Young People and Interfaces Report - Institute for Conflict Research

YOUNG PEOPLE AND INTERFACES
Rather interestingly young people could at times express some sectarian attitudes while at the
same time dating someone from the ‘Other’ community - however they qualified this by stating that
their attitudes were limited to particular groups within the ‘Other’ community, and in particular
young males. As such a group of young males referred to their friend’s Catholic girlfriend as being
‘dead on’ while talking at other times about young males from across the interface who they knew
as ‘fenians’. In this instance some young people tended to differentiate between the ‘good’
Catholics or Protestants they knew from the others that they didn’t know:
His girl is a Catholic, she’s nice like. We’re going to a party in her house at the weekend in
(name of Catholic area). She’s different though, she’s a Catholic, not a taig (Young Protestant
male).
In this regard, at times various stereotypes were drawn upon to highlight perceived differences
between young people from different communities:
I would probably know if it was a wee lad if he was a Protestant (Young female 1).
Yeah, it’s easier to tell the wee lads. Cos they always have blond tips (Young female 2).
And they usually wear tracksuits more don’t they? (Young Catholic female 3).
Another group of young Protestants discussed what they felt were the differences between
themselves and Catholics:
We can tell who is Catholic (Young Protestant male 1)
Yeah, we overheard one of them talking the other day like ‘Our wee Marty’ (puts on different
Belfast accent) (Young Protestant Male 2)
Perhaps more positively, other young people at times challenged such sectarianised stereotypes
as well:
…but some of them have given their area a name cos there’s good Protestants as well who you
can be friends with (Young Catholic male).
It should be noted however that despite evidence of some cross-community relationships, there
were many young people who stated that they did not have any friends from the ‘Other’ community,
mainly because they believed that they did not have the opportunities to meet given that they went
to different schools and lived in different areas.
Even those young people who had been in contact with young people from the ‘Other’ community
through cross-community programmes in school tended to lose touch with them, which would
appear to corroborate the findings of previous research (Smyth et al. 2004):
Like you do cross-community work, but you never stay in touch with them. You only do it for a
certain amount of months and then that would be it over, and you would probably never see
them again (Young Catholic female).
It is also important to note that how one defines a ‘friend’ is also crucial. While Madeleine
Leonard’s research (2010c) indicated that 75% of young people referred to having a friend from the
‘Other’ community, this tells us little about the nature of the relationship. During the course of the
discussions several young people reported having ‘friends’ from the ‘Other’ community. When
asked where they would hang out or what they would do together it became apparent that the term
‘friend’ was being used when perhaps saying they ‘knew’ someone from the ‘Other’ community
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