Reflections Of An Irish Border Town

It is a common joke in Ireland that Americans think they are more Irish than the Irish themselves! If this describes you, you may have been here to see your ancestors. Was your great-great-grandfather from Ulster or Munster? Was your great-great-grandmother from Leinster or Connacht? Well, then you’re as green as Old Saint Paddy!

Those who have lived here all our lives are not immune to the fixation on family history. My studies in this field recently led me to the village of Newtownbutler, County Fermanagh. Newtownbutler has a small population; According to figures from 2011, fewer than a thousand people live there today. It is where my mother’s parents had their first home together in the late 1960s.

Walking the streets your grandparents walked in their 20s—visiting a place you’ve only heard of in old stories and then seeing the changes the years have wrought—expands your sense of time. You become Harry Potter in his Godric’s Hollow scene!

Like many towns and villages on the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, Newtownbutler has suffered greatly from our Troubles. In the year 1972 alone the Provisional IRA killed five men in the area. If my grandparents (both Protestants) had not moved to County Down by then, I would probably never have lived to write these words.

On my dime, it was Bishop Phillips Brooks (an Anglican, of course!) who wrote the most beautiful lyric found in any hymnbook: “The hopes and fears of all the years / are met in you tonight.” You know it well; it comes from the Christmas carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem”. I think about all those hopes and fears that met in a Fermanagh village: the hopes of a new couple expecting their first child (my eldest aunt); their fear of IRA terrorism.

Of course, Christ is the one we sing about when we sing “O Little Town.” It was Christ who nailed our fears to His cross. It was Christ who gave us reason for hope when he rose from the dead. Even as we look around us, we can see flickers of that hope. They shine like pinpricks of light in a dark world. It is our calling, through the lives we lead, to make them bright beacons.

There is such a glimmer of hope opposite where my grandparents lived in Bridge Street, Newtownbutler. Bridge Street is where Newtownbutler’s courthouse once was, you see; now the building is home to the Courthouse Community Centre, complete with a Sure Start branch. For those outside Britain, Sure Start was a 1998 idea from the British government to support preschoolers. (Maybe you could reconsider those “UNITED IRELAND NOW” flags then, Newtownbutler!?)

Politics aside, there’s something very “from sword to ploughshare,” a phrase used in several Old Testament prophets, about a courthouse—where some gruesome cases have undoubtedly been heard—becoming a center where people of all ages can flourish . It summarizes three decades of progress in this country since the coming of peace: even a glimpse of the final restoration of all things.

One prophet who used the metaphor of “swords into plowshares” was Micah, who prophesied, “Everyone will sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree, and no one will make him afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken.” (4.4, NIV). It is an image of abundance and flourishing, a future where, to quote an American spiritual, there is ‘plenty of room’ for everyone.

I am pleased to say that in 2024, Northern Ireland is a modern and pluralistic society. Not only do Protestants and Catholics now live peacefully side by side, but we share our homeland with newcomers of different nationalities: the Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Pakistani and Syrian communities, to name a few. The fact that people from all over the world have settled here makes us proud.

But despite all this progress, no one with a serious head on their shoulders would argue that we can ignore the past. Rural villages across the province, like Newtownbutler, have seen their populations decimated; the volume of vacant buildings in the village is a testament to what once was. We must remember that IRA terrorism has only accelerated this process; many Protestants fled border communities in the 1970s and 1980s in search of relative safety.

The sad fact is, international readers and friends, that when you turn the peat soil in search of your Irish roots, you may wake up a few skeletons whose stories you should not ignore. My grandparents started their wedding in Newtownbutler; it was also ravaged by IRA violence and an incident known as the Pitchfork Murders, in which two Catholic civilians were killed.

Clemency or outright amnesty towards those who bring war cannot be part of a reconciliation strategy; It is known that the Good Friday Agreement opened the possibility for paramilitaries to be released early from prison. To the victims whose tormentors have broken free from the weight of natural righteousness, I can only offer this: “I will repay, says the Lord” (Romans 12:19).

When we recite the Creeds in church, we turn to the altar and summarize the entire history: from the moment of creation to eternal life. So what do the human stories and tragedies unfolding in a small town really matter?

Christians believe that in the incarnation of Christ the human and the divine were united in the person of Jesus, “not by the conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by the taking up of manhood in God.” This means that God is deeply involved and interested in our human stories.

When security forces visited a family with a son or daughter in the British Army, the Garda Síochána, the Royal Ulster Constabulary or the Ulster Defense Regiment with news of the death of a loved one, it not only broke that family’s collective heart; it was also the heart of Our Lord. God is with us – through the instruments of his grace, his Word and Sacrament – ​​when we suffer; “He heals the brokenhearted,” writes the psalmist, “and binds up their wounds” (147.3).

And so let us be thankful that by the grace of God and the courage of our people the cause of peace has finally prevailed. Northern Ireland is now in a different place. Remembering our past is nothing less than what the many victims of terror and their families deserve; but we cannot neglect our future either, because there is still much to do. “Let us move forward together,” as Churchill said.