Northern exposure reveals complex reality of Border for people on both sides of the divide

Caution is a hallmark of Border dwellers in response to questions of identity

The one uncontentious fact about the 300-mile Border that divides Northern Ireland from the Republic, running from Muff in Donegal to Warrenpoint in Down, would seem to be that it is there.

However, Don Brolly, a drinker in the Central Bar in Lifford, Co Donegal, across the bridge from where the Border starts in Strabane, Co Tyrone, insists: “As far as we’re concerned, there is no Border. The Border doesn’t exist.”

These days, the first signal to motorists that a border has been crossed is that speed limits are indicated in miles in Northern Ireland, but in kilometres in the South. Then there are the red postboxes, prices displayed in sterling, and stickers such as the one in a cafe window in Strabane that reads: “Breastfeeding welcome here, supported by the Health Promotion Agency for Northern Ireland.”

Strabane

Shirley Russell owns the Pagoda Flower kiosk in Strabane. “When you’re living so close to the Border, you work with all sides of the community,” she says. “We’re still all Irish. The Border doesn’t make any difference. But I imagine it’s more expensive to live in the South.”

Patrick McDonald lives in Newry and is on business in Strabane. When I met him during a tour of the Border some weeks ago, he wanted to talk about Rory McIlroy. “It’s been as clear as day since the day he started golfing that he’s going to play for Britain. He’s described as being from ‘Northern Ireland’, not ‘Ireland’. Otherwise he’d be carrying the Tricolour and he isn’t. Obviously, he’ll play for Britain.”

Martin McHugh is looking at shoes in the Look Foot shoe shop on Strabane’s main street. “I’m from Letterkenny in Donegal, and Donegal is part of northern Ireland,” he says. “It is. It’s the most northerly part of Ireland. I call myself a Donegal man first, and a northern Irishman second. That’s the way a lot of us would see our identity.”

Pettigoe/Tullyhommon

At the adjoining villages of Pettigoe/Tullyhommon, the Border is somewhere in the Termon river that divides North from South. On one side of the bridge, there’s an Ulster Bus 194 stop to Enniskillen; on the other, derelict buildings are painted in the green and gold of the Donegal county colours.

Roscommon-born sculptor Dara Hand moved to Tullyhommon 16 years ago with his wife, painter Alison Britton, who is from Lisbellaw, near Enniskillen. Together, they run the Cowshed gallery and cafe in the village.

“Our main reasons for choosing to live in the North were the health services and education,” Hand says. “And property prices were another reason. Even 16 years ago, people were looking for crazy prices in the South compared to what we could buy in the North.”

After 16 years, he considers himself more Northern Irish than Irish. “I have more in common with people here now than in the South,” he says.

Hand considers that there is a “marked difference between those living either side of the Border”.

“People in the North are a wee bit more cagey,” he says, eventually. “The Border doesn’t really exist in people’s minds any more. The real border is religion and the culture you were brought up in, as a Catholic or Protestant. I live in the Protestant north, as we call it, but I don’t practise any religion, and we choose schools for our children based on reputation, not religion.”

Religion in the North “is becoming even more important. The recession is the enemy of the peace process. The devil makes work for idle hands”.

His Fermanagh-born wife says that by living on the Border, they have the best of both worlds. “The children get influences from both sides.” She sees the different sides of the Border as two distinct places. “It’s the shops, the post offices – but the people are different as well,” she says. “The religious differences are there. We’re surrounded by churches here and churchgoers. We’re not churchgoers ourselves.”

Belleek

At the village of Belleek, which is famous for its pottery, you can stand in the garden of the Carlton Hotel, in Northern Ireland, cast your line into the river, and catch a fish in the South. The Border is on the bridge. Patrice Vanswayze from Mauritius is the hotel manager. “I’m here part of the week and the other part, I live in Derry/Londonderry,” he says carefully. “I always call it Derry/Londonderry so I don’t offend anyone.” He sees Border differences as purely economic. “I’d say at the moment, the North is doing a lot better. And in Belleek, because the Border is so close to us, I think it is less important.”

Michael McGrath, who runs a fishing tackle shop behind the Thatch cafe in Belleek, and who has lived in the village all his life, used to own the Carlton. “I bought it bombed in 1975,” he says. “It was totally wiped out again in 1979. There were three massive incendiary bombs. Everyone got out in time. The hotel was one of the first commercial targets of the time.”

The red carpet in his fishing shop was retrieved from the bombed hotel’s function room: he sold the hotel in 1986. He recalls when Lord Louis Mountbatten used to visit his estate at Classiebawn, he was escorted through Belleek – “the most westerly part of the British empire in Ireland” – by the special branch, and met at the other side of the bridge by gardaí.

“Everyone who doesn’t live on the Border is fascinated by it, but for ourselves it was and is normal daily existence,” he says wryly. “There is no Border. It’s an enforced division, but it’s long gone. People think there’s a dividing line, but they don’t know where to find it.”

He may not believe there is a Border, but he adds: “A northern Irishman is a totally different character to a man from Cork or Dublin. He has a far wider vision of what he’s at. He has a far greater experience of the world. And he takes things a lot easier.”

McGrath says in his experience “Donegal people consider themselves northern Irish. All of central Tyrone and Fermanagh have holidayed in Donegal, and they probably know the county better than most people from the South.”

Belcoo

The village of Blacklion in Co Cavan has become well known thanks to Nevin Maguire’s restaurant there. Across the bridge is Belcoo, Co Fermanagh, where Derry-born Jim Wilkinson runs a bike repair shop and the Hair of the Dog bar. He bought the bar four years ago and commutes to it from Enniskillen.

“I’m strictly an Irishman,” he says. “I don’t visualise the Border as a border. Those days are gone and trade is a lot easier now. Crossing the Border always felt like you were going to a different place. There was a certain amount of freedom. You felt relaxed, mostly because you knew you weren’t going to be stopped again. It probably still is a bit more relaxed on the other side of the Border.”

He’s says jokingly: “There’s still a little bit of ‘them and us’ on each side of the Border, mostly in sport, but in a neighbourly way. I wouldn’t say that Northern Ireland has become a place of its own. There’s still this notion if you’re Catholic, you affiliate yourself with Ireland, if you’re Protestant, with the UK.”

Another local businessman who was “born and reared in Belcoo” does not want to offer opinions, or comment on whether he thinks Northern Ireland is carving out a distinct identity for itself, or anything at all to do with how he defines Northern Ireland to be in 2012, or what it is like to be a life-long resident of a Border village. Eventually, by way of explanation, he shrugs his shoulders and says: “Identity is political.”

The more I drive along the Border and the more people I talk to, the more I realise how consistently guarded people are in conversation, once they realise they’re being interviewed by a journalist. For the people who don’t immediately walk away – and there are many – they noticeably shy away from offering all but the mildest opinions when it comes to questions of identity.

At different points along the Border, I hear different explanations for why this is. People say variously they are afraid of offending neighbours, tradespeople, customers, churchgoers, community groups and the schools their children attend.

Caledon

At the neat estate village of Caledon, a single union jack flies over the main street. “Northern Ireland is run by the British and funded by the British,” says resident Robbie Little. “We are under the British flag. That is our identity. Rory McIlroy playing for Ireland would be like expecting an Austrian athlete to join a German team; you just don’t go across that border.”

Little adds: “A lot of people along the Border think differently to those further north, like say Holywood. They have a different attitude. They didn’t experience what we did. There were several bombs in this village and a lot of local people were shot. They would be more tolerant than us.”

Eric Edwards is tending the many roses in his garden in the village centre. “Northern Ireland is not a distinct place,” he says. “It might be how the world views us, but we’re Irish. There should never have been a border, because borders divide people. We should all be working together from a commerce point of view. I’m a businessman and I look at the Border from a different point of view: commerce, not religion.”

Edwards keeps bees and sells the honey as a business. “I market it on the mainland,” he says.

What does he mean by ‘the mainland’? “Oh, Britain. London and Cambridge,” he says.

“When I went to Harrods to market my honey, as far as they were concerned, though, I wasn’t Northern Irish or British, I was Irish. They wanted to brand it Irish honey and said the Irish brand name was good. What else could I say?”