ZEKE Fall 2019

1999 and the creation of the
Northern Ireland Assembly—a
power-sharing legislative
body that has the ability to
make laws in areas including
housing, employment, education,
and health. By the time
the bloodshed and bombings
ceased, more than 3,600
people had died and thousands
more were injured. In the
decades since the treaty was
fast
As the country’s hardwon
power sharing
agreement flounders,
Brexit looms with uncertainty,
and the country’s
youth face issues of
continued segregation
and suicide, a united
Northern Ireland is more
important than ever.
signed peace has been successful,
albeit tenuous. Now, as
the country’s hard-won political
assembly flounders, Brexit
looms with uncertainty, and the
country’s youth face issues of
continued segregation and suicide,
a united Northern Ireland
is more important than ever.
A Legacy of
Violence
While Northern Ireland’s youth
have experienced the fruits of
peace rather than the tribulations
of war, research has
found that intergenerational
trauma continues to affect
the country’s population. A
2010 study by researchers
at the University of Ulster in
Northern Ireland found that
30 years after Bloody Sunday,
the victims’ children and
immediate family members
reported significant psychological
distress. In some cases,
especially among those closest
to the victims, their distress
was comparable to those who
had lived through war itself.
Stephen Mullan, the executive
director of Dreamscheme—an
organization that works with
at-risk youth in Belfast—has
observed this intergenerational
trauma.
“When there’s pain
in your family history,
that’s harder to get over,”
Mullan said. “There’s a lot
of emotion that’s passed
through those stories.”
More broadly, Northern
Ireland’s youth are struggling
with mental health issues,
including anxiety and depression.
The legacy of conflict,
continued discrimination, poverty,
and high unemployment
are all contributing factors.
As a result, Northern Ireland’s
suicide rate is one of the highest
in the United Kingdom.
Between 1999 and 2014,
more than 3,700 people lost
their lives to suicide and nearly
a fifth of those people were
under 25 years old. Studies
have linked the high youth
suicide rate to the conflict in a
number of ways. In particular,
poverty combined with continued
segregation is thought to
increase risk factors that may
result in suicide.
“Kids now are not so much
hurting each other,” Mullan
said. “But hurting themselves.”
Sectarianism &
Segregation
While the country’s ‘peace
walls’ are slowly being torn
down, sectarianism and
segregation still linger. In housing
estates such as Creggan,
where poverty and unemployment
are high, sectarian sentiments
are strong and appear to
be increasing as paramilitaries
regroup. Earlier this year, on
the night before Good Friday,
journalist Lyra McKee was shot
dead during a riot in Creggan.
The New IRA, a radical splinter
group of the original IRA, later
claimed responsibility but no
one has been charged with her
murder.
Segregated schools add
to the problem. Only seven
percent of school-aged children
in Northern Ireland attend an
officially integrated school.
This low percentage has created
a barrier to friendships
that stretch across ideological
lines. These divisions, however,
are disliked by young
people, many of whom prefer
integrated education. Dirk
Schubotz, a senior lecturer at
Queen’s University in Belfast,
directs an annual survey of
16-year-olds across Northern
Ireland and says this growing
preference for integrated
schools reflects young people’s
desire to separate themselves
from the past.
“Young people go out of
their way to say that ‘this is not
our conflict, it’s our parent’s or
our grandparent’s,’” Schubotz
said. “We also live at a time
where religion has become less
important— that’s not unique to
Northern Ireland, but there’s a
different element because of the
conflict.”
Looking Toward
the Future
Even in its uncertainty, the
prospect of Brexit has posed
a new concern for segments
of Northern Ireland’s youth. A
recent report found that 61 percent
of middle-income teenagers
are highly concerned about
withdrawing from the European
Union. Brexit, if enacted, would
have wide-reaching implications
for trade, immigration
and Northern Ireland’s shared
border with the Republic of
Ireland. More locally, Northern
Ireland’s political system has
essentially unraveled. The country’s
power-sharing Assembly
has not been in session for
more than two years due to a
falling out between Republican
and Unionist parties. For many
young people, optimistic that
the future of Northern Ireland
is one of unity, the Assembly’s
failing is a reminder that the
shadow of conflict will be present
as long as divisions persist.
“Most young people
would like Northern Ireland
to progress to the point where
you wouldn’t have to ask if
someone is British or Irish,”
says twenty-one-year old Tara
Grace Connolly who grew up
in Belfast. “We would like a
future of prosperity and progress,
not fear.”
ZEKE APRIL FALL 2019/ 2015/ 13