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Pastimes : Let’s Talk About Our Feelings about the Let’s Talk About Our -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: average joe who wrote (4192)	9/7/2007 6:38:27 AM
From: Tom Clarke	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5290

Ulster peace brings in a new set of Troubles David Sharrock, Ireland Correspondent September 6, 2007 For decades Ballymurphy, in west Belfast’s Whiterock ward, was at the heart of the Provisional IRA’s campaign to drive the British out of Ireland. “The Murph” was the toughest of estates, where the West Belfast MP Gerry Adams first emerged as an IRA leader. Altogether, 145 people - para-militaries, soldiers, police officers, priests and civilians - were killed within its square mile during the Troubles. But after 30 years at the epicentre of bloody conflict many residents say that their quality of life has worsened with peace. “It’s a pity that the Troubles stopped” and “We felt more safe during the Troubles” are just two examples of local opinion in a report on mental health published yesterday. “I could cope with the war, it’s the peace that I cannot manage,” is perhaps the most devastating comment of all. Dr David Connolly of the University of York, who wrote the report for Corpus Christi Services, a local Catholic community group, said that a significant number of the people interviewed expressed a strong sense of loss and a “dismantling” of their community identity. “Over the last decade, since the Good Friday Agreement, there has been a very profound community loss. A lot of its identity was based around resistance to the state and with peace that has been lost,” he told The Times. “It’s often difficult to cope with stability. Social relations were very strong, even if for negative reasons, and in that sense some do miss the Troubles.” Half of the households surveyed in the local government ward of Whiterock felt that community bonds had weakened and, while many acknowledged the benefits brought by peace, two thirds said they suffered stress. Dr Connolly, who works for the university’s “postwar reconstruction and development unit”, describes a “self-perpetuating cycle of mental ill-health” as a consequence of the long years of the Troubles and its aftermath. Protracted violence broke out in Ballymurphy at Easter 1970 and since then it “remained an infamous zone of damage and destruction throughout the Troubles”. Whiterock’s population according to the 2001 census is 5,425 - which puts the number of killings over 30 years into context. A long-running dispute between rival republican families in Ballymurphy has exacerbated tensions. In a series of interviews and focus groups Dr Connolly encountered people who were afraid and intimidated by a new kind of violence breaking out on their streets, which had once been suppressed by the IRA. One resident told him: “There was a war on, people were scared to do drug dealing but they are not now. Children are out of control - they have no fear. “Parents now do not know what they are doing. Before, the IRA controlled the youth and kids, now parents do not know how to. The kids themselves were involved in the conflict and had a sense of purpose; now they have nothing. The political situation is all over the place and creates anxiety.” Dr Connolly interviewed a range of agencies and local organisations, as well as politicians, for the report. Mr Adams, the Sinn Fein MP for the area, had declined two invitations to contribute, which Dr Connolly said was “a pity”. Dr Connolly concludes that the ceasefires and the outcome of the peace process have defused the sense of communal survival and purpose along with a clear sense of a common enemy, which in turn has created a vacuum within Whiterock. “In the postconflict peace phase ironically some people feel less secure on a day-to-day basis,” Dr Connolly said. “There has been a perceived increase in crime and life is actually more violent for a minority.” timesonline.co.uk