Forty-eight young people aged between 15 and 25 were brought together in five groups by a Belfast-based think tank late last year to talk about the society they live in and the one they want.
The encounters, however, illustrate the road that Northern Ireland has yet to travel, marked by a lack of hope that things will change in their lifetimes and even caution about bringing about the very change that they say they want to see happen.
In conversations that took place in Belfast, Derry, Enniskillen and south Armagh in September and December, the groups gathered by the Pivotal think tank professed a striking sense of belonging to the local community where they live.
However, that sense of belonging partly illustrates Northern Ireland’s still-continuing wider divisions, since most of the young people themselves volunteered that they live in segregated communities.
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In the rural areas focused on by Pivotal, this typically meant that the villages or towns where they live are still dominated by people from one religious background.
In Belfast, the divisions live cheek by jowl: “While people of different religious backgrounds lived there in closer proximity, they did not necessarily share spaces in an integrated way.”
Everyone, no matter how young, understands the meanings of murals and flags, which are “widely understood” as ways to mark territory and intimidate outsiders.
In Belfast, the so-called “peace walls” are clear symbols of segregation that they want to see end, yet they have mixed feelings about taking them down. Instead, they suggested that the walls’ gates could be kept open for longer.
Some efforts to boost cross-community ties – such as “special days” at school – are little more than window dressing, the groups felt. Instead, they sought more funding for youth clubs, sports and other settings to create sustained contacts.
“Instead of lasting progress, many grander initiatives both within and outside schools that aim to bring together young people from different backgrounds are too irregular to make a difference.
“Leadership is required if young people are to believe integration can be a genuine aspiration for their generation,” said Pivotal, which issued a report earlier this year that looked at the consequences of segregated schooling.
The priority for some of those involved was for younger students who are just beginning primary school, rather than believing that anything can be done to greatly improve the level of cross-community ties in their own lives.
“In primary school, that’s where you make friends easier, that’s where you first meet people. That’s where you become friends with different people from different cultures and religions easier than you would in high school.
“Like, you’re young and once you get to know them like nothing really matters. You don’t really care about their religion or anything you just are like friends,” said a 15-year-old girl from south Armagh.
Some of the young people described their experiences of integration “as an action, rather than a state of being” filled with “temporary efforts” that they engaged in before returning to the background from which they came.
“Do you remember the episode in Derry Girls where they were like, ‘Right, we’ve 20 Protestants here, 20 Catholics there?’ It’s just unnatural, you know. You’re forcing questions that maybe some people aren’t comfortable in answering,” said one 22-year-old man from south Armagh.
Equally, the groups brought together by the think tank believed that Northern Ireland’s segregated school system “helps perpetuate division, with the mandatory teaching of religious education a particular concern for many”, said Pivotal.
“However, while there was significant support for integrated education, this was not universal – and it was not seen as a cure all for current social division.”
