When fact is fiction, and TV reality

Last weekend I went to Ireland. Aside from being a witness to a spectacular road collision, in which thankfully no-one was seriously injured, I had a great time. The main reason for the visit was a family wedding, the ceremony at a church in Derry, followed by a reception at a venue on the shores of Lough Earne in Fermanagh.

Lough Earne

I've been to Ireland many times since I met Mrs Mendip Rouleur in 1994. Back then she wasn't Mrs Mendip Rouleur of course, she was Miss Sperrin Grimpeur. Just after we met the Provos declared their first ceasefire, and shortly after my first visit to Derry they revoked it. I don't think the events were connected but you never know.

Incidentally I once cycled in the Sperrins, this was long after the Good Friday Agreement, when all that bother seemed like it was well and truly behind us. After turning into the hills at Strabane I cycled back to Derry and passed through the Protestant enclave of New Buildings (it's a small inconsequential place on the road to Strabane). Whilst Strabane had its murals to Republican martyrs, New Buildings had its red, white and blue kerbstones. What struck me then was how faded and chipped the paint was on both the gable-end faces, and the pavement ornamentation.

It was more than a metaphor. I felt safe, there was even a bridge built across the Foyle to the Waterside. The Peace Bridge.

Last weekend I drove part of that route again. New Buildings not only has freshly-painted kerbstones, it also has more flags than a dodgy Strava segment. Union flags, Red-hand flags, and one we had to google because none of us had seen it before - the Orange order flag. Lamposts are bedecked with the things, all new.

It's not just there either, there were Irish tricolours in some villages or estates, cheek by jowl with more Loyalist regalia in neighbouring streets. There was also an undercurrent that I had not encountered, a certain nervousness amongst the older members of the family. I chatted to a few and that fear is real, they know that the extremists are gearing up their preparations.

On both sides.

Of course to English people this is all still alien, intangible, historic. Maybe so. But don't be taken in by those that would try and brush all this sectarian stuff under a carpet of ideological purity, and dismiss fears of a new hard border as "Project Fear". The fear is real, because there always have been, and still are, people in Ireland prepared to kill, and to die, for what they believe in.

And do not dismiss them as mindless, fanatic or otherwise. They may not be the most compassionate, or the brightest light-bulbs in the pack, but they hold their beliefs as sincerely as you do. I say this, not to excuse the threat of violence, but to help you understand that this type of thinking is different to yours.

How long?

As ever, what is to be done? I don't pretend to have answers, but this I know. As ever, complex problems are not solved by simplistic solutions or slogans. For people to make and keep peace, they have to engage with each other, and understand their enemy is human too.