Introduction

260
Melanie Swiatloch
(ibid. 23). Mitchell concludes that for young people their religious identity is as
important to them as to their parents, but she also assumes that they deal with it
in different ways (ibid. 23).
An example for the onset of change when dealing with religion can be seen in
One by One in the Darkness. All three of the sisters – Cate, Helen, and Sally – used to
go to church regularly during childhood. While growing up they choose different
ways of dealing with their religion, however. Sally’s faith continues to run in “a
straight and unfractured line” “like much else in her life” (Madden 22/23). To
Cate her Catholic faith is of no less importance although Helen assumed she
would quit going to church once having moved to London (ibid. 22). Cate’s faith
is less straightforward than Sally’s, though. It is more of a “ramshackle thing, a
mixture of hope, dread, superstition and doubt” (ibid. 22). Only Helen stopped
going to church after she started university, which is not that easy to deal with for
her family. In one of her father’s notebooks she finds a reference that he hoped
for two things: “That there would be peace in Northern Ireland, and that Helen
would return to the Church” (ibid. 23). While faith is more of a personal thing for
the sisters, their parents and relatives by contrast perceive it in a more universal
way and regard it both as important and almost mandatory for every Catholic to
stay connected to the church.
It has been mentioned already that religion serves as a boundary marker. One
of the most persistent ways in maintaining it begins quite early in childhood,
namely during school. In 2003 the majority of pupils still attended segregated
schools: Protestant and Catholic. Although there do exist integrated schools (47 in
2003) with Lagan College being the first one that opened in 1981, only four per
cent of the total school age population attended these schools in 2003 (Mitchell
2006, 60). Both Protestant and Catholic schools still did little to teach their pupils
about the other community. Thus “knowledge of the other community’s religion
is weak, and […] many religious and historical myths fill in gaps of knowledge
about the ‘other side’” (ibid. 61). Due to this practice prejudice is almost inevitable.
It is furthermore quite problematic as school children can get a false impression
of religion. Mitchell refers to B. Lambkin who found out that pupils believed
the conflict to be the result of religious differences. Without contact to children of
other religions this division could even be perceived as being a natural separation
(ibid. 61).
Difference and the Other become again important for religion as well, for
“identity is intrinsically relational” as Mitchell points out (ibid. 64). One’s own
religious identity is largely defined by what one is not. This happens by looking at
others. “People arrive at self-awareness by observing difference – whether this is
football tops, school uniforms, cultural traditions such as going to watch Orange
Order marches nor not going”, Mitchell contends (ibid. 64). In Where They Were
Missed Saoirse’s identity is largely formed by her family’s difference towards others,
too. When it is marching season everybody living in their street goes cheering