I remember the day that we were told that one of our classmates dads had been shot and left in a Lane way in south Armagh for allegedly dealing drugs. She was a good friend of mine, she was off for a week then came back to class. Never mentioned again. That’s how we were taught

You go anywhere in South Armagh and start talking about the troubles o bombs (I can’t even imagine doing it like) and you’d be met with complete silence. We don’t talk about it, don’t cheer about it, there is a grim acceptance of it and a real pain too

When comparing the war of independence to The Troubles here, the main difference is, it was mostly fought between people who lived here for generations - the comparison to the civil war would be more accurate. The PUL community were the RUC and the UDR they live here

They dont differentiate between bombs killing the Armed Forces or civilians because the organisation ordering the bombs allowed civilian ‘collateral damage’ that included their families.The Shankill bomb, Enniskillen etc. The victims aren’t going to say “the IRA weren’t ALL bad”

“They only killed a few of us but they were mostly getting at the Army, those bombs were ok actually” what they hear is people who never lived the conflict and don’t deal with the aftermath cheering on certain acts from a group because they think they’re valid

Their families were in the army, were in the RUC, were in the UDR. Real living people that lived here for generations that they see people down the road cheering on the actions of a group that targeted members of their family

Understanding that isn’t saying
-you don’t understand why IRA came reemerged or why the did what they did
-denying what life was like for catholics in the North since partition in a gerrymanderd sectarian gov
-you think that state collusion to murder citizens isn’t an outrage

It is the reason why, however that you don’t see people publicly cheering on bombs like they’re a scene in their favourite film, they don’t have to look other targets that survived in the eye a week later

I am 34, I saw little of the conflict. But I grew up in the 90s when some of the most horrific things happened. My daddy was working in Loughinisland when the bar was shot out, I was screeching when he went to work there the next day. Completely terrorised

I was about 40 seconds drive away from the Newry courthouse bomb when it went off. It was so unbelievably loud. I thought all behind me was gone. I remember noticing a man jogging in Tyrone shorts just ahead of me, first because of Tyrone shorts in Down/Armagh & how late it was.

He was only about 2mins jog away from it, what if he had stopped to tie his lace before the courthouse? What then? Mummy was an orthopaedic nurse before switching to midwifery, she didn’t know who planted the bombs that injured the amputees she nursed. She’d never clap them

But what strikes me is that the revelling in our pain, the cold dismissal of our past being “in the past get over it” as well as the “let’s talk about certain Bombs the IRA planted and how gory they were, what monsters they are up there” smacks of no real interest & partitionism

Up here is always ‘other’. Whether it’s pretending the Protestant, loyalist and unionist community don’t exist/have no legitimate pain or pretending that the inaction of the south and the actions of the British State didn’t make life horiffic here and catalyse violence.

I am tired of you sampling our pain history and trauma like some interesting tapas