Concern mounts as the Brexit clock winds down

Concern mounts as the Brexit clock winds down
Border communities insist that a deal between Britain and the EU is vital for the peace process, reports Chai Brady, Ruadhán Jones and Jason Osborne

The coronavirus pandemic has dominated domestic and international news for most of 2020 which has led to the overshadowing of other current events but Brexit still looms large in the minds of many communities – particularly those on the border who will be most affected by Britain’s departure.

Bishop Larry Duffy of Clogher, a diocese which straddles the border, and priests who minister in parishes along the frontier told The Irish Catholic of parishioners’ worries for their livelihoods and more.

Disintegrate

As Brexit talks disintegrate, with Boris Johnson’s administration increasing preparations for the possibility of a no-deal, concern has turned to fear and anxiety.

“Many people live in one area and work across the border – any Brexit change could affect their lives greatly,” said Bishop Duffy. “Particularly in a lot of the border areas, there’s no major international industries or companies, a lot of it is small businesses so they can be rather economically fragile.

“For a lot of people, it would be important that there is an agreement and there would be assurances that people’s livelihood would not be severely affected by Brexit, and we can’t be sure of that at the moment,” he warned.

He said border communities have dealt with very particular issues for 100 years since Ireland was divided in two and have adapted, but “when livelihoods are affected and freedom is affected, that’s a different thing”.

Bishop Duffy commended the Good Friday Agreement for bringing “a lot of stability and a lot of hope to people throughout Ireland but particularly in the border area”. He added that “it’s vital for peace and tranquillity in Northern Ireland”.

“I suppose for local people that visible sign of this would be the fact that border infrastructure, checkpoints and that, have all gone in the last 20 years and it’s a great freedom to cross the border and there’s no hinderance in travel or no checkpoints and this means a lot to people and they’d be very disappointed and really very hurt if that was to change,” the bishop said.

Fr Oliver O’Reilly PP of Ballyconnell, Co. Cavan, said there are thousands of people in border parishes, including his, that work and live on either side of the border who are “hugely concerned and worried about the future and what a hard border could mean”.

“They would also be very worried because they remember the old border and the violence that was part of that and the criminality that was part of it as well, so all of those worries are on people’s minds,” he explained.

Covid-19 has “totally overshadowed” the Brexit process, he said, adding: “One of the big worries I would have is Boris Johnson is playing politics with the border. I don’t know whether it’s playing politics or whether he’s serious about this or whether he’s using this as a ploy in negotiations but it’s wrong what he’s doing, it’s quite unethical. He’s playing with people’s lives and livelihoods and it’s playing into the hands of extremists on both sides of the border.”

Concern

Fr La Flynn, administrator of Pettigo with parishioners in both Donegal and Fermanagh split by the Termon River which serves as part of the border, said a lot of the concern is his community is the pandemic at the moment. However, although it would be the “overriding concern”, it’s not that “there wouldn’t be reason to be concerned about Brexit and the implications of a no-deal Brexit, of the failure to reach agreement between Britain and the EU”.

“It’s not that that wouldn’t be significant for people in the border area, but there’s only so much that people can bear and be concerned with at a given time,” said Fr Flynn.

“Part of the price we might be paying for the urgency of the Covid situation at this time is that we are not able at national level or cross border level to give time or dedicated attention to the challenges in terms of cross border relationships.”

He explained that he is familiar with border communities having grown up in the parish of Roslea on the Fermanagh-Monaghan border. His neighbouring parish of Clones was also divided by the border.

Currently living in Pettigo village where he lives in Donegal, he can walk a few hundred metres and cross the river to enter Fermanagh. The Lough Derg office is on the northern side of the border.

“This is how it is, this is how it works. So many of our parishioners in Pettigo are working in the North or family members are working in the North, their marriage relationships – all of these things bind people together across the border,” Fr Flynn said.

“The failure of a robust and secure arrangement between Britain and the EU in terms of how we put the terms of the protocol into action will have a concrete effect on people’s lives. And God forbid, if it was to happen that there were to be some kind of customs checkpoints or whatever, that it was necessary to reimpose those at border crossings, that will threaten the whole Good Friday settlement because those will become flashpoints for strong emotions.

“At another level, the increased conversation over the last week or ten days about how vital it is on the island of Ireland that we would work towards an ever more shared consensus on how to address the public health issues – this is, if you like, another argument for the need to have the best possible working relationships. Anything about Brexit that complicates or prejudices those good working relationships is a liability for the political system,” he added.

Border

Based beside the border of Donegal and Derry, Fr Colm O’Doherty PP of Clonleigh and Adm. of Urney and Castlefin said the parish is currently still coming to terms with the second lockdown and uncertainty around Brexit is a “double whammy”.

“No matter what happens, we have to keep going,” he said, “but many parishioners don’t know what to do” regarding Brexit and Covid-19.

Fr Emlyn McGinn is the new parish priest of Forkhill in Co. Armagh just a few miles from the border. He says that the sense of fear is palpable locally.

“I think it [Brexit] is something to the fore of people’s minds at the moment, there’s a real fear about livelihoods and really anything that impedes free movement. That’s the way most people would feel about it.

“I’ve ministered on both sides of the border and have enjoyed the freedom over the years to travel across the border without any inconvenience such as checkpoints, that certainly makes life easier overall,” he said.

Fr McGinn said that as well as economic concerns “no one wants to regress back to a hard border and most people certainly don’t want to do anything that jeopardises peace as well.

“It [Covid-19] has really taken the limelight from the Brexit negotiations, the media attention has lessened somewhat, in saying that it would still be something that people are very aware of in border communities,” he said.

The parish priest of border parish Ardstraw West and Castlederg in Co. Tyrone, Fr Paul Fraser, said that Brexit has “taken a back seat” during the coronavirus pandemic.

Fr Fraser said the hope is that politicians “are playing a game of chicken” regarding the idea of a no-deal Brexit. “A hard border is unconscionable,” he warned.