In this episode of Northern Peacebuilders, we meet Gerard Deane, who discusses his background in peacebuilding and community development, influenced by his father’s work at Holywell Trust. He reflects on his university experience and the disconnect between theoretical peace studies and real-world conflict. Gerard emphasizes the importance of values-based practice, building relationships, and the need for systemic change. He acknowledges the challenges in engaging the public, particularly younger people, and the impact of a divided society on their identities and opportunities.
INTERVIEW POSTSCRIPT
Your favourite book on conflict resolution/community relations/peacebuilding?
I don’t have a favourite. But there’s one that sticks out, and it’s to me the most impactful. It’s Freya McClements and Joe Duffy’s book, Children of the Troubles.
Peace is…
hard won. I think it’s fair to say.
Peace can only be brought about by…
committing to each other and being honest in what we’re doing.
I was inspired by…
those around me, parents and beyond.
The Northern Ireland conflict could be transformed if…
we got the structures right, and people were more generous with each other.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Allan: Thank you very much, Gerard, for joining us in our podcast, Northern Peacebuilders. You’re very welcome and thanks for agreeing to speak with us.
Gerard: No bother. Thanks for thinking of me for it, honoured.
Allan: So, Gerard, let’s start with the beginning. We’d like to know where your personal interest in peacebuilding or community development work came from.
Gerard: I suppose there’s a couple of sides to this. The first is really obvious. If anybody knows me and knows the family connection, I was born on it.
Let’s call it what it is. My father’s Eamon Deane. Eamon Deane did many things, worked in the Bogside Community Association and Youth Ways for many years, but one of the other things he did was set up Holywell Trust. So, in many ways, I’ve been steeped in this work for a long time. We were always dragged along as children to whatever events that Holywell were running. And had the good fortune to be able to build relationships across those traditional lines, if you like, long before others.
Allan: How old were you when you were getting dragged along to some of these events?
Gerard: Ah, you’re talking teenage years, you know what I mean?
Allan: Were there any of those events that really stuck with you?
Gerard: No, it was always more the relationships or the people that you met. Because of the type of work that Eamon was doing, it was always the people and the connections that he made were that bit different than just going to school and meeting people from your own community background. So, that was really important.
I think there was always a sense of the work and the sense of the importance of the work that he was doing. It had dragged us along to the odd protest march and that type of thing back in the day as well. There was always that values-based approach to building relationships that came from the home and Eamon and my mother Sally as well.
But I suppose for me, it wasn’t just seeing Eamon working and seeing the work that he was doing and the change that he was trying to bring around. It was also me looking around me going, I have a commitment to this place. The only people that are going, it sounds really big-headed, but the only people that are going to change here are the people from here, and I’m making a commitment to stay here. And this is at a time in the late ’80s, early ’90s, when it’s like, I’m at a school where 85 per cent of the people left to go to university, like left this island to go to university. And I made a commitment that I wouldn’t do that, that I’d stay here.
I wanted to do peace and conflict studies and I had two options. One was Bradford, and one was [Ulster University] Magee [campus], and I chose Magee. Because it was partly me embedding myself here, valuing the local institution that we have, but also saying, I have something to contribute to this conversation. I am committed to making a change in this place.
I want to tackle whatever issues that there are, be they peacebuilding, deprivation, or community development. However, we need to do that. I am making that personal statement that I’m not going anywhere, and I’m here for the long term, and I haven’t gone anywhere since.
Allan: Can you tell me a little bit about your university experience then?
Gerard: So, I went the Magee, as I said, and done peace and conflict studies. [I did] that for four years. It was an interesting experience because, at the time, this was pre-ceasefire, so the conflict’s still going on. It was a really frustrating experience. One of the reasons that I chose not to go to Bradford and went to Magee was that you’re studying peace and conflict studies in an active conflict zone, and the opportunities that that would present in my mind was, let’s really get in-depth, let’s meet the people who are trying to build the peace. Let’s look at the practitioners, let’s just move beyond theory. That’s what I assumed would happen, and it didn’t, which was really frustrating. It’s like we studied the Northern Ireland conflict until 1968 and then stopped.
There was the odd passing reference when we were looking at Sri Lanka and Tamil Tigers and that type of thing — you know, it’s like Tamil Tigers are kind of like the IRA. No, you know, you can’t just make flippant remarks like that.
That was the biggest frustration that I had was it was, I think, a huge missed opportunity. And talking to the people that I was on the course with, they came here for exactly the same reason. These are people from all over who came here to go, if you’re going to look at this issue, you have to look at it, take the opportunity to look at an issue where it’s live. The course was dead on, you get all the theoretical background, and here’s what’s happening in other parts of the world, here’s what the UN does, all that type of stuff.
But I think there was a real missed opportunity to embed both the university and its practice and students into the local community. It’s like the ultimate frustration I had was part of the course was a six-month placement. I ended up coming to the Holywell Trust to do it, and I organised a visit of Israeli Jews and Palestinians to come to Ireland, and that was an intense program.
Allan: About when was this?
Gerard: It’s 1994. Okay. So, ’93 ’94. So, they’re going through difficulties, and they were coming here whenever we hadn’t resolved things just yet either, and that was an intense enough program. But I didn’t hear from anybody in the university for the whole time I was in placement. I could have been washing dishes, somewhere; it wouldn’t have mattered. So long as I wasn’t near them, they were grand. And when I shared that with them after my placement, I wasn’t the most popular student in the class. But that’s okay. There was a few home truths that they needed to hear. There was no vetting of, “What are you going to do when you’re there? Is this aligning with the principles and the themes of the course?” And all that. It was just, go along and enjoy yourself for six months.
Allan: But you demonstrated that you were keen to actually try to put some of the theory into practice or at least learn from elsewhere.
Gerard: Aye, I think part of the challenge was, doing the course is so theoretical and you’re doing everything from psychology and philosophy and everything else alongside it. Making it a reality is often very different. And making it the reality is about building relationships with the people that are in the room. And whatever theory that you’re building it on, it’s like if your values-based practice is simply I’m doing this because it’s the right thing to do, we’re doing this based on a set of principles where nobody’s going to be harmed, and our ultimate goal here is to build relationships for longer-term peace, then I think that’s the way you have to do it. You know, you can get into [Johan] Galtung’s theory or whatever it is. But in practice, I think it’s about building relationships with people.
Allan: Can you remark about whether you think the theory-practice relationship’s gotten any better since your days at the university? Or are you learning more from other practitioners who are applying [a values-based approach]?
Gerard: I think there’s a balance. The peace programme showed up where you get that crossover between the academic theory and practice.
It’s like the Hamber-Kelly model of reconciliation, the five strands. I think it’s very strong and very good, and it wouldn’t have been developed if it hadn’t have been through the academic institute. So, I think that was something that’s really, really important. I do think that academics are in the space, and it’s like if you take the work of CAIN, for example, the archiving work that they do, and the collecting of all the information is essential and invaluable.
But when it comes to peace theories, I think in practice, when you’re talking to practitioners on the ground, there’s that gap between how you actually do things and your theoretical background.
One really obvious exception would be The Junction, who are our partner organisation. They developed the ethical and shared remembering principles about how you remember the decade of centenaries that was developed well in advance of the decade. That’s about remembering the context and doing no further damage and all that type of thing. That was an example of practitioner-led theory development, and that’s been rolled out everywhere. It ended up with Johnston McMaster, he helped develop it, sitting on [Ireland] President Higgins’ council and that type of thing. So, it did have an impact. I think most councils and most public bodies looked at it.
Allan: I need to declare that at Shared Future News we applied those principles for our podcast, What Northern Ireland Means to Me, which is part of marking the centenary of Northern Ireland.
Gerard: Because they made it accessible, but it was also based on practice. And they based it on, here’s how we do our work, here’s the principles behind it. And when you think about it, they’re logical and they make sense. But they have worked it through, and they’ve developed it to a stage where it’s easy for people to get their head around, which, I think, some academic theories or practices are a bit removed.
Allan: Harder to maybe translate into the actual work on the ground?
Gerard: Yeah.
Allan: So, in building these relationships, can you describe how hard it is? What are some of the challenges? Or what are some of your methods in ensuring that relationships are constructively built?
Gerard: Okay, well, the first thing they say, it takes a long time and a lot of effort to build up, because what we found was that you have to be that trusted broker, if you like, to be able to have those conversations first.
Because, like, we all know how this place works. It’s on what side is your organisation generally leaning. And Holywell Trust, the organisation I work for, takes a really strong stance to go what’s really… we have no set outcome of where we want to go. The only outcome that we’re working towards is that we want a peaceful society where everybody’s prospering, everybody’s safe.
And the way that we get there is through doing a range of programmes and activities and whatever else. We put a lot of time and effort into making sure that we are perceived as non-aligned. And that takes a lot of time, and it’s also quite difficult at times.
The best example being this building that we’re sitting in. So, we’re sitting in the shared building that we own and manage, along with a number of other organisations, right in the heart of the city. Whenever it first opened nearly ten years ago, we had a lot of calls from politicians going, “Now that you’re open, can I come up and have my photograph taken with you and congratulate you and stuff?” And I was like, “Eh, no, you can’t, you can’t.”
And you can’t because as soon as you do, that’s us aligned. But what we would welcome is if you want to come up and have a conversation, along with all the other politicians, about how this works when we move forward. And we made sure they hold that — I don’t want to say neutral — but hold that non-aligned stance where we can be in a position to hold the difficult conversations with anybody.
So, in all our work we do that. One example is our Future Relationship Conversations project. That project is basically engaging with the, for want of a better term, Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist community to talk about the constitutional question. The rationale behind it is, if we ever end up in a border poll position, what we would like people to do is make an informed choice based on fact, rather than perhaps mistruths that we have experienced through the Brexit process, for example.
We’ve said to people, look, if you can park the identity question — because that’s yours, that’s private, I’m not trying to change your identity, your flag, or your, whatever that is. What you need to know about this conversation that’ll help you make a better choice, or make a choice, an informed choice.
And we had to prepare a whole position paper to say, here’s the principles behind what we’re doing, here’s our position on this, and our position was really clear. It’s the conversation that’s important. We have no set outcome. If there’s going to be a united Ireland, there’s going to be a united Ireland. If there’s not, there’s not.
We were seen as that trusted facilitator. And we were able to get into the communities and have the open and honest conversations. And whenever you are able to, to an extent, park the identity question, because you never fully park it, you realise that people are really concerned about their children, their health, education, jobs, and how that would look in any future. We did research based on what people were telling us, and we launched that and stuff.
I think it’s really important, it’s like we set out our stall at the start, and it was why Holywell Trust was doing this work, why we’re doing it with you, what we’re asking of participants, how we will be with you.
And key it all is, like, really dead simple things. Building up the ability in people to listen. We always say, listening isn’t just waiting for your opportunity to speak. Listening is actively engaging with the person that’s speaking, questioning what it is that they’re saying, if you have a query about it. And then you can start to hear what the person’s saying, rather than just listening to their voice. And when you start hearing what they’re saying and where they’re coming from, then you can start to maybe understand where they’re coming from and what they’re saying.
Allan: So, you say you set out your stall, but how do you know that anyone’s going to attend and those who you’d like to engage, are going to engage?
Gerard: Well, I think part of the process is that we’ve built up a reputation of doing this work since 1988. Okay. So, it hasn’t been an overnight thing. You build up the relationships.
Allan: Can you describe some of that lead-in work?
Gerard: So, I’ve been here in Holywell since 2004, working full-time. I worked on a number of other projects with Holywell before that. But since 1988, they’ve been having the difficult conversations. A lot of quiet conversations that I can’t even tell you about, because it’s supporting processes and supporting people who are going through processes.
Allan: Was that within Holywell or beyond Holywell?
Gerard: Oh no, beyond. We’re a really small team. What we see our role as, is we try to amplify the work that we are doing and the work of others. So, key to that is building key partnerships. We can’t do this work in isolation. You know, it’s not a bunch of do-gooders sitting up on Bishop Street trying to have a conversation with themselves. That’s pointless. So, we try and engage with the people that have been most affected by the conflict, but also those that will have some influence [on the] future direction of where we might be going.
Allan: Is this where the Northwest Community Network might have had a role? What was the role of that network?
Gerard: Holywell Trust was one of the founding organisations on the Northwest Community Network, but that’s slightly different in that it’s a community development network primarily, so it’s about supporting all the member organisations, and I think there’s about a hundred active members of the network at the minute. That’s a more practical thing, around how can we support you with your governance and getting your funding and that type of thing. Yes, part of the bigger conversations as well. As a sector we need to be stronger on what the sector says, or representing the sector at key places. It’s more a community development type thing.
Holywell’s always tried to hold a role, when it comes to community relations… at times we would describe ourselves as a thought leader, where we, along with the people that we’re working with, identify what the issues are. It’s not rocket science to identify what the issues are here.
And then we try, through our very small team, and our influence with whoever we need to influence, to try to make the change. To try to help the citizen voice amplified with those that need to hear it. So that’s when it comes to, if you like, policy change, but also just to build our relationships within this community.
And we’re not the only ones doing it and we’re not claiming this is all down to us. But we do see the likes of this building that we’re sitting in as a key venue for that type of work. It’s like, there’s another organisation in here today running a Theatre of Witness workshop. And that’s amazing.
Theatre of Witness is one of the projects that we did in partnership with The Playhouse. And it’s now got a life of its own and it’s rolling on. And that’s the type of thing we love to see. But it’s also a place where we will bring politicians and policymakers and others and challenge them and go, “How are you doing this? How are you going to serve people better than you currently are?” Because how we are at the moment isn’t great.
Allan: Beyond identifying the issues, how would you address some of the challenges of actually getting the desired policy changes into place? Not just on politicians but also what can be done even just locally and within the sector itself?
Gerard: I think there’s a number of challenges that we’re facing, especially when it comes to change. Firstly, is the [Northern Ireland] Executive. Any change that’s going to come about is going to be slow, if at all. I think there’s a real challenge when it comes to some of our civil service. We can have a risk-adverse civil service. Our civil service is too large. It’s really slow to react. I think, unless we can find a way to make it easier for us as a sector to go, “Here’s how we can help you do your job,” then we’re not going to make real change.
It’s like, we’re core funded, and have programme money through the Together: Building the United Community strategy. And if anybody was to sit down now and write a good relations strategy, for want of a better word or description, you wouldn’t write it like that. I don’t think it’s fantastic.
I think it’s something that I know the executive are currently looking at it, the executive officer looking at it. It needs refreshed, it needs updated, it needs to be made more relevant to the people that are actually either delivering the programmes or taking part in the programmes that are funded under it.
I don’t think it’s ambitious enough and it doesn’t create a clear way forward.
Part of our challenge in this whole society, and I’ll give you a bit of an example. We do a future leaders programme. We are taking a group of 20 people through a yearlong program to become the next generation of community leaders. Just last week we brought them down to Dublin. We did a whole range of visits, everything from community organisations right up to President Higgins and ministers and the whole bit. And it was really, really good and really insightful. The thing that struck me, nearly above all else, was everybody that we met had a clear vision of what it was that they were working on. Because they were all quite happy that Ireland is an independent country, that they’re working to programmes of government, that they have certain strategic directions that they want to achieve, and they’re all working together towards it. Our problem here, one of our problems, is that we have political parties, some of whom are actively trying to change the constitutional position of this place, and when that’s your position, you’re not gonna work to make this place work better in the longer term.
And I think that’s a challenge. And we need people who are going to commit to, at least in the short to medium term to go, “Whatever border poll might come or whatever processes we may put on the place, this place needs to work better until then.”
And we’re not there yet. I don’t think we’re in a position where we’re like, right, everybody needs served by our public offices, whatever they are. And let’s find a way of doing it so that in 5/10/15/20 years’ time, deprivation is lower, educational achievement is higher, the health service has been sorted, relationships on a cross-community basis are better.
We nearly need that statement to go, “We’re parking this for a while.” Whatever this is — be it strengthening relations with London or trying to get a 32-county Ireland — whatever that is, that’s not changing for the short term. So, let’s make a decision to make here work. And making here work means working together.
But it also means going, “We’re committed to this place and the people that are here,” and I don’t get that sense.
Allan: I think that can be observed by many others as well, the contrast about when there’s a consensual vision, it’s easier for people to collaborate. But what about at the local level and the role, let’s say here, Derry [City] and Strabane District Council and the powers that they have within good relations and community development? Are there pros and cons of that as well in regards to the powers they have? They have more powers than they had before, but they’re still bound by T:BUC in some sense. So, can you maybe describe the relationship you’ve had with the council?
Gerard: Well, look, we’re delighted to be funded and core funded by council for the last few years to do good relations work. And it’s a really welcome support. I think council in general are really committed to building relationships here. Their officers and the councillors…
One of the things about our council that they realise and they get really clearly is, unless we work together, unless we work collectively, no matter what your background — in fact, unless we work together with Donegal County Council and others as well — this area of this island isn’t going to be well served.
There is a collective vision to try and address the poverty, the deprivation, all those underlying statistics. And I think council are really committed to doing that. They’re hamstrung at times when it comes to the good relations work because of the policy that they’re working under and all the forms we have to fill out and all that type of stuff. But that’s practical delivery. And that’s the type of thing that can be changed.
But when it comes to the commitment, and if you like the drive of the organisation or the people involved in it, I think they really are committed and we’re happy to help them, as are others. You know, they do give out the grants, they do approach us, they do work together, and we’re quite happy to do that.
As I said, I’m involved in the peace partnership as well, with the council, and you can see the commitment. They go, “Right, we need to serve people better here, and we need to just raise all our aspirations for this place and when we’re working together, we’re better.”
Allan: I want to ask you about the “we” then, in regards to what the rest of us can do — what you would like to see or any suggestions, to encourage the rest of us to get engaged and get involved in this work.
Gerard: Well, the work, it’s, it’s mad and it’s nearly unfair the way this work works out, okay? In that we are asking and expecting the people that have been most affected by the conflict to do the biggest shift, right? And that’s entirely unrealistic. You’re talking about people who’ve been traumatised, who’ve lost loved ones, who’ve gone through the worst times, and they’re the ones that we’re expecting to reconcile.
I think that’s unrealistic and unfair. I think that generally, the silent majority piece, we need to get a lot better at. We need to be encouraging everyone — everyone — to think in terms of what can we be doing better together. But that requires structural change and systemic change.
And, let’s be realistic, we’ve just come out of a conflict. That doesn’t happen overnight. It’s really unrealistic to expect that to happen. Your systems and your structures reflect the society that you’re from and that you live in. Yes, they can help change, but it’s not an overnight thing. It’s also, I think, a period after conflict is when people need to feel safe for a while, and we need to build normality and find a new normality, because for 40-odd years we were at war with one another.
So, to put it back on the people, I think is nearly unfair. I think what’s needed here is leadership, and leadership at all levels, be that community level and people speaking out and representing and saying, “Look, here’s how we should be doing things.” And we try and lead by example in that regard. But I think we need generosity and leadership, particularly from our political leaders, to go, “We need a step change here.”
The assumption that in 1998 that was us done, I think was naive. I think that was us starting. But by the time we got to ’98, everybody was knackered and just let it sit for a while and trusted people to get on with things.
We need to learn to be generous with one another in the sense of, this can’t be a you-get-this-so-I-need-that. Sometimes we need to give stuff away or to give stuff up in order for everybody to benefit. That is one of the things that’s key. That, and if you’re really all about changing systemic problems or attitudes, it’s a huge problem. It’s a huge issue.
You know, we need to be talking about anti-poverty strategies. We need to be talking about infrastructure. We need to be talking about connectivity about how we serve everyone in this place. And until we do such, it’s really difficult.
But the general populace, I don’t think we should be forcing our work upon them. This should be something that comes naturally, and will change over time.
We do work with some of the people who have been directly impacted by the conflict, and it’s really important that we do. But we also try and work with the public, or civic society, or however you want to describe that. Because their voice is really important, but it’s been really silent. And they’ve also been silenced, because there’s no mechanism that exists for them to have their say on key things.
Allan: My anecdotal experience — but there’s also data to back some of this up — I definitely noticed among the 20 and 30-year-olds their expectations of a good life are so different than when I was their age here. Gives me a little bit of hope, but I’m also cognizant of not burdening them with our biases and the things that troubled us at an age. And yet you mentioned identities earlier. When I listened to these young people, they all have a variety of identities — ethno-national and ordinary — and they don’t seem to be losing much sleep over this, you see, which is refreshing for me. My question is if you can describe to us any of your work with younger people, where they’re coming from, and what you’ve learned from them.
Gerard: Well, the majority of our work is with adults, okay? So, that’s the first thing to say. I think my knowledge of youth work and young people is anecdotal as much as anybody else’s because I don’t have the energy to work with them! It takes a certain level of commitment and drive that left me years ago.
Allan: But the issues that they raise whether it’s about LGBT identities or reproductive rights or any of these things — those issues that really exercise them, the environment, for example. Maybe they’re pushing those issues up on us older people?
Gerard: Well, I hope they are because they’re issues that really need [to be] addressed. I look at my own children and those are the issues that concern them and their friends. But at the same time, they’re also living in a divided society where there’s limited opportunity to meet people from the other background, whatever that may be. And that’s not natural.
That’s okay for a while. But what happens is you do reinforce division and you do reinforce that sense of separation and the otherness that is addressed to a certain point through whatever youth programmes or school, shared schools, shared education stuff they do. But when you’re getting it at home, still, you know, when certain levels of sectarianism still exist in the house, you’re going to learn that, you’re going to, it’s nearly through osmosis that it comes into you, and you know what your cultural identity is as opposed to someone else’s.
And I think that’s most keenly felt in working-class areas, where division is harshest and nearly designed in that way. I don’t think educating people together is the lightning bolt solution that we’re going to have. But until we change our systems where it’s okay to live in certain areas, or it’s okay to do whatever, that things become more natural together, [then] I think we’re going to be struggling. It’s like we’re still, I think, glorifying some of the conflict, as well as transferring some of the trauma to some of the young people. And we can’t normalise that.
I think that’s part of the challenge is: yes, this work is really important; let’s meet the young people where they are. We can’t hammer the stuff that we’ve gone through, but there’s lessons to be learned.
Allan: Gerard, thanks very much for your insights.
This episode is part of our series on Northern Peacebuilders — interviews with individuals whose work and efforts contribute to better community relations in Northern Ireland.
The theme song, The Trouble’s Never Over, is used by license from Scott Anderson.
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