{"id":102016,"date":"2025-05-14T23:20:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T23:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/102016\/"},"modified":"2025-05-14T23:20:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T23:20:12","slug":"northern-ireland-youth-keen-on-a-more-integrated-society-but-feel-it-is-a-long-way-off-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/102016\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern Ireland youth keen on a more integrated society but feel it is a long way off \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"quote\"<\/p>\n

However, that sense of belonging partly illustrates Northern Ireland\u2019s still-continuing wider divisions, since most of the young people themselves volunteered that they live in segregated communities.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

In Belfast, the divisions live cheek by jowl: \u201cWhile people of different religious backgrounds lived there in closer proximity, they did not necessarily share spaces in an integrated way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everyone, no matter how young, understands the meanings of murals and flags, which are \u201cwidely understood\u201d as ways to mark territory and intimidate outsiders.<\/p>\n

In Belfast, the so-called \u201cpeace walls\u201d 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\u2019 gates could be kept open for longer.<\/p>\n

\"quote\"<\/p>\n

Some efforts to boost cross-community ties \u2013 such as \u201cspecial days\u201d at school \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeadership is required if young people are to believe integration can be a genuine aspiration for their generation,\u201d said Pivotal, which issued a report earlier this year that looked at the consequences of segregated schooling.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn primary school, that\u2019s where you make friends easier, that\u2019s where you first meet people. That\u2019s where you become friends with different people from different cultures and religions easier than you would in high school. <\/p>\n

\u201cLike, you\u2019re young and once you get to know them like nothing really matters. You don\u2019t really care about their religion or anything you just are like friends,\u201d said a 15-year-old girl from south Armagh.<\/p>\n

\"quote\"<\/p>\n

Some of the young people described their experiences of integration \u201cas an action, rather than a state of being\u201d filled with \u201ctemporary efforts\u201d that they engaged in before returning to the background from which they came.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you remember the episode in Derry Girls where they were like, \u2018Right, we\u2019ve 20 Protestants here, 20 Catholics there?\u2019 It\u2019s just unnatural, you know. You\u2019re forcing questions that maybe some people aren\u2019t comfortable in answering,\u201d said one 22-year-old man from south Armagh.<\/p>\n

Equally, the groups brought together by the think tank believed that Northern Ireland\u2019s segregated school system \u201chelps perpetuate division, with the mandatory teaching of religious education a particular concern for many\u201d, said Pivotal.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, while there was significant support for integrated education, this was not universal \u2013 and it was not seen as a cure all for current social division.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Forty-eight young people aged between 15 and 25 were brought together in five groups by a Belfast-based think…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[13515,1144,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-102016","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-common-ground","9":"tag-northern-ireland","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114508754081549270","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}