Letters home: Northern Ireland

BBC World Service's World Today programme is looking at the end of year letters of ordinary people who lived through extraordinary events in 2003.

2003 saw elections in Northern Ireland after another troubled period. The first letter is from Sammy Douglas, a Protestant in East Belfast. The second is from Bernie McConnell, a Roman Catholic in the city.

Sammy Douglas

As a married man with four children, I began the new year with a sense of optimism mixed with anxiety in regard to a number of family matters that I had to face - as well as the uncertainty in the current Northern Ireland peace process.

2003 was to be a special year for me personally - by February I would have taken up space on the planet for a full 50 years which, according to my calculator, is 18,256 days, or 438,144 hours. A good innings?

As I approached the big 5-0, I began to wonder what I had to show for being 50... my wife Gillian, with the help of air-miles, rescued me from my introspection and whisked me away to Lisbon in Portugal.

Shortly after arriving back to Belfast, sectarian trouble occurred around an interface that separates Protestants from Catholics in East Belfast.

During the previous summer we had witnessed some of the worst sectarian violence over the past 30 years.

I remember feeling despondent and hopeless at the time and as the writer of the Proverb described it, "hope deferred maketh the heart sick".

In many respects, the hope and aspirations for peace and stability that we have all yearned for had been put on hold - I felt sick in the heart!

As the months progressed I became involved in a contact group involving Catholics and Protestants to look at ways of addressing inter-community conflict, which tends to intensify over the summer period.

As a result of long, drawn-out discussions, a mechanism was put in place to prevent trouble starting.

In addition, we initiated a clean-up campaign where sectarian graffiti was painted over and paramilitary wall murals were replaced by murals depicting East Belfast sporting and cultural heroes.

These included George Best, probably the greatest footballer of all time and the famous scene from 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'. The latter was taken from the Narnia Chronicles which were written by one of our famous sons, CS Lewis, the famed author and outstanding scholar of English Literature.

I am delighted to report that we had the quietest summer in East Belfast for many years - since 1967 as one local wag put it!

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Bernie McConnell

The year started with some excitement with the showing, on television, of family life in Northern Ireland - a programme in which my family played a large part for six months.

Fingers crossed, we had a peaceful summer, and long may it last

We all got a taste of fame for a short time, but fear was soon to follow the excitement as my husband Tommy had a heart attack and was rushed to hospital where he was treated and kept for a week.

Working life has been very depressing this year, as funding is part of what I do - everyone is looking for money to keep their organisation going.

Another part of my job is to work on the interfaces in my area.

Early this year, we had some trouble - enough to concern everyone - as in the previous year we had seen some of the worst violence (between Protestants and Catholics) we have had in 25 years.

Through mediation and a contact group with our Protestant neighbours we soon settled things down.

Fingers crossed, we had a peaceful summer, and long may it last.

This year I had dinner with the President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, in her home in Dublin. Although I have had a good year, I have a strong belief that your health is your wealth and anyone who has good health is really lucky.

So here is to a healthy happy new year to all!

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