This morning was probably the least eventful morning we have had on our trip. It consisted of waking up, going to eat breakfast, and finishing the packing process. We then took the Mercedes bus to the Belfast bus station. The ride to Dublin seemed to go by very quickly, probably because I thought it would be a great opportunity to catch up on some sleep.
There is really not much to say about the bus ride, but we finally arrived to Dublin. Everybody was looking forward to seeing the Republic of Ireland; for many of us it was our first time. Dublin is significantly larger than Belfast, and I realized the differences between the two cities right away. Dublin has a lot more diversity, with many more cultures and different ethnicities. We really did not do much besides the bus ride and just settle into the hotel. Jayson and I lucked out as we found out that our room was much larger than anybody else’s.
Everybody had a terrific time in Belfast. I loved the city because it isn’t as big as Dublin. The prices in Belfast are very reasonable compared to the prices of Dublin. It is said that Dublin is the most expensive capital in Europe. Other than the prices, Dublin looks like a great city and I cannot wait to experience it.
After we settled into the hotel, we walked to an Italian restaurant in the Temple Bar area of Dublin. The restaurant was called Luigi Malone’s which offers an interesting menu of Italian, Irish and continental dishes.As we were walking there, we were offered a coupon for free refreshments along with our meal. Mr. Bizga didn’t hesitate to accept. We had a great lunch there. This afternoon we would meet Fr. Reid.
Our afternoon correspondent is Daniel Bizga:
I have an anonymous quote hanging over my desk and it reads: “I guess I am learning little by little that we decide what are lives are going to be, things happen to us, but it is our reaction that matters.” This quote reminds me that I cannot control what life sends my way; but the way I react to life’s twists and turns can make all the difference. This afternoon we had an opportunity to interact with an individual who has illustrated this point to me in a most powerful way. His story and life’s work has shown me that my response to my circumstances can have far reaching effects. It is the story of the true hero of the Irish peace process: Fr. Alex Reid.
Alex Reid is from Tipperary in the south of Ireland. As a young man, he entered the Redemptorist Community. In the mid 1960’s he was transferred to the Redemptorist community in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Since 1897 the Redemptorists have had a presence in Belfast. Their main house, Clonard Monastery, is nestled in West Belfast not too far off the Falls Road. The Falls Road is famous for its colorful political murals that graphically tell the story of the last thirty years. Today Clonard Monastery is situated next to a barrier euphemistically called “the peace line” that divides the Nationalist (Catholic) community of the Falls Road area from the Loyalist (Protestant) community of the Shankill Road. In 1969, the rising tension between the divided communities broke and Belfast became immersed in turmoil and violence.
In order to understand the story of Fr. Reid, you first have to understand Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland was formed in 1922 when Ireland was partitioned. It was formed out of the six of the nine counties of the province of Ulster to ensure a Protestant majority in government. The Protestant majority referred to themselves as unionist: they preferred to maintain political union with Britain. The Catholic minority was called nationalist: they would prefer to be part of a united IrishRepublic. From the time of partition, the unionist majority government passed repressive laws to ensure that Protestant hegemony. The Northern Irish Parliament in 1922 passed the Special Powers Act, which gave authorities far reaching powers to arrest and hold without trial or the right to legal counsel people who were considered enemies of the state. This act paved the way for political, economic, suppression of the nationalist minority. The situation has many parallels to the American south before the US Civil Rights movement. In spite of this repression there were some positive laws that led to limited social mobility. In the 1940’s access to public funds for education were opened to all communities: unionist and nationalist. By the 1960’s an educated nationalist underclass began a civil rights movement with great inspiration from our own US Civil Rights movement. It is into this context that Fr. Reid entered into in the mid 1960’s.
The nationalist civil rights movement was well intentioned but met with Unionist disdain. In a short period of time the entire Northern Irish state was drawn into a period of 30 years of domestic warfare that would become known to the world as “the Troubles.” Within the Nationalist community dissident groups formed in armed resistance to state repression: the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), the Official IRA etc. All of the nationalist groups who would resort to violence to achieve their political aims were grouped together in a larger movement called Republicanism. Republican groups were condemned by the Catholic Church without any comment on the state violence and political repression that had been the catalyst of nationalist anger. No Church leaders would speak to any of the Republican groups unless they renounced violence.
The situation in Belfast in the early 1970’s would be reminiscent of scenes out of the contemporary conflict in Iraq today. The city was plagued with daily bombings, shootings and raw sectarian violence. The Falls Road area, near Clonard Monastery, was brought to its knees under the guise of securing the peace. One would see bombed out building and debris everywhere. British Armed Forces moved up the streets in armored personal carriers in an attempt to restore security. A system of road blocks were set up around the city and invasive checks of pedestrians became everyday occurrences. Homes were randomly searched for terrorists and many innocent men were imprisoned without charges or due legal process. No aspect of life was left untouched by the conflict that was to engulf the six counties of Northern Ireland for the next thirty years. It is into this situation that Fr. Reid would feel called to go out into the streets beyond the enclosure of Clonard Monastery to engage with the men who perpetrated acts of violence in order to take any step he could to save lives.
Fr. Reid learned a valuable lesson on the streets of Belfast - the key to the peace process was listening. He believes that it was the grace of God that motivated him to go out to the streets and find out what was causing such instability. By actively seeking the answers his approach to peacemaking was crystallized. He became convinced that one can never fully grasp the extent of a conflict by reading about it. One must go down to the cold face of the conflict and listen to those who are at its heart. When people share their story you learn what motivates them fight. Only engaging in dialogue with EVERYONE involved will you uncover the root causes of the conflict. He also became convinced that no party involved in a conflict has all of the truth. Every party has some of the truth; but no party has all of the truth. The role of the peacemaker is to listen for the truth. The solution will arise when the peacemaker searches in the right spirit. The path to peace will become clearer when all parties are involved. He realized that violence was the effect of injustice. Only when the root causes were identified and addressed could the path to peace become evident.
In the 1970’s the Nationalist community saw divisions within itself causing internal feuds to break out. Fr. Reid became a “last resort” for many that were tearing each other apart. A young man would “disappear” and his family would come to Clonard to see what Fr. Reid could do. Very often he succeeded in having a “death sentence” lifted and an exile imposed instead. These were the most desperate of times and “informers” to the British were summarily executed. Fr. Reid took whatever small steps he could take to save lives. As a result of his involvement, he gradually won the respect of the Republican leadership as a man who could be trusted. He told them that Christ loved them each unconditionally. Nothing they could do could separate them from the love of Christ – even though Christ was pained by their actions. He conveyed to them a theology that was alien to them. Gerry Adams had gone to Clonard Monastery as a boy and he was moved by the humility, love, and patience of Fr. Reid. Fr. Reid sees him as a true catalyst for peace in Ireland.
While the official Catholic Church remained distant, Fr. Reid remained in dialogue with the men of violence and tried to convince the IRA that there was a peaceful alternative. Fr. Reid was and is convinced that no matter how hopeless a situation looks, there is always a peaceful way forward. He persisted in his quest for the alternative despite years of ongoing violence. Although his words at times seemed to fall on deaf ears’ he never gave up. The conflict itself opened his eyes to seeing a way forward. Out of the conflict he was able to gain insight into a way forward. He devised a plan to bring about conditions that would allow space for a peaceful alternative. He established contact with the Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Mr. Albert Reynolds. Fr. Reid convinced Reynolds that the IRA was thinking about the future, but could not be persuaded to give up their campaign of violence unless there was significant dialogue with the Irish Government. Reynolds, a businessman and a pragmatist, wanted to engage in dialogue but realized that this would be political suicide. He cleverly appointed Dr. Martin Mansergh to be his Official Advisor on Northern Ireland and allowed him to conduct exploratory talks at the auspices of Fr. Reid. In the meantime Fr. Reid was reaching out to the constitutional nationalists of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), the political party founded by John Hume that is committed exclusively to peaceful means to achieve a united Ireland. Fr. Reid realized that he first had to unite the divided nationalist communities before peace between the nationalist and unionist communities could ever occur.
While all of these secret steps toward peace, were taking place the violence seemed to escalate and should have led him to despair. Fr. Reid personally witnessed three murders in the Milltown (Catholic) Cemetery in Belfast when a lone Loyalist gunman opened fire on the mourners of three IRA volunteers who were assassinated unarmed in Gibraltar. Three days later, he would plead with the killers of two armed, plain clothed British soldiers who were close to the funeral procession of one of the fallen Milltown mourners. Despite his pleas for mercy, the soldiers were both shot in the head. Fr Reid anointed them as they lay dying before him. Fr. Reid was carrying a document from the Irish Government under his arm to give to one of the IRA leadership at the funeral. The soldiers’ blood had splattered on him and the document. He handed it to the IRA contact saying, “This document is stained with British blood.”
This event left him shaken; however, he was more determined than ever to persist in his quest for peace. He intensified his efforts to end the all too real cost of this conflict. He eventually was able to get Gerry Adams, the leader of the Sinn Fein, the nationalist political party closely allied with the IRA, and John Hume, the leader of the SDLP, to agree to meet. This meeting was politically risky for both of them. The resulting dialogue was not easy and took several years to complete; however it successfully led to the Hume/Adams Agreement. This agreement led to the IRA cease-fire, which has become permanent. The day before the cease-fire was announced, Fr. Reid drove to Dublin to the Taioseach’s home to deliver the news to Reynolds that the IRA cease-fire would be announced the next day. Albert Reynold’s passed the news onto John Major, the British Prime Minister that night. John Major retorted that all his intelligence reports pointed to escalation. Yet, the next morning at 11 am the cease-fire was announced.
Through our time in Ireland and our Program Coordinator, Raymond Lennon, a longtime friend of Fr. Reid, we have been able to discover the true “behind the scenes” history of the Irish Peace Process. Its catalyst was a humble, Catholic priest from Tipperary. Our summer program brought our students into contact with key players, from all sides, of the peace process. At a previous encounter with Gerry Adams one student asked what role Fr. Reid played in the peace process. Adams quickly answered, “Fr. Reid is the HERO of the peace process. Without him we would have no peace.” Our group was greatly privileged to meet with Fr. Reid for two hours where he spoke candidly and took questions.
Fr. Reid is an unlikely hero of biblical proportions. This soft spoken, shy Irish priest is a most unlikely hero. His personal response to the dire circumstances made all the difference and changed the world. His faith working through love transformed the lives of the men of his age and his society. His message was simply the Gospel at its core; but so often left untried. His life and story show us that dialogue is the only way to settle intense political conflicts in a just and democratic way. War and violence are symptoms are not a constructive part of the solution. Today Fr. Reid continues his work for peace in the Basque region of Spain.
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