Peace by Piece Jude Hill

For this special Peace by Piece conversation I was joined live on stage at the Duncairn Arts Centre in north Belfast by Megan Phair.  Megan is an all round activist and justice campaigner. She’s a programme co-ordinator for Invisible Traffic and a member of Stop the Attacks, a group that aims to spotlight and challenge the injustices of paramilitary assaults. Megan is also part of an amazing community well-being space and farm in north Antrim called Origin.

In this chat, recorded at the end of last year as part of an event focussed on the live issue of human trafficking, Megan shares how an international experience of injustice ignited her passion to speak out against paramilitary coercion here.  She speaks searingly about battles she's faced in her own life and how that fuels her zeal to help young people experience real freedom and peace.

David Eagleson was deputy director of the NI Prison Service and has held leadership roles in a number of prisons. David had an interesting vantage point at a key period of our history, working within the Maze Prison in the run up to the release of prisoners under the 1998 peace deal.  It is that pressure cooker time, he says, helped fuel a passion he has for restorative justice.  


In this conversation he shares some powerful stories of bringing victims and perpetrators together with the aim of helping people find answers & peace.  David has recently retired but is now lobbying for restorative practises to be more widely used in prisons. 

His is a perspective we don’t hear too often and offers interesting insight into the burdens and stories that people with proximity to the Troubles continue to carry.  David also shares his hopes for this place and lays down a challenge for much more courageous conversation making to take place.  

Sarah Lorimer is a young woman who is leading conversations in communities impacted by peace walls.  She works on the International Fund for Ireland’s Peace Barrier programme in north Belfast.  
Sarah has 15 years experience in peace and reconciliation work, with particular passions for oral history, legacy and the impact of trauma on interface communities.
In this conversation Sarah shares how childhood in north Belfast was the birthplace of her passion and how she was inspired by youth workers and ‘quiet peace makers’.  
If you’re keen to understand some of the challenges interface communities are currently facing and how those conversations about life beyond peace walls are going, then Sarah has some telling insights.

Fr Martin Magill is known by some as a peacemaker priest.  He is parish priest at St Johns on the Falls Road in Belfast and is also an author and organiser of the Four Corners' Festival.  He’s someone who is constantly crossing divides and brings much energy into behind the scenes conversations on issues of justice & peacemaking.
Here, he shares how his journeys to school in north Belfast exposed him to the fraught reality of Troubles’ life.  He also talks candidly about the cost of raising his voice on contentious issues such as policing and issues a heartfelt plea to churches here to end ‘religious wars’.


*Show notes*
/Edgar Graham - an Ulster Unionist politician and academic who was shot dead by the IRA at Queens’ University in December 1983. He was 29.
/Commemoration event to remember the five people murdered at Sean Graham bookmakers in 1992 - A survivor of the loyalist paramilitary shooting was arrested as part of a police operation at the anniversary vigil in February 2021.  This was after officers challenged family members over coronavirus regulations.  The Chief Constable apologised to families.
/Courage Pentecost - an initiative that emerged out of a diverse group of Christians seeking ways to be courageous together in the face of sectarianism and paramilitary violence.

Sipho Sibanda is a Zimbabwean refugee activist who has made Belfast home for her and her son.  Sipho fled her native country in 2015 amid ongoing political unrest and didn’t even get to hug her family goodbye.  
She works for PPR, a community organisation here that helps marginalised people know their rights and lobby for more equitable communities.  Sipho has been involved in Black Lives Matter protests here and is passionate about raising her voice to support those without status or a home.
As someone who grew up in a contested space she has much to say about the post conflict features of life she encounters in Belfast.  In this conversation Sipho shares her vision for a home city where reconciliation overrides the worn narrative of two communities and where diverse voices get to contribute in the healing of divisions.


*Show Notes*
/Gukurahundi - a series of massacres of Ndebele civilians carried out by the Zimbabwean National Army in the 1980s.

Debbie Watters is co-director of restorative justice project NI Alternatives and is a former vice chair of the Northern Ireland Policing Board.

In this conversation Debbie takes us back to her childhood to share how her faith has always helped her defy labels and challenge the status quo.  Here she talks candidly about a passion that drives her to move beyond her own perspectives and the struggles that this can throw up.

Debbie speaks passionately about the hurts and hopes she sees within loyalist communities.  She has  a challenging message about how we need to be prepared to own the sectarianism she believes is part of all of us.   She also pleads for issues of discrimination and poverty to be urgently addressed; advocating that this offers us a path to greater peace.