Opening minds on a first trip south of the Border

BANKS OF THE BOYNE: A history lesson  for Northern children: Fifteen-year-old Thomas Cochrane who lives on the UVF- controlled estate of Mount Vernon in Belfast wore a Rangers jersey on his recent trip to the site of the Battle of the Boyne.

"People looked but they didn't say anything to me," he says about his first visit south of the Border. "We learnt loads about the battle and King Billy and King James. It was brilliant."

For residents of Mount Vernon, where giant murals featuring paramilitaries and messages such as "Prepared for Peace, Ready For War" loom large at the entrance to the estate, the trip to Drogheda was deeply significant. "It would have been unthinkable 10 years ago," says organiser George Newell of the trip that was funded by the European Union and facilitated by Co-Operation Ireland. Since the ceasefire, more and more Protestants have visited the State, as the number of cross-Border programmes has increased.

"Perception is a major part of the problem," says Newell. "Young Protestants here grow up isolated, when they go down they experience how other people live. Lot's of them see Catholics as the enemy and cross-Border work helps turn that idea on its head."

Mother of three Amanda Ashe brought her son David (12) on the trip. "My David did not have an inkling about the Boyne before the trip, a lot of children don't actually know about the 12th or that part of their history. I haven't brought him up to hate anyone, I hope he doesn't know the word Taig. Trips like this are good for all of us."

Small things count in Mount Vernon. The red, white and blue kerb stones are now paint free, because, Amanda says, residents realised they were "only running their own area down".

"I don't like the murals or the arches, not everybody here supports the UVF," she says. "To be honest the inter-feuding between loyalist groups would affect me more these days than the Protestant/Catholic divide."

According to Newell, it's not easy being a young working- class Protestant in the city these days. "Opportunities just don't exist," he says. "In the past we had Harland and Wolff and Shorts, and when they started to disappear, we fell behind. We weren't used to thinking for ourselves, the politicians said 'work hard and we will sort it out'.

"Now we haven't got those safety nets which is why the only hope for many young Protestants is to join the army."

Thomas Cochrane is one of them. "I want to see the world," he says. Before his dad died last year he told him it was "okay to be friends with Catholics".

"They are still human," he says. "I want to go back down South and learn more."