Goodbye, ghettos

I am delighted to see the launch of Ulster's first mixed-religion social housing scheme, and even more delighted that it's to be in my home town of Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh. The twenty families living in a particular street have signed up to a charter whereby no "side" can exceed 70%.

 

It's my hope and prayer that the families will get to see each other for what they really are: normal people. That the mums will lend each other baby clothes and the dads will helps each other with odd jobs. That the kids will play together and even have arguments like normal kids do.

 

Readers outside Northern Ireland may ask what all the fuss is about. Well, in Northern Ireland Protestant and Roman Catholics live, largely, in different areas. Their kids go to different schools. They have different names, different politics, different friends, different sports, different pubs and often different accents. Belfast and other large towns, Enniskillen included, have "Protestant estates" and "Catholic estates". As a Protestant, I'd have no problem visiting friends in Derrychara, but I remember once being scared out of my wits driving up Kilmacormack. My Catholic compatriots have it the other way around. Daft, eh? Yet that's what we've grown up with.

 

A hundred years from now, maybe this council initiative, like integrated schooling, will be seen as one of the first groundbreaking moves at an everyday level towards an equitable society in our northern part of Ireland. I hope so. Big move. Hat off.