It is easy to be cynical about the inevitable inefficiencies and occasional examples of waste when well over a billion euros of EU money are spent, as they have been in Northern Ireland and the Irish border region over the past decade. The media in Belfast and Dublin are only too eager to cover this massive effort to support our peace process when something goes wrong and money goes astray. But with their congenital suspicion of anything that smacks of ‘do goodery’, they rarely, if ever, write about the unglamorous success stories that are everywhere if one takes the trouble look below the media-created radar.
One outstanding example is the unoriginal-sounding Developing Communities Project in Monaghan and Armagh. The key to this project’s uniqueness is in the small print of its partner organisations: County Monaghan Community Network (CMCN), which brings together over 60 community groups; Regeneration of South Armagh (RoSA), which gathers 84 predominantly nationalist rural community groups; and the County Armagh Grand Lodge Development Committee, which to the lay reader means the Orange Order in that most conservative and divided of counties.
This is grassroots peacebuilding at its most imaginative and courageous. It was the brainchild of a small group of far-sighted community leaders in Monaghan who wanted in the first place to find some way to reach out to the Protestant minority who constitute 8% of that county’s population, proportionately the largest in the Republic. When they asked a leading local Orangeman what they could do to help, they were told: “Help us to refurbish our halls.” The Orange Order’s halls in Monaghan – a vital community resource in often remote rural areas – were rundown and often lacking basic facilities like proper toilets. Local Orange lodges were reluctant to seek state or EU funding for refurbishment for fear that they would be forced in return to make ownership of them ‘cross-community’.
Developing this idea – and seeking cross-border EU INTERREG funding for it – brought County Monaghan Community Network into contact with the Mid Armagh Network based in Markethill, made up largely of members of the County Armagh Orange Order. The result has been an extraordinarily inspiring initiative by people working together to overcome communal, jurisdictional and sectarian barriers in a region previously known mainly for mutual suspicion, deep mistrust and – during the 30 years of the ‘Troubles’ – outbursts of murderous violence.
The work is necessarily low key and unspectacular. It currently involves 25 small organisations – community groups, Orange lodges and church groups – paying visits to each other’s halls for table quizzes, dances and bowling events, and going on joint visits to heritage sites. These have often been heavily oversubscribed: a recent social event at a mainly Protestant Young Farmers Club hall near Armagh city, which was attended by a large crowd of visitors from Monaghan, was fit to burst after an extra 60 local people turned up unannounced.
However the hard issues have also not been shirked: Groups from Monaghan have been to hallowed Orange sites like Dan Winter’s cottage where the Order was founded. Armagh Orangemen and women have visited and talked with residents of Monaghan housing estates and villages traditionally known for their strong republicanism. There have been presentations from the old Anglo-Irish aristocracy and from people who have directly suffered from the conflict, whether republican ex-prisoners or relatives of Protestant victims.
In Monaghan itself the CMCN works with local groups – both Catholic and Protestant in make-up – on religious and multicultural diversity awareness training (as well as training in organisational and ICT skills). They put Catholics and Protestants together to ask the difficult questions they normally never voice: ‘Why does the perception persist that Orangemen hate Catholics? Is the Catholic Church’s rule that children in a mixed marriage must be raised as Catholics still in force?’ They bring in people from the 11% of the population who are immigrants – again the largest proportion of any Irish county – to talk to locals about their wide range of religious beliefs. Not surprisingly, the reaction among the Monaghan people is often to marvel at how much as Irish Christians they have in common.
This difficult, sensitive work is being done by so-called ‘ordinary’ people in an often neglected part of the Republic of Ireland. In truth, this is a quite extraordinary group of practical idealists who are building peace and mutual understanding in their towns, villages and rural areas without any fanfare and with little or no support to date from any Irish or Northern Irish public authority or funding agency. Like so many grassroots peacebuilders, they have only been able to do it because of generous EU Peace and INTERREG funding.
That funding is due to run out at the end of June, and because of big reductions in the programmes for Northern Ireland and the Southern Border Counties in the 2008-2013 period, it may not be renewed. President McAleese paid fulsome tribute to their work when she visited their Monaghan town offices last month. If ever there was an opportunity for an Irish government agency to step in and help a group who are pioneering ways towards reconciliation in the border region – and on the island – this surely is it.
Andy Pollak
Andy,
I don’t know about state agencies but business, sporting and trade union organisations have funds and maybe should be tapped. Certainly most union branches have some funds for local activity, but the main initiative would have to come from business.
Congratulations to all involved in this project. I would say that the fact that it is carried out in ‘a low-key and unspectacular’ manner assists it to progress and attract further involvement and long may it continue. I also agree that it is time that both Governments supported this marvellous work financially.
However, and there often is a ‘but’ – your sentence ‘This difficult, sensitive work is being done by so-called ‘ordinary’ people in an often neglected part of the Republic of Ireland’ says much for the future. The Republic Government have an ideal opportunity to show cooperation with Northern Ireland by taking the hospital facilities in Northern Ireland into consideration in their decision for the location of hospitals services south of the Border. By placing these services in the neighbouring county of Cavan, they are exposing a large part of the Monaghan population to risk by having to travel to a distant hospital, especially in an emergency. The experience in Monaghan, last time Monaghan General Hospital was Off-Call for emergencies, shows that people will die in ambulances on the way to that distant hospital, where they could have survived had the services been available to them in Monaghan. That ‘often neglected part of the Republic of Ireland’ is about to be neglected again despite the marvellous work of those ‘ordinary people’.
Read Andy’ article and marvelled at what can be achieved. There is not enough of this type of reconciliation work going on. Another problem..i put in an application for a farmer group who have a 50/50 balance to run a craft project and the person who came to ask questions regarding the project felt that because the group worked together well…they didnt really have a good case for funding….well….they got the money but surely role models like these are an inspiration to others…work is hard at the coalface and little recognition…but its that grass roots level which is making such a difference on the ground…Would love an iniative like that in Carrcikmore. Have actually applied through RDC for a herd health iniative for farmers North and South hope we are successfull!