Brought a formal and to 30 years of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland more than 3600 people had lost their lives and thousands more were injured clergy from both traditions played their part in seeking peace their role is well known but the story of Catholic nuns during the Troubles has not been told until now a friend of mine was murdered in front of his wife and children and I had never experienced this kind of anger before I actually wanted access to them it was 3 ways you could make a difference one was you could join the IRA The other was you could join the police and the 3rd was you could join a religious order join me Sister Geralyn Smith for the documentary sisters of the troubles after the latest news on the B.B.C. World Service. Marion Marshall with the B.B.C. News the former Catalan leader colors posed a man has been detained in Germany while driving back from a visit to Finland his lawyers said he was held when he crossed the border from Denmark the Spanish judge it is used a European arrest warrant for Mr Bustamante from Berlin Damien McGuinness reports Carlos preached a man was stopped by German police as he traveled from Finland via Germany back to Belgium he's been living in self-imposed exile in Belgium since last October's burned referendum on Catalonian independence on Friday while Mr Preacher Man was in Finland for a conference Spain's highest court really issued a European arrest warrant Spanish authorities say Catalonia is unilateral bit for independence was illegal and they accuse Catalans former president of sedition and rebellion if found guilty he could face up to 30 years in prison tributes are being paid to a French paramilitary police officer during a memorial service in the southern French town of Treb where 4 people were killed by a jihad his gunmen on Friday Lieutenant Colonel Ana Beltran died saving the gunman's hostages Hugh Schofield reports from Paris the medieval church of sanity and intrepid was packed for this Palm Sunday mass which was relayed by loudspeaker to more people on the square outside they remembered the 4 who died on Friday a supermarket butcher a retired builder a retired wine grower and the left hadn't colonel in the gendarme our Nobel tram who'd come to live in the region only last August his act of sacrifice offered himself as a hostage and then being killed by the gunmen had a special residence coming at the start of Easter week and the Bishop said that our new Beltran had combined the devotion of a soldier with the faith of a Christian the International Cricket Council says the captain of the Australian cricket team Steve Smith has been given a one match suspension and find the entirety of his match the after he admitted trying to cheat on Saturday Smith confessed it authorised another player to tamper with the ball in the surface to get South Africa. Bishops in Tanzania have warned that the country's unity and peace are under threat in December the government said it would take action against religious organizations that interfered in politics the B.B.C.'s Sami in Dar es Salaam has more in a strongly worded statement the influential conference of love her and Bishop say that it was warranted by ongoing violations of democratic principles in Tanzania the $27.00 bishops all signed the document appeared to be aiming their criticism of the government and they said speaking up for the people was part of the church's responsibility they condemned recent kidnappings attacks on political leaders and the use of violence to break up opposition demonstrations the bishops' seem to be defying a warning by the authorities that it would in a religious organization that meddled in politics world news from the B.B.C. Policing be a ruse have made several arrests during marches and protests commemorating the 100th anniversary of the country's shortlived independence after the 1st World War pictures on social media showed police leading away demonstrators carrying banners or some protestors posted selfies from the back of police vans 4 children have died in a fire at a shopping center in the Siberian city of Kemah over 26 other people were taken to hospital pictures posted online show one person jumping from the window of a building rushes Investigations Committee has launched criminal proceedings into the case. Facebook has published full page adverts in major British newspapers apologizing for letting its users down the company's chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has acknowledged that Facebook reached the trust of its uses when it allowed an app to harvest personal information Joe Lyneham reports Mark Zuckerberg said the app created by a Cambridge University lecturer had acquired too much personal data from Facebook users in 2014 he said his company had a responsibility to protect its users information and if it couldn't then it didn't deserve to get it he also warned that there were probably other apps out there that may also have harvested highly personal data on the social media platform the full page apology is a sign of the extent of the recent damage done to Facebook's reputation its shares lost $50000000000.00 in value last week alone tributes have been paid to the Venezuelan educator who say a prayer to set up hundreds of classical orchestras with children from the country's slums Mr has died at the age of $78.00 Simon Rattle the director of the Berlin Philharmonic said his musical system is save young people from the dangers of the street President Nicolas Maduro said his legacy would remain alive who say a brain who began his radical musical education project called El Sistema in 1975 B.B.C. News. For 30 years a sectarian conflict raged in Northern Ireland more than 3600 people lost their lives scores of thousands were injured the British government sent in troops in 1969 in an attempt to maintain order among Protestant and Catholic communities who appeared on able to live side by side. Where the role of Catholic clergy Jaring the troubles is well documented it was not without controversy a small number were seen as active supporters of IRA violence but the bigger story is one of huge risk taking in the cause of peace priests spoke out on behalf of their communities officiated at far too many funerals some put their lives on the line acting as intermediaries between government and men of violence there is another story that is less well known and that's the story of Catholic nuns you might find a mention of us in the index of a book but rarely within its chapters and that's where the witness seminars come in . Are very good. Over a period of 2 years Roman Catholic sisters gathered together to share our memories of 30 years of the Troubles in Northern Ireland the witness seminars as we call them were initiated by an independent scholar Dr Diane Kirby and Lisa Isherwood professor of feminist Liberation Theology at the University of Winchester there was no plan we simply spoke about the experiences that stood out. Know some of us are getting together again with producer Rosie Dawson and sound recordist John Benson I'm a Dominican sister Geraldine Smith and this for the documentary on B.B.C. World Service is Sisters of the troubles. If you were. A little bit more. Busy because of Margaret I gather that you know that. So we're all together again and I'm wondering whether some people are feeling a bit nervous as we did when we 1st gathered in February 25th I married an ark am a mercy sister I felt a certain amount of resistance about it maybe rebut suspicious to what is this who's involved where's it all going to go and I had a lot of I took time before I decided even coming here today I took time before I said yes to you Rosa it was just that sense of not wanting to revisit some of the stuff of years and years ago but I'm here. I'm Liz I'm a Dominican sister there's the 4 years in Belfast that I grew up with was what if you say say not and but I think there's a certain anxiety and there was a certain anxiety and there's still a certain anxiety that it could have repercussions for other people I've just been keen little company of Mary's sister I was delighted because I am aware that women's voices are missing all over the place and they're actually disappearing as well and I would look just because we are aging and we're dying off and the story school with us it's important to stress that the conflict in Northern Ireland was political not religious. The government's response to a civil rights movement in the late sixty's acted as a catalyst for further unrest a peaceful campaign by nationalists for the quality in housing jobs and electoral politics was met with official opposition and the times with brutality there was widespread unrest at the same time paramilitaries were also arming British soldiers arrived on the streets in 1989 and later the London government imposed direct rule I was creamed when that was really kicking off. It was a difficult time to be a student it wasn't a normal time and it was a riot up at Berne toilet dairy and the university polarized and mediately the next day you were actually afraid to go diving into your class you didn't know who you were talking to and you wanted to know he was Protestant he was Catholic so the whole thing was kind of galvanizing the university enter a great deal of tension and fear and yet I was going backwards to my community and I'm Patrick 20 miles away and while there were things convulsing in Belfast there I was being told by the superior don't talk about anything up there don't talk about the troubles I don't want the sisters disturbed so you were go on from Belfast trying to join Patrick 20 miles away and you were living in a sort of schizo I'd situation where you couldn't you couldn't talk about what was going on in Belfast but you were going backwards and forwards as a student and you know trying to manage studies and meeting sometimes Protestants in your class I did he break and that brought me into contact with all the Protestant ministers at the time which was fascinating and they were equally fascinated with me because I was in the habit in those days and they were full of curiosity about the likes of me appearing in the Hebrew classes so there was lots of kind of curiosity things but also times of great tension when you were trying to figure out what was going on and you could fail that things were beginning to change and that Catholics were finding their voice and it was not going to be the same. But. Rather a lot of what it was I think 30. Hours out of the process of laws after. I marry I'm says John of the cross and passion. I was about 15 I think in 1969 and my 1st memory of the troubles really had to do with rioting and the burning of highs as in the Lower Falls which is a Catholic area and people were burned out of their homes and up Kim to friends of my brothers at 4 o'clock in the morning she opened the door to their her friend and her husband and the baby in her arms and that's my 1st memory of the troubles. My earliest memory or what I've been told I often don't know whether it's my extra memory or I've been told it but it's part of our thing is when we were burnt out in 1069 as a family done in the Lower Falls I would have been 4 and I do remember after that we had to leave home we lost our home we lost everything and of course my mother to be very stressed and then I was the next big thing in my life that I really do remember was when I lived with my granny see tear gas and seen Man soldiers and people running around with guns and having gas masks and haven't hankies over our markets the street we were in was barricaded like all the streets to the Falls Road and the men in the street all the barricades and the people like myself teenagers we had to bring up the sick and the sandwiches in the city and other AS IT WAS THE like a community spirit really but it wasn't source you know but. I remember a common friend there are as our Allan talks about the same thing happening on the shank the side they had a tidy barricade competition. And he said we were gutted when we didn't when. But I had the sense that these men were all there to protect us I didn't really understand but the ribs technics from but I did know that there was a lot of rioting and a lot of burning a lot to be afraid of and I certainly was afraid but we didn't talk about it you know. We didn't go anywhere either because you couldn't it was just too scary but at night we had sing songs and we sang all those kind of songs of the day you know pop songs and when we ran out of pop songs we would sing hymns. And then we'd run out of him and we would sing rebel songs. And by the end of these rebel songs we would actually shake them and you know really get that So that's my respect our party names. But I know you were young they used to be just fine I was never easy to love and of ladies come to me come and go in the Army. Out of the bog piece of the field with nothing but the body and my mother and father always went out for a walk just trying to straighten and my dad would come in and say what he has shot up the soldiers or started the top of the street and you know you get on this in the here and you're like a cat's chorus. So there was actually you could have fun in the middle of a bomb up in the middle of nowhere that I am I don't think that you know what. I suppose it's like anything you know when you're going oh it's where you live you think it's normal you don't actually realize that this is up to normal so you get part of the hype that's going to run so growing up I suppose I mean I think when those rights come on the road we got from volved at the riots you know any true story called people to me and you you grew up believing that one group of people were very different from the other and then unfortunately some people then were driven to another Rolt which time God to each day that I didn't take that road that I was lucky to have met people and to have the norm that taken someone's life is not the right way and that's where I see that the sisters had a role to play for me I'm dying cut be an academic rather than the sister I'm even though as you talk about the fact that you are determined to minister to children and give them a good education because that's what you received and that's what happened and why didn't your horizons as a child growing up and not ask for me growing up those 3 ways you could make a. Friends one wish you could join the IRA and make a difference the other was you could join the police make a difference in the 3rd world you could join a religious order and make a difference because I had seen sisters make a difference in our lives I went to Central Offices 2nd to school in beach my Devon you and in that I now I realize that there was a Dominican thing and that Dominican thing was that everybody is good that everybody has the right to do well and that everybody's needs can be met and education is the key and I think some of the sisters who taught me told me that education is what would make the difference so I joined the Dominican because I believed that they had used their weapon of education better than the gong to make a difference. You're listening to the documentary on B.B.C. World Service I'm Geraldine Smith and I'm recalling along with my fellow Catholic sisters what life was like during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Bob Right right right. Right. Right right. Right. In the early 1980 S. Republican prisoners went on hunger strike over the British government's refusal to allow them the status of political prisoners. It was a traumatic time for the Catholic community many of the participants in the witness seminars were deeply affected when Bobby Sands was 1st person to be on hunger strike nobody ever ever thought that the let this person die This is Sheila Curran from the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy every police talk or I wouldn't you know the housing estate that I grew up and would have been kept saying there's no way they're going to let him die there's no way you know and every time then people say if he dies it's going to be really serious and we were all talking like it was every day you were awake no not you know Pop was happening everything but it was listening to the news like it was the kind as he was seriously ill and when he die I will never forget the next day and were black likes so many black likes so there was a fear it was a really tangible fear like what's going to happen next you know what's going to happen because he has died the volatility of the violence of the less collate from that how many more we're going to die you know a lot more died so for me it was s'posed the moment to politicize me that these issues were not just that they affected every place life in the last hour the news has filtered through to this community that Bobby Sands has died after $66.00 days of hunger strike and the Northern Ireland Office in the last hour has issued a terse one line statement Mr Robertson's a prisoner in the Maze prison died today at 117 he took his own life but a few. Thousands watched as the house started on its form our journey to Motown summitry West Belfast had clues going from there and the security program I'm sure would Professor of feminist liberation theology is based on university Winchester what struck me during the seminar was how much time and how much emotion was spent on the hunger strikes I'm wondering how people understood that in religious terms I think religious language was rife of different kinds of grammar I think within the Republican community in prison who had despised this I think some of them were very deeply compelled and impaired by their faith conviction so we had language of martyrdom we had murals going on walls with religious iconography of rosary beads and the Virgin Mary I think why I might. Not find any resonance with that in terms of my own fears understanding about death and martyrdom I think martyrdom is about witnessing with your life and not just with your death at the same time I think nobody would have died did the deep fear motivation on the part of people who actually saw themselves as laying down their lives for the sake of their people so that kind of language would have been going on inside the nationalist republican community and in and among the prisoners themselves I think there would have been other Catholics and Protestants looking on who would have seen this as playing fast and loose with the God given gift of human life and I know that touches into many raw nerves even in retrospect I lived with a cousin in my community it was a cousin of Bobby Sands which made living in community around all of that extremely fraught you couldn't talk about it or else there was going to be nearly World War 3 we had other sisters who had. relations in the british army on the was all that specter men between i've been in london and i came home tell just sins tying just at the time kill mcdonnell diety was one of the hunger strikers and the whole atmosphere around the play is it was really really dark and i was actually in the heists as the funeral cortege game past and i remember the saying that people been pushed into the middle of the road by sarrasin cars all gathered rind and i remember the sense of bridge that i felt and i thought if i had a gone i would have wanted to use it and it really it stayed with me so law it was like i knew from that point don i was capable of murder But there was a huge amount of confusion as you felt that I think of well and one shouldn't feel like this I shouldn't be like that but you were conscious of feeling very I don't know what the word is confused and angry and frustrated I didn't feel I had a voice at the time I couldn't say that anybody couldn't share about it in community I don't know what I did with it but it just I was very conscious that sometime later I then did find my voice and then was able to talk about it felt but there was a sense of guilt. You know you're in the one you should be shouldn't be talking like this you know so it was difficult to be a religious and to live through this because it wasn't the way you were supposed to be as a Christian as a Catholic as a religious and here you were seeing the people being you know kind of corralled and pushed and shoved and there was nothing I felt so parlous I couldn't describe felt and also isolated because you couldn't talk about it with a new order you know even when there were 2 soldiers that were big not been murdered by a cried and I came through the time that day could sense again there's still Sperry heavy atmosphere got to the High as somebody said oh did you hear what happened what happened 2 soldiers were murdered and again I couldn't say it because of the dynamic in the community but that night and then dish priest that I knew phoned me and it was only to him that I could say ashamed I felt about the way these men had been treated by a crowd of other man and it was so shocking and yet and the very high state you were saying that you were living supposed to be your home you couldn't say it. I think it brings home the the complexity of what people were holding including sisters and the fact that the spectrum of ideologies of cloaks and interpretations of what was going on even in a community of 10 people or in a family was very wide and at detention points like that it really demanded a lot of repression and I come back to the trauma really I think you would have a lot of experience to share about that but I was just listening to Mary there and I had quite a similar experience. In 1970 a friend of mine was murdered in front of his wife and children and it was quite horrific and I had never experienced this kind of anger before I actually wanted access to a gun at one point and I thought if one of the funny angle of these people or. I was angry and expected the CME feelings from my friends but she seemed to have more. Spiritualized the whole experience and believe that God would bring some good out of this horrible murder. And I could not connect to any spirituality or God only my anger it did have a tremendous effect on the rest of my life it does something to me and I think when you when you realize the depths of your own anger and your own capacity to do something to somebody else you know it kind of opens you up to greater empathy I think you can't sit in judgment as easily as you did you know the day before right and I experience that kind of conflict within myself to the point of having to leave the situation a personal crisis ridden do you think this was a crisis of that most definitely a crisis of faith I suppose I believed that God could end this violence if God so wished magical kind of thinking but it's totally put me into a crisis of faith because here was I the nun supposed to be the kind of professional spiritual guide or whatever really at sea when it came to my 5th and I went and sought help really because being a religious there were expectations that I wasn't living up to nor did I want to can I just say that because we we discussed it made about this sense that if you're a star ship. Yes many people failed the burden of Christianity if you like on their shoulders to do so and some people can say it quickly and mean that of course but I sometimes question that sometimes forgiveness comes to certain people think that it's a one of gesture that you make when in actual fact it's. It's a hard day to day. Decision not everybody can do it. Join me Geraldine Smith after the news for the 2nd part of the documentary when Sister Kathleen Keane will be revisiting the community she used to live in Belfast peace line. Workers of the peace Well I never had a very simple explanation he said. That's because 2 of us are Christians grab the book each other. This is the B.B.C. World Service the news for most shortly after this 2 women with a shared experience the title of 1st lady you kids by virtue of men like we all are and privileged there's a lot of responsibility that comes with that I had to deal with both practical things and stuff within the family and everything changed in a unified spirit I went out of the building with my white skin and that was a really good time to contemplate by myself you just accept your blindness and then there's no looking back after that pull and matching talent I wanted to become an elite gymnast so that requires more hours so then I had to start homeschooling I grew up in a new system for me to last it was the door opener to the world I'm keeping check I need and each week we bring together 2 women from different parts of the world united by a common thread a conversation listen online or subscribe to the podcast at B.B.C. World Service dot com 20 years ago on Good Friday 1998 a political agreement was reached that brought a formal end to 30 years of sectarian violence both Catholic and Protestant clergy played their part in seeking peace their role is well known but the story of Catholic religious sisters during the Troubles has not been told until now join me sister Geraldine Smith after the latest news headlines here on the B.B.C. World Service. B.B.C. News with Marion Marshall the former Catalan president colors to push him on has been detained by German police he was held after crossing the border from Denmark on the way back to Belgium where he's been living in self-imposed exile since October he's wanted in Spain for sedition after organizing an unauthorized referendum on Catalonian independence from Spain tributes are being paid to a French paramilitary police officer during a memorial service in the southern French town of Treb where 4 people were killed by a jihadist gunman on Friday the Bishop of caucus on said that left turn and Colonel on a boat from who died saving hostages had combined the devotion of a soldier with the faith of a Christian reports are coming in from Somalia about a big explosion in the center of the capital Mogadishu large plumes of smoke can be seen in the area of the parliament building there are also reports of gunfire bishops in Tanzania want the country's unity and peace are under threat a statement from the influential conference of Lutheran bishops criticized the government condemning recent kidnappings attacks on political leaders and the use of violence to break up opposition demonstrations the International Cricket Council has suspended the Australian captain Steve Smith for one match after he admitted trying to cheat he's confessed to authorizing another player to tamper with the ball in the current 3rd Test against South Africa but he's in B.L. a Rooster made several arrests during marches and protests commemorating the 100th anniversary of a brief period of independence in $1018.00 pictures on social media showed police leading away demonstrators carrying banners Facebook has published full page adverts in major British newspapers apologizing for letting its users down in the ad the company chief executive Mark Zuckerberg acknowledges that Facebook allowed an app to harvest personal information B.B.C. News. Welcome back to the documentary on the B.B.C. World Service with me sister Geraldine Smith. In the 1st half of the program we heard about some of the struggles and dilemmas facing Catholic nuns during 30 years of the Troubles in Northern Ireland some of the most challenging situations were faced by those living on the so-called peace line which divides Catholic and Protestant communities and bathos to Sister Kathleen keen 9 lives in Dublin but she took the program's producer Rosie Dawson back to see her old home so we're on Springfield Road now and this is the biggest transformation this barrier the triptans she threw out her spikes to normal almost because it used to be astonished if your solid metal I suppose had to be armor proof and as you touched on my pouch number 369 Springfield Road and then on the other side of this semi detached is true House as it continues on. Is to call the murderer isn't that he's lying yes but it looks more like a case I'm now than a did what is the purpose to the purpose of the piece not one of my neighbor but it had a very simple explanation one that this young woman asked him one day what's up war forces he said that's because tourists are Christians can't live with each other and we still can't try to oh no oh this barrier is never opened except Christ here for the barge on the last Saturday in June and on the truss in July for Louth the orange the local large March with will be on its way to the celebrations downtown only passing by I'm sick and. It's all based on faith in the state and on the search transformation because the last time I was here was derelict in the gardens were all grown and everything sounded like shit that she hasn't been demolished. Josie as a student thank you where were you. This was the kitchen the school. The people would come and knock on the door and say Can I go through that they would be desperately stuck usually you know they'd be either in a hurry or going somewhere and it was a long walk or I would really be stuck if you couldn't get access to Springfield Road so that they just knock on the back door here much before the go through here . Until further orders and I says nice day today and thank you for the weather but . I had a little catch which dish was there and the youngsters next door had pushed a little plastic Union Jack and the stocking of the wall over the cat's dish because they said she came from the shank it so she's promised to transfer this unit just the group starts to stand. This is private roof and I have my bed there. When things went bang in the middle of the night well you know John time for the better course and I could look at that landing window and I had to know usually it's just stones or something you know which way they can . So now we're turned into Brockman Avenue which is effectively a can decide because of the barrier we walk along by side fence of our back garden and it's the 1st 2 houses to become number 2 and number 4 are the kind of community which were established by the Dominican sister and the priest as an interfaith community in the late Hastings I dispute here ever since there are 2 sisters living here now it's just a junior so it should be here to. Assist them. All the local chain here you know what we're seeing with their eyes and I think. Yes. I'm going to ring pansy if she can come I thought that would be lovely. Oh I can't link I gave you my argument on that question the night. Was the last this is racist. Well you have it is a yellow Well obviously I walk past the potion or thank if I just and have you say no how does doesn't cut off much right just passed along to the really lovely high I've passed and mostly I'm pretty thin probably not tell you want about that. Just because of. How what you think of cutlery when she walks up there because of course just you know their sister. And I should have thought some perspective you know. That's surely and this is an amazing thing to happen at the time you know that it's for 11 on the prophecy says it's the sense of that really was that reality and the growth we have and this. And conservative people had to stand on 7 floors in the mission to members of a certain that they are on their way to each other she was struggling with church just of structural damage and they were younger and stood on the floor of nuns on the floor you know that was all those eyes And what was coming out of that makes it predatory significant often a thing friendship to talk. To them from one sentence men from the other side to this is that yes gentle your tank still quite difficult and it's still terrible things happening here that need a place some of them have one day to sort of a 7 armistice some of that the local this news Rockefeller that there was you know so as a great man is a person often tried just isn't awful events you know on both sides so just in the mist and space to be able to talk turns it was just yesterday Rhonda Carmen. Was you heard Kathleen talking a few minutes ago about the marching season parade center marches are very much part of Northern Ireland's Protestant culture but they are also contraband. Because they commemorate Protestant victories over Catholics the vast majority of prayed are uncontentious but some either pass or go through Catholic areas sparking the potential for violence it made life very difficult for people on the peace line like I'm Kilroy a retro sister the reason I came back to bad fast was to live on the peace line in any command it could community called Cornerstone community cornerstone had been involved in extraordinary work visiting believed people on both sides of the community together and my order were quite happy that I would to live in an E.Q. Manical community in fact I was doing a Catholic living in at that stage and Kathleen lived on the religious where they were extraordinary years really but one of the big issues at the time was the marching season and it was very traumatic every time it came to us so one particular years was suggested that a group of us would negotiation between the Protestant Unionists Orange Order and the local residence namely the Republican and of things but our negotiations and backfired because a piece of graffiti Well a very large piece written right across the wall of a local school then summed it all up for us and vicious the on Holy Trinity the Orange Order the or you see namely the Royal St constabulary and the cornerstone community versus the residence that was such a slap in the face because we were trying to be neutral we were praying in corners soon as we always did on the 12th of July and we could hear the drumming coming at the March coming and with that this is really dangerous and train we came there were the very people we had tried to mediation and I recognized one of the men across there and I shouted cross and he said What are you doing. On the other side . Sign of the day and we walked down to catch a space I think you were away camping at the time and Mary and I don't remember this or watching from the top window as all the people gathered to have further riot later on so I'm looking at the top window I can't go out there because I'm now the enemy. I'm sister Geraldine Smith You're listening to the World Service documentary about the lives of Catholic religious sisters during Northern Ireland's troubles. protestant women wearing to the focus of the original witnessed seminars fact may yet be a whole other project but does we've seen they were also active in the work of peace and reconciliation we pointed you to hear from to the of them may knob baron ass blogged who lived and worked on the piece line and presbyterian minister leslie carol made it's really the big to see hey go to journey there she had heard the zetas you may have as meet where you know man air longer her though where here for for the truck up i worked on the piece lame with catholic women in proto some women but was conscious of what the religious sisters for trying to do see in the motion but in my committed is up never came to the for never monov add a said we were going to me ticked a group a catholic women now it was all right but of i had a said them are going to meet it a group of catholic nuns i would hud anybody goal because there was up perception that they were some heart different personally speak and i would have had contact with that sister stray organizations like backs christic on some other pay scrapes which were reflecting relate from a faith perspective on what was happening i mean it's interesting i suppose even and the church at but bay the same store 8 that there would have been no talk about conflicts festers tall but was all it's a bite the priest so and i mean apologize to my sister's that they were so many times me it invisible yes of as moos out but have been the perception bakken when the trouble started most people thought nuns just live didn't convents and for bird very rarely led to it night you'd not not to be true but that's what the perception the prosody and they the other perception it was prompts new women would a hug ones they how to do with the priest told them absolutely that of there are 4 thoughts the bet they didn't commander the thinking the didn't commend the think it but i think when the big on to me Real religious sisters they discovered that nothing could be further from the truth I think a grieving Charlie never because I remember working with some Christian sisters on the Falls Road that a particular problem or a teenage pregnancy so had way within the Protestant community and so they contacted me to see could become did some kind of a joint solution now I started to work there and when I went back and told the group it had been on the false and the stopping to Christian sisters to look at me as if it grew aren't you know what would you be going over there for now because they are the cheated but you know there is Sterling says there's women in both sides have always worked through those ations a lot have to sit when tempers pretty dangerous you know have ever had been well known that for instance I was 10 sick Dominic's on the falls that had to be public knowledge Well I would have to suffer for that at home. Well engine number with the loyalist paramilitaries have let you know they're not pleased about your day I mean I had my car wreck several times in my life threatened things like that on Lisa Isherwood we've heard from some of the sisters how their experiences made them struggle with a faith and I actually question it quite deeply and I'm wondering if the Protestant women this was the same experience did it make you question religion at any point. No no that would never cross my main I mean yes and personal situations where you have things happening in your own family you don't claim to say well how can God be in the middle of this but I would say on the broader picture of Northern on that never questioned and I do think there is a planet there I think we just have to keep working on it and I think unventilated maybe not be in my lifetime but eventually we will come to not because I think there are so many good people like there are people of faith and people of no fear and I think eventually it has to work right the way God planned maybe we have to go through this world in a sense maybe that's where we are maybe that's why myself is as a proto Cinnamon was played on the peace line I was burned out in my home by Protestants and how to move to peace line and maybe that's just part of God's plan but I would never question going on and never on a political level and I never asked were gods and because I always believed that God was in each one of his and each one of us was making our little small contribution to the actual solution of the problem so therefore I didn't question the total I just and the may doubt absolute kind of trust that you have may nevertheless watch and not kind of pastoral role over people to hearing them longing for pace praying for pace or caring for pace and then something terrible would happen and then they come back to prayer on the whole struggle of their lives a kind of watching over that what I often find was that I would swing and to the extremity of my own background if you like so I'm from a very traditional evangelical Christian background and I'm from a the extremity would have been to swing and say the god or rescues rather than the God who is part of all or higher every want to describe it and so I would have swung into that where are you God you haven't come to rescue us here. The corrective for me was often find in my. Conversations with Catholics Esther's you know I was very fascinated really that the sisters offered a corrective to this rescue God to the God who sits apart from the struggle and may or may not lift people out of it and save them and I think perhaps this was an influence from Sisters coming back from Latin America where there was a model developing of liberation theology in which there's God is the struggle God is within not only the person but within the struggle and this was actually growing in Latin America and it seems to me either from some of the stories that we're hearing but it may have been taking seed in Northern Ireland as well during the stone. Well Leslie like in terms of Roman Catholic women you know and as women religious than the structure of my church it's all her and we're not in the decision making of the institution about structure of church and the same way as it would be in your tradition can you please say that at that more about part of this like to be a woman within a structure of a church that from the outside gives the appearance that women have a more equal say sure of him and I mean I'm glad you said from the outside in because from the inside out it doesn't always feel the same I suppose there are times when we look at you and think haven't Catholic nuns great freedom. But someone like myself can set on some of the senior committees of the church and from time to time the church does realize that it needs female voice and will ask for that but you know I have had that privilege of sitting on the what would have been the church and government committee at the time coming up to the Good Friday Agreement and meeting with politicians and leaders and all that kind of thing it's a church so I think as a woman in Presbyterianism I have had a voice but I know that not every woman fails that. Agreement the impossible was done late this afternoon and in the end after 36 hours of nonstop no sleep all night and day negotiation it was that the agreement bringing peace to Northern Ireland fair on Good Friday was done to a missed deadline United States Senator George Mitchell had said that the power sharing talks he was chairing must conclude by midnight on the 9th of April 1998 it was more than 17 hours after that that the historic deal was struck this agreement is good for the people of Ireland north and sound it was made possible but I want to say this to the politicians and to the people of Northern Ireland with all the force that I can muster. Even though this will not work unless in your will and in your mind you make it work the the. The cross is a symbol of suffering but also of hope as their politicians labored to produce an agreement the people of the Ormeau Road Protestant and Catholic held an Easter vigil in this area so often the scene of confrontation in the marching season they prayed together for a new peaceful future it was a long week and all nighters know a lot can begin when it was announced to receive for here because I have to tell you nobody active thought it was going to come about when it was announced in the middle of night and George Mitchell must signal out of pretty is for when it was announced I think people were so stunned couldn't believe it they just couldn't believe that there was possibly we were going to have an agreement I remember it was snowing man yeah I remember that I also remember it like May said that we didn't really think it was going to happen so it was absolutely mind blowing that hot and talk of it something left your spirit I mean it was amazing at that age it was called the Good Friday agreement not necessarily because of failing good for anybody and but for me at the sun always been a good friend and I know the promise and I call it the Belfast Agreement it's not a nonsense it was a good Friday the agreements had a lot of things it hasn't fulfilled but the one thing the Good Friday Agreement and nobody can dispute this it brought peace and it brought peace to this part of the word which I absolutely never thought would happen. I think about for the Good Friday agreement to work there had to be a substantial network of all sorts of relationships up dying across diagonally across society I I think that the politicians have never understood the importance of that network of relationships and that had to be there to get it over the line but with I vos the network of which women were a part not the only part but of which women were a part I don't think it would have happened during the time I was telling me that over. Turf was over the turn was well over both on the OK thank god to talk here. 6 was Oprah and you were. One of the people I came across going to a seminar was by John Paul a letter at KUSA many a night and he was giving us a framework in which to understand what was going on and he used the idea of a triangle where you had the top end of the apex who were the people who were involved at the political level government level you had the grassroots of people and if you like the different communities and their neighborhood level and then you'd have vast group in the middle who were as he put it were the people who in fact stop this place from to standing into total civil war and I believe that as religious that some high or other we were part of all of that section during our little bit here there and everywhere to bring some kind of paste self kind of meaning some kind of presence that was counting that was compassionate that was struggling with even when we didn't have words for it we were there with the people . He was talking to you. But I was playing. The. Part of. The. We weren't making the headlines touring the troubles we were as Mary says simply there with people doing whatever it was we felt called to do why was it important then for us to hold these witness seminars all these years later why do we need to share our stories with you nah. We didn't do anything we were just sisters you know we were just doing what we were meant to do and I think for me that was the key because often people are just doing what they're meant to do and not realize in the influence that they have and I think that that is important that the sisters would stay that they would be there and the witness seminar made me stop and think that really people by their everyday actions make a difference it really can I just said that I think the point that is making that is really important when we set off I think this is to just really wanted to say well we were just you know jobs and Lisp was actually a catalyst because she didn't want to talk about herself she was there to talk about the sisters that I brought up and met all that difference to her life so she got very passionate and was the one who actually established what these women did in this very important message if it's a member you say it made a difference and the people of my generation know they made a difference a few years ago 2 sisters from my order were killed in a road crash outside Belfast and it brought thousands of people out onto the street to mourn their passing Francis you've been the principal of a local primary school for 40 years she knew everybody all right and are going to be narrower through all the troubles and I've been with people Mary worked in Jewish Christian relations and you had the 2 of them in the one community and the fact that it brought so many people out on the street I think in a way typified the presence of sisters it gives people a way of expressing how they felt about the role of sisters here in the north that hadn't got the political and sectarian kind of overtones and when the funeral cortege was passing to daven you which was still a focal point of protest at the time the orange man actually saluted that the cuff and and lowered the flags. They witness seminars has involved people in telling their story and remembering as a form of healing and really that was an opportunity that wasn't really afforded us in any way and the witness seminars therefore it was cathartic in the sense that I was able to talk about things in a safe environment where you weren't going to be judged and you know that you could actually say how it was for you and it makes me feel a little bit more equal to everybody else so that I'm not just the helper I am also the one in need of help. What's amazed me is just how you just put your bodies on the line time and time again you didn't see anything extraordinary amount you simply saying you had to turn up you had to show a commitment to your community and that this commitment was actually the standing of the heart of your religious commitment Yeah I think I mentioned earlier high def occult It was in our communities to talk about anything in relation to the child was when I heard a sister from my own community I'd lived with who I'd taught with in a school talk about the trauma that had gone on in her family and I knew absolutely nothing about it and then you know realized that we could live together in community and not know what each other was carrying and listening to all the other sisters and the way I marveled at what had been going on it was so much but that was invisible. And yet day of witness seminars give us the opportunity to name it and to own it which none of us least I certainly hadn't been able to do before. So there was a sense in which it was a celebrity. Thank you. A well known theologian once spoke of religious orders as carrying the dangerous memory of the church and I think we recalled dangerous memories in our meetings we traveled together in many coalitions and alliances with other women we've crossed lines all over in the kinds of work we've done we've stood at Catholic funerals and Protestant funerals we've held hands at peace rallies but there was something unique about coming together as Catholics sisters to reflect on what we journeyed through in the light of our Christian faith that was challenge that was sometimes lost was found again and renewed 20 years on we are still here and I feel a great sense of gratitude for that and all this is what I take away from the witness seminars you've been listening to Sisters of the troubles on the World Service presented by me sister Geraldine Smith the producer was Rosie Dawson. This is the B.B.C. 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