You never forget your first bomb. On April 12, 1989, the solid whump of a 680-kilogram car bomb set off by the Irish Republican Army was enough to stop me and my classmates at St Peter’s Boys’ School dead in our tracks.
Our heads snapped right, watching the growing cloud of smoke rising from Charlotte Street, the site of our little town’s fortified police barracks. That blast – which I remember more as a feeling than a sound – killed Joanne Reilly, 20, who had been working in Heately & Morgan’s hardware shop beside the station belonging to the RUC, the local police force. It also injured nine police and 31 civilians.
Less than a kilometre from this rending confluence of history, politics and ordnance, just past the town square and out in Carlingford Lough, was – and is – the Border, which turns 100 next week.
Let’s give it a capital B - it deserves that much. Forests have been felled to print all the books written about how Ireland came to be partitioned on May 3, 1921 – six counties remaining in the UK as Northern Ireland, and the other 26 becoming an independent Irish Free State, and later, the Republic. You don’t need me to tell you that old story again.
For me, the Border – that snaking, 500km frontier that cuts across roads, bridges, fields, rivers, farms and even houses – was my country’s turbulent history made manifest. But it manifests in different ways. When I was young, the Border could be invisible. It started somewhere out there in the lough, although there is still some “jurisdictional ambiguity” as to exactly where. It ran up the Newry River just past Narrow Water, the scene of another IRA bombing in 1979, before taking a hard left and splitting a country road at the wee bridge on the bend before Cornamucklagh.
But there were enough little reminders that the Border was real. Sitting on the shore one afternoon as a teenager, I was surrounded by a unit of black-clad Royal Marines who piled on to the beach from the British patrol vessel lurking out in the lough. Despite Boris Johnson’s breezy, Brexit-related claim in 2018 that our Border was essentially just like the one between Camden and Islington, I doubt many Londoners are often face to face with combat troops.
Years later, I was lucky enough to be working as a local journalist on the Border as the changes wrought by the Good Friday Agreement came to pass. I was there in July 2000 when British army engineers removed their paint-splattered fortification from the centre of Crossmaglen in South Armagh – a region where the Border could be divined from a twisting line of bases and hilltop watchtowers, all bristling with surveillance technology.
The bombs and soldiers and shootings and hunger strikes and hooded bodies left in lonely ditches are largely gone now, and, until recently, the Border had been quietly disappearing into irrelevance as the Agreement – it, too, takes a capital letter – endured and common EU membership smoothed out the remaining differences.
When I was young, the Border could be invisible
But Brexit has done quite the job of reanimating our spectral Border, piling more political, economic and constitutional complexity on to a conflict the 1998 treaty had parked for another generation to figure out.
In Clare Dwyer Hogg’s 2018 short film Hard Border, Belfast-born actor Stephen Rea described how 1998 “and all the years in between” helped make the frontier disappear: “There but not there, a line of imagination that needed imagination to make it exist while unseen.”
Frontiers require imagination. You are standing on the same earth, but people have names and identities and states to partition it. This gives borders, especially disputed ones, the psychic strangeness of boundary places.
This left its impression on me, like a thumbprint in my mind. I’ve peeked through the rusty barriers pulled across the beach in Varosha that divides Turks from Greeks in Cyprus, and felt right at home. Jerusalem and Hebron were studies in razor-sharp, micro-managed partition – down to every house, plot of land and street corner.
I wish I could say that these outside experiences of partition had left me more phlegmatic about Ireland being divided. But, growing up where and how I did, the Border still instinctively strikes me as an aberration in the island home of my imagination. It took me a long time to appreciate that for my unionist neighbours, the anomaly in Ireland is the Republic that broke away from the mothership.
Will partition in Ireland come to an end? I don’t know. Perhaps, if enough of us want it to and the time is right, is my best answer. What will endure are the memories of 30-odd years of violence. Certainly, the ‘89 bombing has followed me down the years. On December 10, 2016, I was in Istanbul and the crump of a double explosion in nearby Besiktas made me jack-knife out of bed, my heart hammering much as it did 27 years before.
Even for those who didn't experience the Troubles directly, the violence has a long, malignant half-life. A 2017 study from Queen's University Belfast found that "the impact of the conflict remains and affects communities and generations".
And now, a new generation is getting its first taste of violence. Recent rioting by working-class loyalist youths in Belfast, Derry and elsewhere – fuelled by a mix of deprivation, Brexit-related anxiety, a controversial IRA funeral plus paramilitary manipulation – shows how combustible Northern Ireland still is.
The centenary of Ireland’s division will come and go. A BBC poll on April 21 found that just 40 per cent of people in Northern Ireland thought the state’s foundation worth celebrating. Unionist politicians will dutifully do their best to mark it, with some underwhelming input from a British government with bigger fish to fry. The centenary will be studiously ignored by Irish nationalists, many of whom still feel the “national question” remains unresolved.
So be it. What comes to my mind is the cries of the curlews flying over Carlingford Lough. They take wing against the backdrop of the Mournes and Cooleys – solemn mountains that will be there long after we, our maps and our borders fade from history, as if we were never there.
Declan McVeigh is a sub-editor at The National
The specs: 2018 Jaguar F-Type Convertible
Price, base / as tested: Dh283,080 / Dh318,465
Engine: 2.0-litre inline four-cylinder
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Power: 295hp @ 5,500rpm
Torque: 400Nm @ 1,500rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 7.2L / 100km
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Ferrari 12Cilindri specs
Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm
Price: From Dh1,700,000
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Read more about the coronavirus
Rock in a Hard Place: Music and Mayhem in the Middle East
Orlando Crowcroft
Zed Books
Zayed Sustainability Prize
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Results
Stage 7:
1. Caleb Ewan (AUS) Lotto Soudal - 3:18:29
2. Sam Bennett (IRL) Deceuninck-QuickStep - same time
3. Phil Bauhaus (GER) Bahrain Victorious
4. Michael Morkov (DEN) Deceuninck-QuickStep
5. Cees Bol (NED) Team DSM
General Classification:
1. Tadej Pogacar (SLO) UAE Team Emirates - 24:00:28
2. Adam Yates (GBR) Ineos Grenadiers - 0:00:35
3. Joao Almeida (POR) Deceuninck-QuickStep - 0:01:02
4. Chris Harper (AUS) Jumbo-Visma - 0:01:42
5. Neilson Powless (USA) EF Education-Nippo - 0:01:45
MATCH INFO
Arsenal 1 (Aubameyang 12’) Liverpool 1 (Minamino 73’)
Arsenal win 5-4 on penalties
Man of the Match: Ainsley Maitland-Niles (Arsenal)
MORE ON TURKEY'S SYRIA OFFENCE
What is type-1 diabetes
Type 1 diabetes is a genetic and unavoidable condition, rather than the lifestyle-related type 2 diabetes.
It occurs mostly in people under 40 and a result of the pancreas failing to produce enough insulin to regulate blood sugars.
Too much or too little blood sugar can result in an attack where sufferers lose consciousness in serious cases.
Being overweight or obese increases the chances of developing the more common type 2 diabetes.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Tightening the screw on rogue recruiters
The UAE overhauled the procedure to recruit housemaids and domestic workers with a law in 2017 to protect low-income labour from being exploited.
Only recruitment companies authorised by the government are permitted as part of Tadbeer, a network of labour ministry-regulated centres.
A contract must be drawn up for domestic workers, the wages and job offer clearly stating the nature of work.
The contract stating the wages, work entailed and accommodation must be sent to the employee in their home country before they depart for the UAE.
The contract will be signed by the employer and employee when the domestic worker arrives in the UAE.
Only recruitment agencies registered with the ministry can undertake recruitment and employment applications for domestic workers.
Penalties for illegal recruitment in the UAE include fines of up to Dh100,000 and imprisonment
But agents not authorised by the government sidestep the law by illegally getting women into the country on visit visas.
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
List of alleged parties
- May 15 2020: Boris Johnson is said to have attended a Downing Street pizza party
- 27 Nov 2020: PM gives speech at leaving do for his staff
- Dec 10 2020: Staff party held by then-education secretary Gavin Williamson
- Dec 13 2020: Mr Johnson and his then-fiancee Carrie Symonds throw a flat party
- Dec 14 2020: Shaun Bailey holds staff party at Conservative Party headquarters
- Dec 15 2020: PM takes part in a staff quiz
- Dec 18 2020: Downing Street Christmas party
Results:
Men's 100m T34: 1. Walid Ktila (TUN) 15 sec; 2. Rheed McCracken (AUS) 15.40; 3. Mohammed Al Hammadi (UAE) 15.75. Men's 400m T34: 1. Walid Ktila (TUN) 50.56; 2. Mohammed Al Hammadi (UAE) 50.94; 3. Henry Manni (FIN) 52.24.
'Texas Chainsaw Massacre'
Rating: 1 out of 4
Running time: 81 minutes
Director: David Blue Garcia
Starring: Sarah Yarkin, Elsie Fisher, Mark Burnham
The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
What is the FNC?
The Federal National Council is one of five federal authorities established by the UAE constitution. It held its first session on December 2, 1972, a year to the day after Federation.
It has 40 members, eight of whom are women. The members represent the UAE population through each of the emirates. Abu Dhabi and Dubai have eight members each, Sharjah and Ras al Khaimah six, and Ajman, Fujairah and Umm Al Quwain have four.
They bring Emirati issues to the council for debate and put those concerns to ministers summoned for questioning.
The FNC’s main functions include passing, amending or rejecting federal draft laws, discussing international treaties and agreements, and offering recommendations on general subjects raised during sessions.
Federal draft laws must first pass through the FNC for recommendations when members can amend the laws to suit the needs of citizens. The draft laws are then forwarded to the Cabinet for consideration and approval.
Since 2006, half of the members have been elected by UAE citizens to serve four-year terms and the other half are appointed by the Ruler’s Courts of the seven emirates.
In the 2015 elections, 78 of the 252 candidates were women. Women also represented 48 per cent of all voters and 67 per cent of the voters were under the age of 40.
Top tips
Create and maintain a strong bond between yourself and your child, through sensitivity, responsiveness, touch, talk and play. “The bond you have with your kids is the blueprint for the relationships they will have later on in life,” says Dr Sarah Rasmi, a psychologist.
Set a good example. Practise what you preach, so if you want to raise kind children, they need to see you being kind and hear you explaining to them what kindness is. So, “narrate your behaviour”.
Praise the positive rather than focusing on the negative. Catch them when they’re being good and acknowledge it.
Show empathy towards your child’s needs as well as your own. Take care of yourself so that you can be calm, loving and respectful, rather than angry and frustrated.
Be open to communication, goal-setting and problem-solving, says Dr Thoraiya Kanafani. “It is important to recognise that there is a fine line between positive parenting and becoming parents who overanalyse their children and provide more emotional context than what is in the child’s emotional development to understand.”
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more from Janine di Giovanni
World Cricket League Division 2
In Windhoek, Namibia - Top two teams qualify for the World Cup Qualifier in Zimbabwe, which starts on March 4.
UAE fixtures
Thursday February 8, v Kenya; Friday February 9, v Canada; Sunday February 11, v Nepal; Monday February 12, v Oman; Wednesday February 14, v Namibia; Thursday February 15, final
RESULTS
2.15pm: Al Marwan Group Holding – Handicap (PA) Dh40,000 (Dirt) 1,200m
Winner: SS Jalmod, Antonio Fresu (jockey), Ibrahim Al Hadhrami (trainer)
2.45pm: Sharjah Equine Hospital – Maiden (PA) Dh40,000 (D) 1,000m
Winner: Ghallieah, Sebastien Martino, Jean-Claude Pecout
3.15pm: Al Marwan Group Holding – Handicap (PA) Dh40,000 (D) 1,700m
Winner: Inthar, Saif Al Balushi, Khalifa Al Neyadi
3.45pm: Al Ain Stud Emirates Breeders Trophy – Conditions (PA) Dh50,000 (D) 1,700m
Winner: MH Rahal, Richard Mullen, Elise Jeanne
4.25pm: Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan Cup – Prestige Handicap (PA) Dh100,000 (D) 1,200m
Winner: JAP Aneed, Ray Dawson, Irfan Ellahi
4.45pm: Sharjah Equine Hospital – Handicap (TB) Dh40,000 (D) 1,200m
Winner: Edaraat, Antonio Fresu, Musabah Al Muhairi
