By Msgr. Noel C. Burtenshaw

There is no quick fix for Northern Ireland.

Nothing comes quickly in that Province except maybe death. That can happen awfully fast.

Derek Wilson saw it happen one day in his native Belfast and it spurred him into action to work for peace. It happened this way. Derek, a social worker and a Presbyterian, was working with a 17-year-old girl also a native Northern Ireland Protestant.

Secretly the girl was a member of a para-military group which ordered her to kill a Catholic woman in retribution for an alleged offense. The girl, along with some accomplices, dragged a young Catholic mother into a deserted building. While the victim’s child waited on the footpath outside, the girl “bricked” the woman to death. She simply hit the woman with a brick till she died. That was in 1965.

In that instant Derek Wilson’s Corrymeela was born.

John Barbour, a native of San Francisco, heard about the work of Corrymeela in 1976. “That was the year,” says John, “I graduated from Whitman College in Walla-Walla, Washington State. I was looking at some outreach communities like the Peace Corps when a friend told me about the work in Ireland. It sounded exciting. I knew it was for me.” So John Barbour, a Presbyterian, set sail on an adventure he gladly talks about.

John went to County Antrim, to a little town on the beautiful, wild, east coast of Northern Ireland. “The town was Bellycastle and the center is really a village to itself,” says John. There in Derek Wilson’s Corrymeela, a group of Christians live and work together to bring change to other Christians who cannot live and work together.

In so many areas of the world this little community would arouse no news interest. But this is Northern Ireland. The community of Corrymeela is both Protestant and Catholic and that fact alone is news.

“The aim of the center,” says the red bearded and most Irish looking John, “is to bring reconciliation. By creating a climate of peace at this center in this lovely setting, it is hoped that brotherhood will grow.”

While John was there he involved himself in two vital areas of the work. First he helped groups who attended the center for a few days get acquainted. “Often they were groups of Catholic and Protestant youth.” Says John, who now studies and teaches at Emory. “And what was most interesting was the fact that one denomination probably had never spoken to the other before. Certainly not at any length or on serious topics.”

Did John Barbour see any results to these study days? “Remember it is Northern Ireland, the resentments run deep, especially among the working classes. You hope that a seed is sown.”

John sees more hopeful signs among the middle classes of that sad province. “I found very courageous people who work hard for peace,” says Barbour. “For example, the teachers who dared bring the youth together risk a lot, some even bodily harm. So many of them are ready. The suffering is great, but so too is the hope.”

John saw some of this suffering when, on every fourth weekend of his 16-month stay, he went to Belfast to work. “Corrymeela has a Belfast office and we attended and promoted workshops in that city on many occasions.”

Belfast is like a war zone. “You get used to being stopped and searched by the police and the British Army and for the most part they make it as pleasant as possible. It is the divisions of the people that leaves the bad taste and the bad memories.”

This is the point where social work slows to almost a halt. Catholic and Protestant rarely mix. For the most part they are working class, living in poor circumstances, out of work, glaring across invisible barriers of misunderstanding at each other. Occasionally the violence erupts and random killings take place.

“I guess what the Corrymeela, and other communities are trying to do, is introduce, or re-introduce one group to another. It is almost impossible and sometimes there is great danger for all concerned.”

The danger comes alive when the Protestant and the Catholic family agree to sit and talk and air resentments never before heard by the other side. “Within an atmosphere of peaceful dialogue, it works,” says John, “but what will happen when each returns to their side of the line? The suspicion is great, motives are suspected and reprisal can be swift. That’s how life is.”

Decades of abuse by a largely Protestant administration and police force has made the Catholic minority wary of participation in any form of official peacekeeping. “Catholics will not join the police,” says John, “and if one did so, he would probably be visited by the IRA or some such group.” John tells the story of one policeman, a Presbyterian, who received great respect in some of the Catholic areas. “He was a fine guy,” says John, “and took us on patrol. I noticed when taking a turn he never turned on his indicator. His attitude was you stay alive by being careful. Never let the guy behind know your next move. He believed an IRA contract was out on him.”

It is in this atmosphere of mistrust and violence that the peaceful community of Corrymeela works. “From all over Ireland support, financial and otherwise, comes,” says John Barbour. “Those who know the work do not expect immediate or even quick success. We are trying to introduce Irish people to each other. Most are not sure they even want to take that step. The process is slow, very slow.”

John Barbour was willing to look at some spectacular failures that this tragic area has seen over the last few years. “The peace people, who even were awarded a Pulitzer Peace Prize, are now out of business or certainly are not what they set out to do. Mother Teresa brought her sisters to Northern Ireland but decided the climate was impossible and withdrew. And others too, Corrymeela understands. Change will happen only slowly.”

The alternatives in Northern Ireland to peace and reconciliation are awful. “We may see the British go,” says the young Emory student who will share his experiences at the Open Door Community on March 25, “and I suppose that will be alright, but if that is anytime soon, we better be prepared for the bloodbath that will follow. It is frightening to think about it.”

So the work of the Christian community in Bellycastle goes on. Corrymeela is happy with the pace. Patience, prayer, perseverance and willingness to suffer will achieve the hoped for reconciliation.

That’s how John Barbour saw it and lived in on his Irish adventure.