Border Lives- RTÉ 1- 935PM- Monday 21st June 2021
Border Lives- RTÉ1 at 935pm- Monday 21st June 2021
One hundred years ago, some people on the island of Ireland went to sleep in one country and woke up the following morning in another. For families, villages and communities, their lives changed utterly overnight. I'm interested in those experiences of survival, endurance, just trying to get by… and of two very different worlds on this one shared island- Miriam O’Callaghan In the century since, inequality, sectarianism and ‘the Troubles’ have overshadowed the stories of people who got up every day, fed their families and attempted to get on with their lives. From Pettigo to Drum and Clones in County Monaghan, across Northern Ireland and at several points between, Miriam hears from some of those people. Miriam meets a variety of people including sisters Joan and Maureen who recall their memories of the Belfast Blitz during World War 2. Miriam speaks to Billy Kohner whose parents moved to Northern Ireland as Jewish refugees from the Former Czechoslovakia and lived in a barn on a farm for four years before setting up their own business. Journalist and author Darach MacDonald gives Miriam a tour of the area he grew up in and shares memories of his grandparents' land and lives, split by the border. Miriam meets community leader Angela Graham in Drum, Co. Monaghan who describes the Protestant feeling of abandonment and of 'righteous loss'. Miriam catches up with three Derry girls, Mary White, Irene McCarron and Clare Moore who worked in the Shirt factories. Miriam meets writer of My Mother and Other Strangers Barry Devlin and two retired nurses Kathleen Gallagher and Ursula Clifford who were there at the beginning of the NHS and also recall the bedlam of Bloody Sunday. Some have called the 100th anniversary of Northern Ireland a 'Feat of Endurance': a century of survival against the odds, of being under siege, of mistrusting Dublin, or London, or both. Some will celebrate, others commiserate – but at least you can understand and appreciate the very different experiences people have lived and struggled through. We share this island – As Dev said during the horrors of the Belfast Blitz: we are one and the same people- Miriam O’Callaghan