Belfast from 1988

During my eight years in Derry I often visited Belfast, staying with my friends there as before. I was welcomed into their home and into the circle of their friends who meet there every Thursday. During these visits I learned much about Northern Ireland life in general with its historic roots and I enjoyed the stimulating company. All these friends kindly welcomed my decision to move back to Belfast where I now have my own small house nearby.

The move itself had all the common snags—the sale of the Derry house fell through at the last minute — the boiler packed up — the house had to be rewired, and I was exhausted! In addition my Englishness proved more of a problem than it had been in Derry and the difficulties of the move brought it out. I am self-reliant by nature and it irked me to have to accept so much help, especially from people who often seemed critical. I think it was something like England's reactions to going into Europe — a defensive fear of losing my individuality and Englishness. The resulting sense of isolation only faded out when I recognised it came from within me, relied on God to put things into perspective and sincerely appreciated the generous care of my Irish friends to whom the English are a perennial problem.

When the Irish — and others — talk about 'the English', what they have done or what they are like, they may mean those in authority or, much more numerous, those like me with a traditional outlook.

To me England will always be Shakespeare's 'precious stone set in a silver sea' and many people who would not express it like that feel the same.

The co-educational grammar school where I went for six years had a War Memorial in the form of a mural behind the stage where the headmaster said prayers every morning. The names of the staff and ex-scholars who had died in the First World War were listed in columns and across the top, in large gold letters, were the words, 'Live thou for England — we for England died'. These words are still imprinted on my mind and are part of my motivation.

Living for England in Northern Ireland is living with history; a history in which English policy over the centuries has divided neighbour from neighbour, creating a web of injustices and enmity from which there is no reasonable way out.

This being so, no amount of Government money poured in, no increase of security forces, no efforts to reconcile Catholics and Protestants will of themselves bring lasting change. Only a miracle can stop the future being a replica of the past.

How can we open the way for this miracle? There is a clue in Dr Paul Campbell's book A Dose of My Own Medicine.⁵He refers to having sometimes been content with an individual's decision to follow God's guidance but had 'failed to move with them to the Cross where they take on their nation and the world'.

For us English the task is to take on the English nation, acknowledge the callous side of our history and to surrender the inherent conviction that we know best. This tendency, which others regard as national megalomania, we regard as justified self-confidence, and it is hard to let go. Moreover, admitting national weaknesses seems like disloyalty, which makes it doubly hard. So Dr Campbell is right in putting the taking on of the nation in the context of the Cross.

It is not that we need to forego our patriotism but to enhance it. Do we love England enough to admit the wrongdoing in her past, recognise our own wrong attitudes in the present, and seek God's redirection for the future? This is where real hope lies.

In recent months these lines from Kipling's Reces­sional Hymn have often come to mind:

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard —
All-valiant dust that builds on dust
And guarding calls not Thee to guard —
For frantic boast and foolish word
Thy mercy on Thy people Lord.

References

1. Buchman, F.N.D. (initiator of Moral Re-Armament). Quoted in A New Day, a book of Daily Readings for our Time compiled by D.M. Prescott, Blandford Press, 1957, p 360.

2. Swords, Fr Liam. Editor and compiler of The Irish-French Connection 1578-1978.

3. McCIean, Dr Raymond. TheRoad to Bloody Sunday, Ward River Press Ltd.1983

4. Longley, Clifford. The Times (London) 25th January 1992

5. Campbell, Dr Paul. A Dose of My Own Medicine, Grosvenor Books Canada, 1992.

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ANOTHER VOICE FROM ENGLAND
DURING THE LONG CONFLICT
IN NORTHERN IRELAND

John Lester is a medical doctor who lived in Birmingham for some years during the conflict. In 1991 a few weeks after IRA bombs were fired at 10 Downing Street during a Cabinet meeting, he contributed the following article to the magazine For A Change.

“I realized that our policies in Ireland over many centuries had produced the current situation. But this did not entirely satisfy me. How could we have deliberately done such terrible things in Cromwell's time and in the famine, even though values then were different? I assumed there must have been extenuating circumstances. Or, was it because of characteristics we still had? ...”

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