euro|topics - Fionnuala O`Connor

09/01/2009

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O`Connor, Fionnuala

3 articles of this author have been cited in the European Press Review so far.

The Irish Times - Ireland | 08/02/2008

Should Belfast's 'Peace Wall' come down?

Following a recent article, journalist Fionnuala O'Connor responds to the idea that it is time to destroy Belfast's so-called 'peace walls', a series of separation barriers segregating Catholic and Protestant neighbourhoods. "It takes fresh eyes and minds to suggest that 40-foot high fencing between Catholics and Protestants and brick walls across streets need not be permanent structures. But it takes no more than a well-informed drive in and around them to remember why each is where it is, and to see that anyone who lives elsewhere would have some nerve persuading the residents to take up their chisels and set about peaceful demolition. A top dressing of normality may hearten many, but in dozens of streets people know that one bad injury from a well-aimed stone could still bring out hysterical crowds. They live along the faultlines of an ancient quarrel unresolved, indeed largely untouched, by today's peace."

The Irish Times - Ireland | 23/03/2007

Four decades of Northern Irish photography on show in Belfast

Fionnuala O'Connor comments on an exhibition called 'Out of the Darkness' at the Ormeau Baths gallery in Belfast that displays photos taken by members of the Northern Ireland Press Photographers Association (NIPPA) from 1969 to the present. Due to popular demand, the exhibition has been extended an extra week until March 31st. "The level of interest may have something to do with timing as yet another attempt to restore powersharing brings assessment of progress made, and the miles to go. Cameras can lie. They also document what is too easily overlooked. Those who insist that nothing has changed should be compelled by their best friends to go and walk around these photographs. There are still horrors, like last week's double murder in Belfast. Look at this small sample of past misery, glimpse the almost incessant destruction of the 1970s and it becomes impossible to deny that what exists now is a settled if imperfect peace."

The Irish Times - Ireland | 19/09/2006

An exhibition in Belfast about forgiveness

'The F word: Images of forgiveness' is an exhibition in Belfast which uses accounts from around the world, prompting a debate on forgiveness. Fionnuala O Connor investigates. "An introductory leaflet says the aim is to tell the stories of people who have found 'that the only way to move on is to set aside hatred and blame'. It does that. It also tells a few stories of people who do not forgive. There is also a family with deathly illnesses brought on by the Chernobyl disaster, who have been abandoned by the disintegrating communist state, their savings swallowed up by collapsing banks that made others very rich. ... Alastair Little, who shot a man dead when he was a 17-year-old UVF man, goes on to say: 'And some people can't forgive. But that doesn't mean they're weak, or that they'll be consumed by bitterness or anger. ... Unfortunately reconciliation and forgiveness have been politicised, so for me they've lost their value'."

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