagh,B. (2004) A Policy Agenda for the Interface .Belfast: Belfast Interface Project.

Osborne, P. (2009) Interfaces in Rural Areas :A Scoping Paper for the Community RelationsCouncil and Rural Community Network . Belfast:Rubicon Consulting.



Poole, M. A. (1983) ‘The Demography of Violence’ in Darby, J. (ed.) Northern Ireland : TheBackground to the Conflict . Belfast: Appletree.

Roche, R. (2005) Something To Say! Belfast,Blackstaff Press.

Roche, R. (2008) Facts, fears and feelings :The impact and role of sectarianism in everyday life. Belfast: QUB.

Rankin, K.J. (2005) Creation and consolidationof the Irish border . Mapping Frontiers, PlottingPathways Working Paper 2. Belfast, Centre for International Borders Research.

Rural Community Network (2003) ‘ You feel you’d have no say ’: Border Protestants and Community Development . Cookstown: RCN.

Rural Community Network (2005) ‘We don’t feel as isolated as you might think’ : Experiences of Catholic Minority Communities in CountiesAntrim and Down . Belfast: CRC.

Rural Community Network (2006) Low Community Infrastructure : Lost in Translation .Cookstown: RCN.

Rural Community Network (2007) Locality and Community in Rural Northern Ireland : Insightsfrom a contemporary survey . Belfast andCookstown: QUB and RCN.

Rural Community Network (2009) Sharing over Separation: A Rural Perspective .Cookstown: RCN.

Shirlow, P. and Murtagh, B. (2006) Belfast :Segregation, Violence and the City .London: Pluto.

Shirlow, P. (2001) ‘Spaces of Fear’ in PeaceReview , 12:1 pp.639-679.

Shirlow, P. (2003) ‘Who Fears to Speak:Fear, Mobility and Ethno-Sectarianism in theTwo Ardoynes’ in The Global Review of Ethnopolitics, Vol. 3, no. 1, September 2003,76-91. Special Issue: Northern Ireland.

59

Shuttleworth, I., and Lloyd, C. (2001) Mapping Residential Segregation on NIHE Estatesoutside Belfast District Council in 2001 .Belfast: NIHE.

Strabane District Council (2007) Good RelationsAudit and Strategy . Strabane: SDC.

Todd, J. (2005) A puzzle concerning bordersand identities - toward a typology of attitudes tothe Irish border. Mapping Frontiers, PlottingPathways Working Paper 8. Belfast, Centre for International Borders Research.

Varshney, A. (2002) Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India. New Haven,Yale University Press.

Wagley, C., and Harris, M. (1958) ‘The Problemof Minority Groups’, pp. 347-372, in Linton,R. (ed.) The Science of Man in the World Crisis .New York: Columbia University Press.

Walsh, K. (2005) Border protestant

perspectives. Belfast, Locus.



60

Appendix: Indicators of Contested Space

12 These are approximate figures provided by local councils and include aggregated numbers for Eleventh of July, Augustand Halloween bonfires.

13 The figure relate to the number of locations in close proximity in each council area with flags of the two main communities,and not the number of flags on display.

14 The majority of these relate to requests to parade along Garvaghy Road in Portadown.

The table lists gross available figures for each of the main indicators by council area.

Table 1: Council Area by Indicators

Council Area Sectarian Attacks on Contentious Bonfire Flagsincidents symbolic Parades Sites both of

2005-2009 properties 2005-2008 (Yearly communities2008-2009 average) 12 2006-2007 13

Antrim 206 n/a - 14 -

Ards 60 n/a - 27-28 -Armagh 104 9 24 10 3Ballymena 397 4 56 15 1Ballymoney 139 7 55 19-21 -Banbridge 64 1 - 3-4 -Carrickfergus 33 n/a - 10-12 -Castlereagh 67 n/a - 18-21 -Coleraine 272 13 17 15 -Cookstown 83 14 - 20-25 1Craigavon 158 12 269 14 15-19 -

Derry City 452 2 12 19-23 -Down 78 n/a 18 36 1Dungannon &South Tyrone 79 10 - 10 4Fermanagh 222 6 25 8-9 5Larne 101 3 - 10 -Limavady 88 1 4 14 -Lisburn 145 n/a 14 21 -Magherafelt 194 1 67 10 2Moyle 37 1 - 9 1

Newry & Mourne 91 3 40 25 1Newtownabbey 284 n/a 5 19 -North Down 38 n/a - 12 -Omagh 60 1 4 15 1Strabane 70 1 85 8 -



Beyn

Belfas



Beynd

Belfas

t

he Beyond Belfast report was commissioned to explore the physical legacy of segregation and division intowns, villages, rural communities and the border areas beyond Belfast. The report also set out to reviewhow such segregation is maintained and extended through forms of behaviour.

The research suggests that there has been a piecemeal approach to addressing the issue of segregationand division in rural communities and areas beyond Belfast. This report has identified a number of areaswhere work will need to be undertaken to support any strategic approaches to sectarianism andsegregation in rural communities and makes a number of recommendations.

Beyond Belfast (Web)

Documents

Transcript of Beyond Belfast (Web)