We've moved our blog!

Hi everyone,

Thanks for stopping by this blog to find out about Border Lives. We have now launched our website and therefore moved our blog over to www.borderlives.eu

Please keep reading our thoughts and progress on the new site. We'll also be adding video material over the next few months.

Thanks!
Sarah Bryden
Research and Social Media Project Officer

Being True.

Here's a quick last blog post for 2013, and it's on a subject that I've been thinking of and talking about to others for a long, long time.

In the media, there has been a lot of coverage in recent times about the Haas talks in Belfast, the possibility of some sort of 'truth commission', and how to deal with justice and the past in Northern Ireland.

Last year as we set out on the path to finding and capturing people's stories of the troubles, we were often asked about how inclusive it would be. For example, if we film an ex-RUC officer, will we also film an ex-republican prisoner?

The simple answer is yes - if they want to tell their story. Border Lives will not exclude anyone who wishes to tell us their story. It would be irresponsible and deceiving if we did. However, we are thoughtful about how to approach this. If we are not thoughtful and if we don't take care of the process then that's when controversy and hurt will undoubtedly arise.

For us, this project has always been about individuals - People - fellow human beings. It's not about politics, it's not about religion, it's not about justice. That may sound silly because it certainly touches on all of these things but they are never the main focus. We focus on experiences and emotions.

For an example, we filmed a man whose father was murdered by the IRA when he was just 11. Our focus in the interview was not to drag him through the emotions of that exact time, not to talk about who did it, not even to make him reconcile with his past or the IRA. That is not our place. In actual fact, he did talk a lot about forgiveness but we only asked him to describe how the loss of his father shaped his life going forward. How did growing up without his dad contribute to the man he is today? And it was inspiring to hear about his youth work and faith which sees him acting as a positive male role model to the young men he works with.

We also filmed a man who talked about the army presence near his home and how he disliked it, how he would defy them as a young boy. The focus of this was to hear about how he felt as a young boy from a tiny island on Lough Erne. The feeling of being cut off, trapped, having English soldiers to answer to. In this instance, we are not passing judgement on either him as a young boy, or the soldiers who were there. It is only about his experience and how he felt. It lead to his interest in politics and ultimately to community development and youth work in that rural area.

I suppose for me as a researcher, I am conscious that I am not a counsellor and I am not a judge. I am a listener. I hope that everyone who views the final films will watch and listen to these people and their very individual experiences with the same openness.

We have always explained to our participants that we will be as open and inclusive as possible, whilst respecting the current participants and ensuring we care for their well-being throughout.

We are not deciding who was right, who was wrong, who was a victim, who was a perpetrator - and why. We are documenting these stories as each individual sees themselves and their life. We are being as true to each person as we possibly can, and surely this is a better place to begin?

Progress in November

November is almost gone and what a month we've had. I thought I'd post a wee update on our filming progress.

In case you didn't know, we currently have four areas where we are filming. These are:

1.    Markethill, Newtownhamilton, Keady
2.    Forkhill, Crossmaglen, Newry, Camlough
3.    Roslea, Clones, Newtownbutler
4.    Belleek, Ballyshannon, Garrison, Rossinver

We are researching two more areas which are:

5. Castlederg, Victoria Bridge, Lifford, Strabane
6.    Newtowncunningham, Inishowen

We have made huge progress over the last two months. We have interviewed and filmed many more people in the four areas listed above. We've also held more information sessions, partnering with groups who are based directly on the border. These events were really successful and well attended. 

People continue to feel excited and engaged by the work that we are doing.

As I've spoken to several individuals over the last fortnight, it's clear that our 'grassroots' approach of engaging directly with groups and those on the border is the best way forward. They are positive about our work and hopefully feel some sense of shared ownership of it.

In January, we will focus much more on the final two areas to film. If anyone from those areas wishes to meet with me before Christmas, in preparation for organising an information session in the new year, please get in touch. I'm really keen to meet and listen to those communities to see how we can work together.

I'll try to do at least one more blog post before the Christmas holidays so keep an eye out for that.

Sarah

Looking back, and going forward

I was sitting at my desk catching up on social media updates, emails and admin when I glanced at my diary with the realisation that it was 1st of November. Wow. I have been working on the Border Lives project for over a year.

In a cliched way, time has flown by, but actually it's quite satisfying to look back and think about how much work has been done in the past year.

When I started on 29th October last year, I was still a blonde (am now a redhead), the project had a different name and was just some text on a funding application form. Conor (Project Manager) and myself were faced with the challenge of turning this name and the objectives into a project that not only met our targets but really achieved something.

I remember creating my work plan for the first 3 months and it being absurdly over ambitious so I quickly re-drafted it to something more realistic.

My approach was always to get out there and meet people. Yes I did book research, yes I researched online and yes I visited libraries but none of that even came close to the knowledge and experience I got from meeting and talking to people.

I've met with approximately 300 people so far, not only to tell them about our project and what we hope to do but to listen to their thoughts and advice, and answer their questions (if I could). This has been the key influence in shaping our project to what it is today. I can safely sit here and say that I am very proud of how Border Lives is turning out.

Of course, we have painstakingly procured for services such as our branding and logo design, our monitoring and evaluation framework, our website design and the video production. (Conor can testify to that!) We have held information events and put our steering committee into place. We have researched and drawn up our own code of conduct and good practice. We really have worked hard.

At times developing this project has felt overwhelming but that's only because we care about it, we take pride in the project and our input into it. We want it to be of the highest quality in every aspect.

And so, what of the next nine months?

There is still A LOT of work to be done but I'll keep doing what I'm doing.

I'll keep meeting people, keep researching, keep listening, keep thinking, keep caring.

After all, Border Lives is about the participants and the people from the border region. It is about you.

I'm confident that it's this approach that has made and will continue to make Border Lives a great project.

BBC NI Radio Interview 

Visit to Raphoe, County Donegal

Border Town Exhibition in Newry

Information Event

Send us your Border Images

Hi everyone,

We've been busy worker bees at Border Lives these days so not as much time as I'd like to update this blog. However, the busy times have been exciting times.

We have several more interviewees in place and a lot more filming to be done over the next fortnight. This is mainly in South Armagh and Belleek, County Fermanagh.

Sunset over Armagh City in October 2013

We are also spending time on our website so that we can launch it by the middle of November. Obviously we have no films to put onto our site yet so we're uploading photographs for now. Some of these photos have been kindly given to us by participants, others are from the Belfast Exposed archive.

So this blog post is a call for anyone with good images of the border. Whether they are of people, or landmarks and places, or of scenes specific to the years of the troubles - we'd love to use them in our online gallery.

Feel free to send any to me, Sarah, at s.bryden@tyronedonegalpartnership.org with one or two lines to explain what it is or where the photo was taken, plus the year if you know it.

The images will really help bring our website to life.

Thanks!

Filming in County Armagh

I thought I'd better update this blog on how our first full day of filming went.

Although we had filmed some bits and pieces in County Armagh over the 12th of July period, last week we completed our first sit down interview with David McMullen from CACD. (County Armagh Community Development)

I met with David many months ago during my researching and networking for the project. He and CACD were very warm, welcoming and open. Their attitude and interest in engaging with the project was exciting, particularly after being told many times that "you'll find it very difficult to get protestants to engage".

In fact, so far, I have found quite the opposite to be true.

When we held our information session in Newtownhamilton in April, we got a good turnout and several of them were very keen to tell their personal story and experiences.

And so the development of our first film began as more people from the area agreed to participate in our project. We decided over the summer that our first film would focus on the area of Newtownhamilton, Keady and Markethill.

Some of you might question our inclusion of Markethill because it isn't that close to the border. However, the stories in the film will answer any question over this choice as many participants are from the border but now live in Markethill (12 miles from the border).

Our first filmed interview was with David. He has been working in community development for years as well as continuing his work as a part time farmer. He is also a member of the Orange Order and lives close to the border. David is excellent at giving some context to the area and the feelings and issues that have affected and continue to affect the local protestant population there.

In the afternoon, we followed him to a successful community project in Aughnagurgan Orange Hall.

CACD was instrumental in starting up the 'Thursday club' project which tours between 3 rural orange hall venues. Each one formed a committee and they are now self sufficient, separate to the Orange Lodge. They apply for their own funding when necessary and have approximately 50 attendees each week.

We filmed the tea dance and interviewed some of the people there. It was really a lovely afternoon and fantastic to see such a turn out to an event in a very rural area. More so, fantastic to see the groups' ownership of the project.

I'd like to thank David, everyone at CACD and everyone we met in Aughnagurgan. It was a truly inspiring beginning to our interviews and filming.

It's Personal

One thing has come up a lot over the last few weeks in conversations with community groups and individuals. With so many parades, commemorations, sensitivities and contentious issues being reported in the media, we've been talking about the differences between rural and urban.

Throughout the research it is clear how differently people in the border areas feel, think and respond compared with more urban areas (i.e. Belfast).

The experience of those living along the border was vastly different to those in the cities of Belfast and even Derry-Londonderry.

What was it that was so different though?

In the space of a week, I was told by three different people that "along the border, in the rural areas, it was personal." And by personal they meant intensely, deeply personal.

In the cities and larger towns for example, whole streets and estates may have come together against another or attacks were made on people with whom they had no relationship with. In a way it was somewhat anonymous.

In the border areas, people knew each other well. Generations of the same families lived in the same townland for maybe a hundred years, maybe longer. So when the conflict heightened, it felt very much like neighbours attacking neighbours. Local people knew who was involved in what activity, they often didn't know who to trust and suspicion became fierce from all sides.

That's not to say that some communities, friends and neighbours didn't strengthen and come together because they did. However, largely, it created a deep division. One that we are still seeing in places like Castlederg or South East Fermanagh.

It's this 'personal' nature that our project hopes to be able to touch on in the films- the positive and negative.

We have heard stories of small communities coming together e.g. in Belleek where Catholic neighbours and families helped mend the Church of Ireland hall after it was attacked, even inviting the church members into their homes for tea and sandwiches.

We have also heard stories of suspicion between RUC and UDR officers and their neighbours, not knowing if their neighbour was surveilling their movements as they made their way home to their farm after a shift.

And there are so many more stories in between these two poles. It has been incredibly interesting hearing this issue begin to come to the fore in our research.

I would like to stress that this doesn't speak of 100% of people but of the many, many that I have spoken to. We really hope to be able to document and demonstrate the difference in experience between the border and the urban areas in ways like this.


*Thanks to Joe O'Loughlin for the photos.