How’s Poor Old Ireland?

However, the economy is better in the South than in the North, although there is progress there, too. Headway has been made since the Good Friday agreements, but the peace process still has a way to go. Some 900 years of hurts and 30 years of almost outright war have caused deep wounds that may take years to heal.

As to the part of the question “How does she stand?” — Ireland still stands facing in two different directions and only agrees on the fact that both sides are tired of the battle.

Just as it seemed that all the violence had subsided and the guards were taken off the border and other steps taken toward peace — violence broke out again on the Protestant Shankill Road in Belfast. This time the people of Ireland say it is related more to turf-guarding and drugs than the age-old conflict. Drugs are new to Ireland and it is indeed unfortunate they have reached here.

So, as we went into Belfast we again saw armed police walking across vacant lots carrying machine guns. But so much has improved in the years we have been coming to hear about “the Troubles.”

We heard about them again as we sat at supper in a Presbyterian church across the river in Derry and listened to a pianist play the winsome “Londonderry Air,” and to an Irish singer who lead the participants in singing traditional songs.

We also noticed the tremble of the presbytery moderator’s hand as he spoke of events — starting back with a siege in the 1500s inside the walled city and continuing through “bloody Sunday” in the early 1970s, when so many men were killed and much of the city destroyed. At that time the Protestants were forced out of Belfast and now live across the river, remembering their past and fearing losing their whole way of life.

But we also sat in the Lower Ormeau Concerned Community in Belfast where Catholics have recently been beaten and killed because they objected to the Orangemen parades through their area. The parades flaunted the history of violence in a part of Belfast that was first Protestant and is now Catholic.

And we listened to Trevor Morrow, the moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, who recalled my speaking to their General Assembly in 1996 in that very location which they call Church House. From there he went over to Shankill Road, scene of the recent violence, and met with a frightened and sorrowful crowd in a Presbyterian church. He came back to our luncheon with tears in his eyes.

On Sunday we spread out in Presbyterian and Catholic churches in Lisburn, since our group included members of both churches. I went to First church, which twice was unfortunate in being near the bombings which plague the country. And twice the congregation has put its stained-glass windows back together and replaced the church’s roof.

One of the restored windows is called the Resurrection Window which has a sunburst pattern. Thinking it wasn’t enough to rebuild the church, they have begun interchurch activities between Presbyterians and Catholics, and have reached out to the community with many projects.

One of our former PC(USA) moderators, Ken Hall, preached there that Sunday. He, along with Dick Young from East Union church in Cheswick, Pa., and Marie Hilliard, representing the Catholic Bishop’s Conference, led our tour group. Hilliard is one of the Catholic representatives on the Irish Inner Church Council.

Hank Postel from Maryland, Josiah Beeman (recently returned from his term as ambassador to New Zealand), Pierce Buford from Birmingham, Ala., and Steve Grace from Midland, Mich., represented the PC(USA) well at the council meeting in Belfast in November. It was also attended by representatives from the Presbyterian and Catholic churches of both countries.

The Irish Task Force, led by Postel, sponsors speaking tours, business initiatives and education in the United States for young Irish people. These students are required to return home and help avoid the “brain drain” of young persons leaving Ireland.

And the task force sponsors the Irish Institute every two years to help us better understand what to many Presbyterians are our “former ancestors.”

So we went as a group to the U.S. Embassy in Dublin and to the Department of Foreign Affairs. And then in Northern Ireland, we met with James Leslie of the Ulster Unionist Party at the Parliament Building, returning there later in the week to a reception hosted by Denis Haughey of the Social Democratic Labor Party (SDLP).

We heard John Dunlop, former Presbyterian moderator in Ireland and Doug Baker, PC(USA) missionary. We were hosted by Bishop Gerald Clifford (Catholic) and Archbishop Robin Eames (Anglican) in the historic religious city of Armaugh. We heard John Hume, SDLP leader who was co-recipient with David Tremble of the Nobel Peace Prize. Hume told us of work for peace in Derry and expressed the desire that the military parades be turned into gala festivals like Mardi Gras.

We were received by the mayor of Londonderry, the first Sinn Fein mayor in the history of Ireland. And we went to Sinn Fein’s Belfast headquarters in a new building which they admitted was built by American dollars. There we were assured they supported peaceful politics instead of continued violence. We hope that statement holds true.

We heard Presbyterian minister Gordon Gray tell of community efforts and we heard Catholic Paddy Doherty tell of the rebuilding of Derry, with vision and the help of many young Irish students. We visited the government housing and the Habitat for Humanity in Belfast. We dined in homes of the Irish people.

And we met on the second anniversary of the bombing of the shopping mall in Omagh That happened just as we were entering Ireland for the previous institute.

How is “Poor Old Ireland?” Better! But not yet completely over the hurts and tragedies that have occurred there over and over and over.