Driscoll, Britain, CH4 Identity p 6

A divided community

This is the wa.il, builc in 1984, which separices the Cacholic Falls Road from the Protestant Shankhill Road — a vivid sign of segregation in Belfast.

are people whose ancestors were native Irish. They are self-con-sciously Catliolic and would like Northern Ireland to becorae part of the Irish Republic.

Although the two communities live side-by-side, their lives are alrnost entirely segregaied. They live in different housing estates, listen to different radio and television programmes, register with different doctors, have prescriptions madę up by chemists of their own denominations, march to commemorate different anniversaries and read different newspapcrs. Their children go to different schools, so thac those who go on to university often find themselves mixing with people from the ‘other’ community for the first time in their lives. For the majority who do not go to university, rnerely talking to somebody from the other community is a rare event.

In this atmosphere, marrying a member of the odier community is traditionally regarded with horror, and has sometimes even resulted in the deaths of the Romeos and Juliets concerned (as punish-ment for the ‘betrayal’ of their people). The extremes of these hard-line attitudes are gradually softening. It should also be noted that they apply to amuch lesser extent among the middle-classes. It is illustrative of this that while in football, a mainly working-class sport, Northern Ireland and the Republic have separale teams, in rugby, a morę