Young People and Interfaces Report - Institute for Conflict Research

YOUNG PEOPLE AND INTERFACES
would have been more appropriate. It is important to bear this in mind when assessing statistics or
survey data about cross-community friendships:
I play with a rugby team and nearly everyone in it is Catholic…Although I don’t really know them
outside the rugby (Young Protestant male).
Young people also talked about the positive and negative aspects to using social media. On the
one hand it allowed them to come into contact with young people from the ‘Other’ community,
make friends and even in rare instances, begin dating. For one youth worker in South Belfast,
social media could allow young people to interact virtually with others in their own home which was
a safer environment than doing so at the interface. However, the downside was there was an
acknowledgement from young participants that Facebook, Twitter and texting were used at times to
contact others across the interface to organise a fight or try and start a riot. There was also an
apparent issue in parts of North and South Belfast with young people from different communities
insulting members of the ‘Other’ community who had taken their own lives, and this was believed
to have been the source of an increase in tensions between some young people at the Suffolk-
Lenadoon interface in particular. This was also the case in North Belfast:
Remember that wee girl from the (name of area) killed herself she was only about 13? Then
some ones made a fake name and covered her face in red, white and blue, it was terrible like
(Young Catholic female 1).
Yeah, and what do you call him, Ian Paisley, he was dying and that started a whole big ruckus
on Facebook. I’ve seen loads of fights on Facebook because of that (Young Catholic female 2).
3.5 Navigating the interface
Despite the view that ‘things were better’ and a small number of young people were moving across
the interface into the ‘Other’ community, the spatial patterns of young people clearly remain heavily
influenced by the interface and many young people were still reluctant to venture in to areas of the
‘Other’ community. Several youth workers referred to this as an ongoing issue in terms of the
psychology of geographical boundaries which were now well established. Young males in particular
seemed less likely to traverse the interface for fear of being ‘beaten up’. In South Belfast some
young Protestants discussed how far into the nearby ‘Catholic’ area they would venture:
I wouldn’t go past Lidl like (Young Protestant male 1).
Aye, well there’s a takeaway there on that road and I wouldn’t go past it
(Young Protestant male 2).
In North Belfast, two Catholic young people were reluctant to venture on to the Shore Road which
they perceived to be a predominantly Protestant area:
I’d feel uncomfortable on the Shore Road, I just wouldn’t walk about it. I’d need some reason to
go there, and ones from my school (integrated school) would know me as a Catholic
(Young Catholic female).
Discussions in North Belfast also focused on the use of the Waterworks. As such, some young
people felt that the space in the park would be used differently depending on community
background:
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