COMMENT: No going back to the North’s dark days

GROWING up in the 1970s and ‘80s, Northern Ireland was a scary place for a young Dubliner.

On the few occasions I travelled there as a youngster, the sight of military checkpoints, sectarian graffiti and armed soldiers on the streets was somewhat unnerving. 

Harrowing television images of ‘The Troubles’ had fuelled our fears of the North. We considered it a dangerous, risky place. 

As a kid, I travelled to Northern Ireland a number of times with my local scout troop. To be fair, we never encountered any hostility from the people we met – quite the opposite, in fact. We forged links with scouts from Enniskillen and later welcomed them on a reciprocal visit to Dublin. Just months later, in November 1987, the County Fermanagh town would be devastated by the Enniskillen Remembrance Day bomb. Now that we had friends on the other side of the border, it made events in Northern Ireland very real for us.

In later years, I started to visit Northern Ireland whenever it suited me, be it as a shortcut to Donegal or for a pre-Christmas shopping expedition; the lure of cheap booze was enough to assuage my earlier fears of travelling across the border.

But after the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, it was a very different story. Post-peace process Northern Ireland was there to be explored and enjoyed. There were waves to be surfed in Portrush; whiskey to be sampled in Bushmills; mountains to be climbed in the Mournes; and vibrant cities such as Belfast to be experienced.

My own kids have been across the border on many occasions to play in football tournaments or visit museums, blissfully unaware of Northern Ireland’s turbulent, bloody past.

The Brexit fiasco has once again brought the North into focus for all the wrong reasons. We are constantly reminded of the fragility of the peace process and the dire implications of a hard border. 

We live in hope, however, that despite the economic challenges posed by Brexit, a return to violence is the last thing on the minds of the new generation – on both sides of the border – who have known nothing but peace in their lifetime.