19 10 247 https://k8s-accounts-01.ulster.ac.uk/repo24/files/original/6690a9650fbc4d52185d08643b72af81.jpg 0a635ce7a0ca717db8d2554e5469af27 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Conflict Textiles (collection) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Roberta Bacic (curator), assisted by Breege Doherty Subject The topic of the resource Textiles / quilts that illustrate personal accounts / stories of the Northern Ireland conflict. Description An account of the resource A collection of ten textiles / quilts that illustrate personal accounts / stories of the Northern Ireland conflict. This collection has been drawn from a much larger collection of textiles from Northern Ireland and a range of international countries. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available CAIN Web site Relation A related resource More examples of conflict textiles can be found on Roberta Bacic's 'associated site' within the CAIN Web site: http://cain.ulster.ac.uk/conflicttextiles/ Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Photographs and Text. Language A language of the resource English Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant The Northern Ireland conflict Date Formed Non DC - The year in which the organisation was first formed. 2008 Status Non DC - Status of organisation and date checked Active [checked 2017] Contact Non DC - Contact person within the organisation. Roberta Bacic Email Non DC - Email address roberta.conflicttextiles@gmail.com Stories Collected Non DC - Number of stories recorded as part of the project. 10 Stories Deposited Non DC - Number of stories deposited with Accounts of the Conflict. 10 Delayed Access Non DC - Yes/No on request for delayed access. No Availability Online Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain) deposited Catalogue ID Non DC - ID for the Catalogue entry that relates to this entry 152 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Photograph (digital) Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image 1000 x 891 pixels Photographer Photographer or photography comapny Deborah Stockdale Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'The Side of the Wall' (photograph of textile) Description An account of the resource A photograph of a piece of textile art. Subject The topic of the resource Story-telling textiles related to the Northern Ireland conflict. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available CAIN, University of Ulster Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright Roberta Bacic Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource JPEG Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Michele Connor (artist), Deborah Stockdale (photographer) Availability Online Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain) deposited Catalogue ID Non DC - ID for the Catalogue entry that relates to this entry 3113 Conflict Textiles https://k8s-accounts-01.ulster.ac.uk/repo24/files/original/d85bcde98ecde65db580884f618ba497.pdf a6bc294b421c4873e3db9d00d0f67196 PDF Text Text The Side of the Wall Northern Ireland arpillera by Michele Connor, Fab Femmes, Ballymoney, 2013 The balaclava covered face, framed by a gun is the stark image portrayed in this arpillera, half of which is bordered by the Union Jack flag and half by the Tricolour flag. Michelle reflects: “With the Troubles we just saw men in balaclavas. Sometimes it was hard to know which side was which. I'm glad there’s peace now.” This arpillera was sewn by Michele in group workshops facilitated by Deborah Stockdale which were part of the associated activities following the exhibition “Stitching and Unstitching the Troubles” in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, 2012. Reflecting on the group process and on group discussions that seeded pieces such as Michelle’s, Deborah comments: “ I think Michele’s reflection typified the ambiguity of the various paramilitary operations, the roadblocks, the raids, all the terrorist activities people lived with for so very long in Northern Ireland.” Causeway Museum Service collection, Northern Ireland Courtesy of the artist Source: Accounts of the Conflict (archive) Bacic, Roberta. (individual compiler) Conflict Textiles (collection) http://accounts.ulster.ac.uk/repo/collections/show/153 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Conflict Textiles (collection) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Roberta Bacic (curator), assisted by Breege Doherty Subject The topic of the resource Textiles / quilts that illustrate personal accounts / stories of the Northern Ireland conflict. Description An account of the resource A collection of ten textiles / quilts that illustrate personal accounts / stories of the Northern Ireland conflict. This collection has been drawn from a much larger collection of textiles from Northern Ireland and a range of international countries. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available CAIN Web site Relation A related resource More examples of conflict textiles can be found on Roberta Bacic's 'associated site' within the CAIN Web site: http://cain.ulster.ac.uk/conflicttextiles/ Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Photographs and Text. Language A language of the resource English Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant The Northern Ireland conflict Date Formed Non DC - The year in which the organisation was first formed. 2008 Status Non DC - Status of organisation and date checked Active [checked 2017] Contact Non DC - Contact person within the organisation. Roberta Bacic Email Non DC - Email address roberta.conflicttextiles@gmail.com Stories Collected Non DC - Number of stories recorded as part of the project. 10 Stories Deposited Non DC - Number of stories deposited with Accounts of the Conflict. 10 Delayed Access Non DC - Yes/No on request for delayed access. No Availability Online Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain) deposited Catalogue ID Non DC - ID for the Catalogue entry that relates to this entry 152 Publication A book, article, monograph etc. Author Author of the publication Michele Connor, with Deborah Stockdale (interviewer) Publication Title Full title of publication, as it appears on item. 'The Side of the Wall' Publication Status Published, in Press, Unpublished, etc. Unpublished Number of Pages 1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'The Side of the Wall', by Michele Connor (interview document) Description An account of the resource An edited account of informal interviews with the textile artist. This story was produced to accompany the story-telling textile. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Michele Connor (artist), with Deborah Stockdale (interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Story-telling textiles related to the Northern Ireland conflict. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available CAIN, University of Ulster Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014 Relation A related resource More examples of conflict textiles can be found on Roberta Bacic's 'associated site' within the CAIN Web site: http://cain.ulster.ac.uk/conflicttextiles/ Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Text (PDF) Language A language of the resource English Availability Online Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain) deposited Conflict Textiles Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Conflict Textiles (collection) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Roberta Bacic (curator), assisted by Breege Doherty Subject The topic of the resource Textiles / quilts that illustrate personal accounts / stories of the Northern Ireland conflict. Description An account of the resource A collection of ten textiles / quilts that illustrate personal accounts / stories of the Northern Ireland conflict. This collection has been drawn from a much larger collection of textiles from Northern Ireland and a range of international countries. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available CAIN Web site Relation A related resource More examples of conflict textiles can be found on Roberta Bacic's 'associated site' within the CAIN Web site: http://cain.ulster.ac.uk/conflicttextiles/ Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Photographs and Text. Language A language of the resource English Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant The Northern Ireland conflict Date Formed Non DC - The year in which the organisation was first formed. 2008 Status Non DC - Status of organisation and date checked Active [checked 2017] Contact Non DC - Contact person within the organisation. Roberta Bacic Email Non DC - Email address roberta.conflicttextiles@gmail.com Stories Collected Non DC - Number of stories recorded as part of the project. 10 Stories Deposited Non DC - Number of stories deposited with Accounts of the Conflict. 10 Delayed Access Non DC - Yes/No on request for delayed access. No Availability Online Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain) deposited Catalogue ID Non DC - ID for the Catalogue entry that relates to this entry 152 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Story Title The title, if any, of the story or account. 'Northern Ireland Peace Quilt' Story Available Y/N Yes Story Format Main format of the story (video; audio; etc.). Still image and accompanying story. Interviewee Surname Campbell Interviewee Forename(s) Pat Interviewee Gender Female Birth Country Country of birth if mentioned (or make assessment based on interview). Northern Ireland Published Format Video; Audio; Document; Image. Photograph Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Textile Art Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Northern Ireland Peace Quilt', by Women Together (story details) Description An account of the resource One of the stories told through the medium of textile art. This item is part of the Conflict Textiles collection that was compiled by Roberta Bacic. The textile was created in 1994 by the group 'Women Together'. The textile piece is complemented by information obtained from informal interviews (2009-2013) of Pat Campbell, Life Vice-President of Women Together. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Women Together (artists), (story compiled by Roberta Bacic) Subject The topic of the resource Story-telling textiles related to the Northern Ireland conflict. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available CAIN, University of Ulster Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014 Relation A related resource More examples of conflict textiles can be found on Roberta Bacic's 'associated site' within the CAIN Web site: http://cain.ulster.ac.uk/conflicttextiles/ Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Photograph (JPEG), and text (PDF) Language A language of the resource English Availability Online Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain) deposited CAIN Links Non DC - Links to related information on CAIN CAIN: Organisation Abstract: <a class="lightwindow page-options" title="Additional related information on the CAIN Web site" href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/othelem/organ/worgan.htm#wtfp" target="_blank">Women Together</a> CAIN: Associated Site: <a class="lightwindow page-options" title="Additional related information on the CAIN Web site" href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/conflicttextiles/" target="_blank">Conflict Textiles</a> CAIN: Associated Site: <a class="lightwindow page-options" title="Additional related information on the CAIN Web site" href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/conflicttextiles/search-quilts/fulltextiles/?id=4" target="_blank">Textile details</a> Collection Permission Form Non DC - Collection permission form signed and returned. Yes Conflict Textiles https://k8s-accounts-01.ulster.ac.uk/repo24/files/original/76a91dd6cf8c5c3bbbd003a2015c7b2f.jpg 9cd5d7d2fa08037595d13b08d893906a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Conflict Textiles (collection) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Roberta Bacic (curator), assisted by Breege Doherty Subject The topic of the resource Textiles / quilts that illustrate personal accounts / stories of the Northern Ireland conflict. Description An account of the resource A collection of ten textiles / quilts that illustrate personal accounts / stories of the Northern Ireland conflict. This collection has been drawn from a much larger collection of textiles from Northern Ireland and a range of international countries. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available CAIN Web site Relation A related resource More examples of conflict textiles can be found on Roberta Bacic's 'associated site' within the CAIN Web site: http://cain.ulster.ac.uk/conflicttextiles/ Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Photographs and Text. Language A language of the resource English Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant The Northern Ireland conflict Date Formed Non DC - The year in which the organisation was first formed. 2008 Status Non DC - Status of organisation and date checked Active [checked 2017] Contact Non DC - Contact person within the organisation. Roberta Bacic Email Non DC - Email address roberta.conflicttextiles@gmail.com Stories Collected Non DC - Number of stories recorded as part of the project. 10 Stories Deposited Non DC - Number of stories deposited with Accounts of the Conflict. 10 Delayed Access Non DC - Yes/No on request for delayed access. No Availability Online Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain) deposited Catalogue ID Non DC - ID for the Catalogue entry that relates to this entry 152 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Photograph (digital) Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image 1000 x 666 pixels Photographer Photographer or photography comapny Colin Peck Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Northern Ireland Peace Quilt' (photograph of textile) Description An account of the resource A photograph of a piece of textile art. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Women Together (artists), Colin Peck (photographer) Subject The topic of the resource Story-telling textiles related to the Northern Ireland conflict. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available CAIN, University of Ulster Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright Roberta Bacic Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource JPEG Availability Online Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain) deposited Catalogue ID Non DC - ID for the Catalogue entry that relates to this entry 3118 Conflict Textiles https://k8s-accounts-01.ulster.ac.uk/repo24/files/original/cac09a79ad3ad2c14ed53af8a1e1b79b.pdf 3999e976be149fb2971da97bc5efaaf5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Conflict Textiles (collection) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Roberta Bacic (curator), assisted by Breege Doherty Subject The topic of the resource Textiles / quilts that illustrate personal accounts / stories of the Northern Ireland conflict. Description An account of the resource A collection of ten textiles / quilts that illustrate personal accounts / stories of the Northern Ireland conflict. This collection has been drawn from a much larger collection of textiles from Northern Ireland and a range of international countries. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available CAIN Web site Relation A related resource More examples of conflict textiles can be found on Roberta Bacic's 'associated site' within the CAIN Web site: http://cain.ulster.ac.uk/conflicttextiles/ Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Photographs and Text. Language A language of the resource English Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant The Northern Ireland conflict Date Formed Non DC - The year in which the organisation was first formed. 2008 Status Non DC - Status of organisation and date checked Active [checked 2017] Contact Non DC - Contact person within the organisation. Roberta Bacic Email Non DC - Email address roberta.conflicttextiles@gmail.com Stories Collected Non DC - Number of stories recorded as part of the project. 10 Stories Deposited Non DC - Number of stories deposited with Accounts of the Conflict. 10 Delayed Access Non DC - Yes/No on request for delayed access. No Availability Online Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain) deposited Catalogue ID Non DC - ID for the Catalogue entry that relates to this entry 152 Publication A book, article, monograph etc. Author Author of the publication Pat Campbell, with Roberta Bacic (curator) Publication Title Full title of publication, as it appears on item. 'Peace Quilt' Publication Status Published, in Press, Unpublished, etc. Unpublished Number of Pages 1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Northern Ireland Peace Quilt' (interview document) Description An account of the resource An edited account of interviews with the textile artist. This story was produced to accompany the story-telling textile. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Women Together (artists), with Roberta Bacic (curator) Subject The topic of the resource Story-telling textiles related to the Northern Ireland conflict. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available CAIN, University of Ulster Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014 Relation A related resource More examples of conflict textiles can be found on Roberta Bacic's 'associated site' within the CAIN Web site: http://cain.ulster.ac.uk/conflicttextiles/ Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Text (PDF) Language A language of the resource English Availability Online Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain) deposited Conflict Textiles https://k8s-accounts-01.ulster.ac.uk/repo24/files/original/dc30b4053b4d52475e500ab588847ad3.mp3 42ddd4edb91855ad309d74850a810248 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Green and Blue Across the Thin Line (collection) [NC] Description An account of the resource A collection of 39 stories that were compiled as part of a project with the aim: "To develop a storytelling project reflecting the cooperation and interaction between former members of Royal Ulster Constabulary and former members of An Garda Síochána along the border from the establishment of the two Police Forces to 2001." (From the Green and Blue website.) Extracts from the 39 recorded interviews were published in book format in 2014. The associated Green and Blue website contains full transcripts for 24 of the interviews. The website also contains 18 interview audio files (as of 22 January 2016). URL Non DC - URL of Organisation / Project http://www.green-and-blue.org/ Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Diversity Challenges Board Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014 Stories Collected Non DC - Number of stories recorded as part of the project. 39 Stories Deposited Non DC - Number of stories deposited with Accounts of the Conflict. 18 Collection Permission Form Non DC - Collection permission form signed and returned. Yes (signed: 21 March 2015) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Published book; and Web site Language A language of the resource English Delayed Access Non DC - Yes/No on request for delayed access. No Availability Online Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain) deposited Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Police Services; Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland; 1920s to 2001 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Transcription also available Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Digital Audio File: MPEG-2 Audio Layer III (MP3) Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 25 minutes 59 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 192 kbps Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Untitled Story, by Andy Galloway (story audio) Description An account of the resource Audio recording of interview with Andy Galloway which was recorded as part of the Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project Subject The topic of the resource The experiences of former police officers from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC; Northern Ireland) and the Garda Síochána (GS; Republic of Ireland), especially in relation to the border between the two jurisdictions. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Diversity Challenges Board Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014 Relation A related resource See also the Green and Blue website: http://www.green-and-blue.org/ Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio (MP3) Language A language of the resource English Availability Online Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain) deposited Catalogue ID Non DC - ID for the Catalogue entry that relates to this entry 2857 Diversity Challenges Green and Blue https://k8s-accounts-01.ulster.ac.uk/repo24/files/original/ec7932fa19c0c1af22449395d4af6d24.pdf f39195f679fa9da5afccaf56ce0e6db0 PDF Text Text dc Diversity Challenges ‘A project supported by PEACE III Programme managed for the Special EU Programmes Body by the Community Relations Council/Pobal Consortium’. Green & Blue Project Andy Galloway Interview 14/10/13 I joined the Royal Ulster Constabulary in August 1981, and my first station was Rosslea, in Fermanagh, in south east Fermanagh. Prior to being allocated that station I didn’t even know where Rosslea was, I’m a county Antrim man, so I knew very little of the geography of Fermanagh at that time. I arrived out to this place in the south east corner of Fermanagh and found myself in a station that was literally a mile and a half from the border with county Monaghan, and I found myself very quickly listening to Garda on a daily basis, because in those days in our police stations and in our police cars we had a thing called the x-ray radio set. The x-ray radios were aerial to aerial radios and they had very short range. They were ideal for the RUC and the Garda to communicate with each other, the radios were not recorded, so they were quite often used for ordering fish and chips or cigarettes or all sorts of other things. But it allowed us to have conversations with our colleagues directly across the border and primarily they were used for vehicle checks, because the Garda would put their vehicles across to us, and we would put ours across to them, so we could check vehicles on our own systems. And that was my first introduction really with interaction with An Garda Síochána. At that stage I never met them, but most days I heard them talking, and occasionally we would talk to them via radio, or alternatively in every police station we had a direct line to a corresponding Garda station. In Rosslea, our corresponding Garda station was Scotstown. Incidentally it was many, many, many years later before I ever knew where Scotstown was, before I actually crossed the border and found it, and found that it was definitely a village, perhaps even smaller than Rosslea. But every station along the border would have a direct line to their corresponding Garda station, so communications was good, but we rarely met. The xray radios were short range, and the difficulty would have been how far away the person you were talking to was. Ours worked quite well, and they worked quite well because we were really working in a very compact area. Even though we never met, and even though we were on the other side of a land boundary, we were constantly almost driving parallel to each other around the border, and so I think for us, we found the x-ray sets worked incredibly well. Now if we had wanted in Rosslea to talk to Enniskillen on the x-ray set, it wouldn’t have worked, and perhaps if the cars in Lisnaskea had been up on high ground we might have been able to reach them, but certainly for the vehicles just across the border, just within a five mile radius it worked really really well. As a consequence we stopped using the official radio net, most of the time the x-ray set was much more informal. It was typical for somebody, the station duty officer, it was typical for him to realise that he �dc Diversity Challenges ‘A project supported by PEACE III Programme managed for the Special EU Programmes Body by the Community Relations Council/Pobal Consortium’. was running out of something like milk or cigarettes, and to call a car and say, ‘could you bring me in two pints?’ or something like that, and it wasn’t beer, he was talking about milk! That was literally how that happened. So the x-ray set was quite useful in that regard. Now when I say order fish and chips, in Rosslea we never got an order for fish and chips, because it so happened that had there been a fish and chip shop at the time, which there wasn’t, it was unlikely that they would have served us. Because the circumstances of 1981, you have to realise that this is immediately following the period of the hunger strikes, and Bobby Sands had been the MP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone when he died on hunger strike. Rosslea was an area where he had a significant amount of support. So you have to remember that all of the shops in Rosslea bar one refused to serve the police. So there only was one shop in the village where we could shop, it so happened. The first time I met a member of the Garda was just about six, seven months after arriving in Rosslea. The next police station along the border from us was Newtownbutler. Newtownbutler was perhaps seven, eight miles away and all of the border stations had a system where we paired up with each other. That meant that if we had to cover for each other we were able to do so. For example on this particular day in question, the night before Newtownbutler had had a function for somebody who was leaving the police station. So they went out the night before and we covered the late turn for them, and we also agreed to take any calls that they had on the following morning, and they would then start later on, perhaps around lunchtime. They would provide their own station duty officer, but we would take their calls, and generally speaking you didn’t get any calls. Crime was very very low, and unless somebody had a road traffic accident it was unlikely that you were going to get called out! However on one particular morning we did get a call from Newtownbutler, and the call was that a local farmer reported having dead sheep in his land. It was a case of sheep worrying by what he described as a stray dog, and the call was literally right on the border. It was literally in the land which goes right up to the dotted line at Clones, not on the main road from Newtownbutler to Clones but on the back road, and we were asked would we attend. This was a little bit unusual for us in Rosslea because there was a significant difference between Newtownbutler and Rosslea at that time. In Rosslea we didn’t drive anywhere in daylight, it was much much much too dangerous. Just two years before I arrived two police officers had died in a fatal explosion just outside the village, so we didn’t drive anywhere in daylight. In Newtownbutler, oddly enough which was only five miles away, they were still patrolling night and day in vehicles, so we did have to get across to Newtownbutler, but we weren’t able to drive in marked or in an obvious police vehicle. We had a car that we kept for the purpose, it could have been an Audi, it could have been a Renault, it might even have been a Lada for those who �dc Diversity Challenges ‘A project supported by PEACE III Programme managed for the Special EU Programmes Body by the Community Relations Council/Pobal Consortium’. might remember those awful cars! I can’t remember what it was, but myself and a colleague put on civilian jackets over the top of our uniform, lifted our rifles, got all of our kit together, got into the car, and made our way across to Newtownbutler by the back roads. At no stage once we got out of the village did we really stick to the main roads because our big concern of course was that this might have been an invitation for an attack on us, although the station duty officer in Newtownbutler knew the farmer concerned and he was very confident that it was a genuine call. The other thing the station officer in Newtownbutler did for us was he contacted the Garda in Clones. He lifted the direct line to Clones and said, ‘guys we have sheep worrying at such-and-such a place, is there any possibility you could give us a little bit of support?’ This was normal practice and we anticipated that on arrival in the vicinity we would find a Garda vehicle as well. Off we drove, we had a map in our hand, and a set of directions from Newtownbutler as to how to get to where we were going because neither of us really knew, and eventually, yes we found ourselves at the scene and found a quite annoyed farmer. I think perhaps it was maybe two or three dead lambs in a field, and quite a sorry situation because the rest of his flock of course was also quite distressed. So we did what we do, we interviewed him, we took a statement, it didn’t take all of that long, we looked around, we sympathised with him, and having left, having got all the details that we required, we decided we would go across to the bridge. The bridge over the river was literally the border at this point, and there was a member of the Garda. He was leaning up against the bonnet of his car watching us with quite a bemused smile on his face. So we took a walk across and introduced ourselves, being very careful of course to meet in the centre of the bridge, that we wouldn’t contravene international sovereignty in any way! Considering that myself and my colleague were both in uniform and carrying rifles and had hand guns, we thought my goodness if we step across the line, what’ll happen? So we met, we shook hands, we had a conversation, as police officers across the world do when they get together. We talked about the job, we talked about all sorts of things as would happen, and we talked about the sheep worrying. We said, ‘well it’s a stray dog, and we think the dog has came from your side of the border’, and the Garda smiled at us, and said, “oh it does”. He said “don’t worry, I know all about the dog, I know where it’s from”. We said, “but how do you know where the dog’s from?” “Well”, he says “I just live up the road”. For me this was amazing because here was myself and a colleague, and we couldn’t even think about living anywhere close to the border. We had went through all of these security precautions just to come to answer a sheep worrying call, we were armed to the teeth and we were anticipating at any moment that gunshots were going to break out and break the morning silence, and here was a Garda... not armed, not accompanied by anybody, not concerned about anything in the whole world, and he lived literally just, you know almost within spitting distance of the �dc Diversity Challenges ‘A project supported by PEACE III Programme managed for the Special EU Programmes Body by the Community Relations Council/Pobal Consortium’. border. And that was my first encounter with a member of An Garda Síochána. We never heard what happened to the dog, as happens. One of two things will have happened with the dog, the dog will have been sorted out properly, the Garda will have went to the owner and the dog will have been put down. Or the Garda will have went to the owner and the dog will have been chained up. Either way it dealt with the sheep worrying, and we were able to close the file, I suppose. It is unlikely that, I’m guessing I suppose in those days he would have went through his own farm insurance, or something like that. In the 1980s things changed dramatically, and that little window of opportunity where you were able to drive about, by 1983 - 1984 that was beginning to change. by 1985 I think all of the border stations all became no-drive areas, and police officers went in for so many days at a time. They were flown in and flown out, and that did have an impact, but the communications, certainly the radio communications and telephone communications continued. I know that other colleagues who, I had left the border at that stage, but I know that other colleagues did keep in regular contact with their corresponding numbers... I suppose the next interesting occasion that I had to meet the Garda, whilst still in the RUC, was many years later. I remember in 1995, by that stage I was stationed in Enniskillen, and this was in the period post-ceasefire, there was a fair amount of relaxation and we were starting to experiment and do things that we hadn’t done before. I was going in one night for night duty. We started night duty at a quarter to twelve. I was driving into Enniskillen down the Dublin Road, and I came across this big red road sign, sitting at the side of the road, and it said ‘Stop. Garda Checkpoint’. And I thought, ‘hmm that looks like it’s not in the right place’, which of course it wasn’t. It was on the Lisbellaw side of Enniskillen, it was most definitely nowhere near the jurisdiction it should have been in. It was quite obvious that somebody had lifted it on the southern side of the border for a bit of a prank and brought it with them and set it up nicely on the side of the road. I went on into work, we paraded for duty, we were detailed our car crews, and I was in the second car crew that night, driving it with a probationer. I mentioned to my sergeant what I had found on the road coming in, and I said, ‘”if you’re happy enough I’m going to go out and lift it, throw it in the boot and take it out to Blacklion”. There was a method in my madness, because I knew that most of the time you were guaranteed to have a Garda standing on the little mini roundabout at Blacklion. And if he wasn’t standing there, maybe in his guardroom. And I was fairly convinced that there was �dc Diversity Challenges ‘A project supported by PEACE III Programme managed for the Special EU Programmes Body by the Community Relations Council/Pobal Consortium’. a good opportunity here for a cup of tea. But it was also a Friday night, and what I hadn’t anticipated was, having lifted the road sign, put it into the boot of the car, and drove all the way out to Belcoo, and then slipped across into Blacklion, and we were in an armoured car (it was probably an armoured Ford Sierra) it wasn’t marked in any way, but it was for everybody who seen them on a daily basis obviously a police car. But I had sort of hoped, ‘yeah, we’ll drive across, park at the front of the station, and nobody will notice’. What I hadn’t anticipated was there was a crowd of people standing outside the pub opposite, so of course as soon as we got out of the vehicle, and we were in uniform, the roars and the shouts and the jeers started. So we had to very quickly hand over the road sign, very quickly tell him the story of where we got it, and sadly the cup of tea wasn’t forthcoming. We had to very quickly disappear back towards Belcoo and get back into Northern Ireland jurisdiction again. Otherwise I think our presence would have brought about an international incident that would have made the news! So we decided discretion is a better part of valour, we thanked him and off we went. In 1998 we had the Belfast Agreement, the Good Friday Agreement, which brought about the Patton Report into policing, which I think was something like a hundred and eighty seven recommendations, or something like that, or a hundred and ninety one. There was a lot of them anyway! One of those particular recommendations was that there should be exchange visits between PSNI and An Garda Síochána... and of course, it was one of those recommendations that nobody noticed. In 2006 an email was circulated to all officers in PSNI to find out if anybody wished to take part in this particular scheme. There was three areas of interest. One was drugs, I wasn’t involved in Drugs Branch, so that wasn’t going to happen. One was traffic policing, and I wasn’t in Traffic Branch, so that wasn’t going to happen. And the third was IT and it just so happened that I was one of those people that everybody came to with their IT problems. So I thought, ‘hmm, I could probably do that’. So I applied and yeah, I made a little bit of history, because I became the first candidate on IT, and in January 2007 we made history, three of us, three constables. We were the first constables to do a joint visit to An Garda Síochána from the Police Service of Northern Ireland. In reality we were the first three constables from the north to serve in Dublin since pre-partition, which wasn’t I suppose as much of a deal to us at the time until we actually reflected on what we were doing. So as a consequence I had the privilege of living in Dublin for two whole months. Our accommodation was paid for by our home service. We found a very nice hotel in Fleet Street, in Temple Bar and the three of us lived there quite happily for nine whole weeks! I have to say that I spent nine weeks in Phoenix Park, I worked in their IT Branch, which is actually quite big. I found myself in an office with a �dc Diversity Challenges ‘A project supported by PEACE III Programme managed for the Special EU Programmes Body by the Community Relations Council/Pobal Consortium’. sergeant and two Garda, all of whom were female, and their job was very much around publications. For that nine weeks I found myself proof-reading reports. I actually proof-read the previous year’s Garda Commissioner’s Report, and we found ourselves working on projects like that. For me it was a godsend, I learned a lot, I got involved in things like procurement, which in the PSNI was done up in Police Headquarters, and people like me would never have got an opportunity to be involved in it. In Garda Headquarters they assumed that I would know about these things, and I didn’t! But I learned, and that allowed me to make friends that I have maintained ever since. There’s people in the Garda who I have maintained contact with, we email, we’re in contact occasionally. Most recently whenever I was unfortunate enough to be caught speeding by An Garda Síochána coming out of Dublin Airport I had occasion to contact one of those friends to find out, “do I need to send my driving licence to Dublin, or not?” We didn’t know the Garda, we could talk to them, we might even be aware of their names. You generally might have been aware of the name of the station sergeant, we would have known who the station sergeant was in Scotstown, we would have known his name, but we would have known nothing about him. Our attitude towards them were: ‘they’re police officers like we are’... I know that there has been some political capital made about whether or not we trusted them or not. Trust never came into it. In fact the reality was we did trust them, because for example in my account, where we had to go and investigate a sheep worrying... we could control the environment on the northern side to the best of our ability, but whatever would happen across the border was out of our control. So we had to trust the Garda to provide us with the cover, and if the Garda had said to us, “guys don’t be going to that call”, we wouldn’t have went to it. So as I say there is some political capital has been made, and there’s been some high profile cases that have hit the news in recent years, and there’s an ongoing commission... But nonetheless we did have trust for those folks, and we seen them as colleagues. Interestingly, it brings to memory another connection back to Rosslea that I experienced in 2006. In 2006 I was involved in a Peace II project, as a police officer, delivering equality and diversity training to PSNI and An Garda Síochána. I was a trainer on the scheme, on each particular course we had three trainers, one Garda, one PSNI officer and one independent, and I delivered all the training that I was involved in, in hotels across the border. I did have the option of doing them in PSNI stations, but I knew that the class of scones in a hotel were much better than in the police stations! So there I was in Sligo. I very well recall that particular first session, where I was taking the first session and we got everybody to introduce themselves and to tell us where they were from, and what stations they had been in. I came across this gentleman who �dc Diversity Challenges ‘A project supported by PEACE III Programme managed for the Special EU Programmes Body by the Community Relations Council/Pobal Consortium’. looked considerably older than me, but it transpired that he joined An Garda Síochána in 1981, the same year I joined the RUC. His first station was Clones and mine was in Rosslea, and even though Scotstown was our corresponding Garda station, Clones was literally almost an identical distance, it was as the crow flies perhaps less than five miles away. Now this Garda obviously was in Clones when I was in Rosslea. We would’ve been able to hear each other talking on our x-ray radio sets. We perhaps may even have talked to each other on the radio. We didn’t know each other, we didn’t meet for twenty five years, and twenty five years later I thought it was quite profound, quite touching, almost emotional that here was somebody that I worked alongside in 1981. We met and shook hands for the first time twenty five years later. By that time he was a sergeant in the Traffic Corps in Carrick-on-Shannon, and I was retiring, I was due to retire as a constable, so his career path obviously went a little bit better than mine, but it was interesting that twenty five years went by before we actually met. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Green and Blue Across the Thin Line (collection) [NC] Description An account of the resource A collection of 39 stories that were compiled as part of a project with the aim: "To develop a storytelling project reflecting the cooperation and interaction between former members of Royal Ulster Constabulary and former members of An Garda Síochána along the border from the establishment of the two Police Forces to 2001." (From the Green and Blue website.) Extracts from the 39 recorded interviews were published in book format in 2014. The associated Green and Blue website contains full transcripts for 24 of the interviews. The website also contains 18 interview audio files (as of 22 January 2016). URL Non DC - URL of Organisation / Project http://www.green-and-blue.org/ Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Diversity Challenges Board Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014 Stories Collected Non DC - Number of stories recorded as part of the project. 39 Stories Deposited Non DC - Number of stories deposited with Accounts of the Conflict. 18 Collection Permission Form Non DC - Collection permission form signed and returned. Yes (signed: 21 March 2015) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Published book; and Web site Language A language of the resource English Delayed Access Non DC - Yes/No on request for delayed access. No Availability Online Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain) deposited Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Police Services; Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland; 1920s to 2001 Publication A book, article, monograph etc. Author Author of the publication Andy Galloway Date Type Publication, Submission, Completion date etc. Completion date 2014 Publication Title Full title of publication, as it appears on item. Transcript of audio interview. Publication Status Published, in Press, Unpublished, etc. Published on-line Number of Pages 7 Publisher Location Place of publication: city / town Website Publisher Diversity Challenges Board Publication Type Report, Book, Manual etc. Transcript Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Untitled Story, by Andy Galloway (story transcript) Description An account of the resource Transcript (PDF) of the audio recording of interview with Andy Galloway which was recorded as part of the Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF version of transcript Language A language of the resource English Availability Online Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain) deposited Catalogue ID Non DC - ID for the Catalogue entry that relates to this entry 2857 Diversity Challenges Green and Blue https://k8s-accounts-01.ulster.ac.uk/repo24/files/original/97133bc4800b2f99edb0fb77dc93405a.mp3 40d737536157a3d4137bdb5fa61d2769 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Green and Blue Across the Thin Line (collection) [NC] Description An account of the resource A collection of 39 stories that were compiled as part of a project with the aim: "To develop a storytelling project reflecting the cooperation and interaction between former members of Royal Ulster Constabulary and former members of An Garda Síochána along the border from the establishment of the two Police Forces to 2001." (From the Green and Blue website.) Extracts from the 39 recorded interviews were published in book format in 2014. The associated Green and Blue website contains full transcripts for 24 of the interviews. The website also contains 18 interview audio files (as of 22 January 2016). URL Non DC - URL of Organisation / Project http://www.green-and-blue.org/ Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Diversity Challenges Board Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014 Stories Collected Non DC - Number of stories recorded as part of the project. 39 Stories Deposited Non DC - Number of stories deposited with Accounts of the Conflict. 18 Collection Permission Form Non DC - Collection permission form signed and returned. Yes (signed: 21 March 2015) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Published book; and Web site Language A language of the resource English Delayed Access Non DC - Yes/No on request for delayed access. No Availability Online Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain) deposited Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Police Services; Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland; 1920s to 2001 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Transcription also available Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Digital Audio File: MPEG-2 Audio Layer III (MP3) Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 39 minutes 12 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 192 kbps Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Untitled Story, by Con McCarthy (story audio) Description An account of the resource Audio recording of interview with Con McCarthy which was recorded as part of the Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project Subject The topic of the resource The experiences of former police officers from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC; Northern Ireland) and the Garda Síochána (GS; Republic of Ireland), especially in relation to the border between the two jurisdictions. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Diversity Challenges Board Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014 Relation A related resource See also the Green and Blue website: http://www.green-and-blue.org/ Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio (MP3) Language A language of the resource English Availability Online Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain) deposited Catalogue ID Non DC - ID for the Catalogue entry that relates to this entry 2868 Diversity Challenges Green and Blue https://k8s-accounts-01.ulster.ac.uk/repo24/files/original/02138e22f5c9be7766f6bc77955281c2.pdf df6ca934e8095a60178019d94c938ca3 PDF Text Text Green & Blue Project Con McCarthy Interview I am seventy two. I’m from Listowel, County Kerry, yeah. I was promoted from Kanturk in ’77, and I went to the border on the end of November of that year, and I suppose if you want to get my own personal feelings on it, I remember I thought I calculated the journey, and I was out by about twenty five to thirty miles, it was longer than I thought, and I felt that, when I was in Sligo I felt that, if I thought it was as far then, I’d nearly have turned home. However I continued on, and I went to my base at Lifford, just across from Strabane... and in peacetime there would be one sergeant I suppose, and four guards would be the max., which is there now, in our time there was five sergeants and thirty five guards. Accommodation was difficult to come by... communications at that time were not great. Well even between stations, and across the border I suppose there was a kind of a scramble telephone line in operation all right, but it was rarely used. While the people I felt were quite nice and Lifford and... Donegal, the work was... tough, a lot of checkpoints and I took up duty and the following day after arriving with, newly promoted myself, and a unit of seven guards, the oldest twenty two, and the youngest nineteen just, so basically you were on your own, you had to kind of find your way. I was thirty one, thirty two, that was it, you had to find your way, you had to try and get understand the system, ‘twas, I had done very little of three relief work prior to that, I was always in country stations, I thought it was extremely difficult for the younger members, younger guards. They were subjected to an awful lot of continuous checkpoint, the main body of their work was ninety per cent of it was... six a.m. to two p.m. checkpoint, two p.m. to ten p.m. and ten to six, and you got a week of nearly of either, and they learned very very little, I thought about the normal policing of an area, this was different style due to the... the conflict, and while they were alert and... did great work, I felt it was extremely difficult for them to adjust, and they got very little grounding then in normal or natural policing, due to the fact that timing constraints didn’t allow it. However I think I kept my unit together, they were, I will say the products of very good homes anyway, these young fellas, but they were thrown in I felt at the deep end, conditions were difficult and weather was fairly cold. I would say that the station was, would only accommodate shall we say at the best of times a sergeant and four or five guards, and we had to make do with very cramped conditions, and while we were there it was being renovated, and which made it even more difficult for a period of nearly six months, and ‘twas all across a winter... and it was very hard, when fellas got wet on duty. If you didn’t have good digs, or accommodation, it was fairly rough the conditions, and fairly demanding now, to say the least of it, and these young fellas like found it very hard to... shall we socialise, because... you basically didn’t know who was who and what was what, �and then the harsh hours, like the switching from one relief to another, didn’t give you much time, however I, we kind of got them together. I remember, myself and another sergeant that was in the same transfer up, there was four of us transferred together, because we were the first... sergeants that were transferred permanently to the border, we were permanent, we were transferred as such permanently, and to cut down costs, basically because there was no temporary transfer, it was these, and so we went up and our period of time up there was unknown to us, whether or whether, how long it would be, but so we settled in the best we could, and we were all roughly the same age, and we all had young families left back down at home, Oh my wife and family stayed in Kanturk, I had a new house at the time, that time, and Niall was only a matter of weeks old, and Kay wasn’t six... and I left and I had to buy a car, some kind of a banger of a car for Maire, and... we couldn’t take, any of us didn’t take our family to the border. I suppose one , ‘twouldn’t be the safest thing to do, and secondly we wouldn’t, we couldn’t get accommodation, we found it extremely difficult ourselves to get accommodation, and that’s the way, I mean next door to us was Castlefin, which in peacetime maybe there might be only one guard and a sergeant there, now maybe, and the same amount of men but there they were also operating a three relief system, and... ‘twas difficult, shall we say, in the extreme, and the weather then, I suppose I had all my service down south, and you mightn’t think it, but when you’re up there it is on a permanent basis, I would say winter and summer, to be three to four degrees colder, it was one of the first things I noticed, it was and, however we just had to bow to doing what we were supposed to do, and there was a lot of supervision, and I suppose, if you... I suppose put the wrong foot forward or did something you could spark off an international kind of a political incident, unknown to yourself, you’d want to be fairly long-headed now, and as I say you want to cut, measure twenty times before you cut once. I was very conscious of that, and... then I suppose the most difficult policing of a country is for any policeman I think is political crime... ordinary criminality is quite different from subversive activity, and it’s amazing who would be supporting the subversion and the political views and ideas come to the fore, and you don’t know how to, it’s difficult to deal with it, and you may not think that everyone that’s not interfering with you might be in your corner, shall we say, they may have politically different views and viewed all policemen as possibly a little bit suppressive, maybe I don’t know, that’s the impression, so you had to be extremely cautious now, and then there was a number of atrocities that... my... my view on it was some major atrocities that I would say in any normal situation a lot of atrocities that never hit the headlines, never made the news. Hit the public arena like, happened above in our area, there was some... ferocious arsons and assaults and shootings and it’s only the real major incidents that made in on to the media, yeah I mean behind the scenes I mean there was a lot more going on than you would think, I remember quite well that... very shortly before I went up I think, a young fella from Donegal, he had joined the RUC and he was a Catholic... he, on one of his visits home incidentally he was shot and, shot dead and with his girlfriend one night, and... it’s very difficult to get a... society can close very much in this, well there’s an element �of fear in everyone, they may... good people might like to... to get involved, but the fear factor always I think came to the fore, and that’s why it was difficult to get knowledge and difficult... on incidents and difficult enough to solve things and I suppose, we were on the side of southern side, and I suppose the people around Donegal along the border there, Donegal... really would be very au fait with what was happening really inside in the north, and the causes of it, much more than the people further south like here in Cork now, in Kerry, but... they held their own views on it, and I suppose they would be silently supporting... those and... however we carried on, and whether we, with the Army I suppose, we kept, The Irish Army, now we kept a lid on it, I suppose as good as we possibly could on our side, and an even hand as much as even-handed ways, as the circumstances would, would allow, shall we say. There was one evening I feel that there was an RUC man, and I think he came across, to Killygordon, if I think, remember, across to the south, he was a farmer’s son and he came across in a tractor and trailer for a load of artificial manure to a creamery there, and on his way back he was shot, killed, and incidentally the... the car that was involved burst through a checkpoint, and subsequently was found in our area, and it... the whole thing now was fairly difficult for three or four days to say the least of it, not going into it in any further detail. Oh indeed there was, great tension, and there was demands on either side and these things can bring political questions to the fore very much, and the Guards must be ever conscious of that, and that’s the way, they’re both I suppose interlinked, but I spent, what fourteen months there, ‘twas difficult to get home it was... a seven hour non-stop journey, two hundred and sixty five miles Very bad roads then, at that time, in ’77, ’78 and I used to come home possibly twice a month in one month, and three times another, and that would be after finishing early at two p.m. and I’d be up since five and I’d finish at two and drive, have a bit of grub and a shower, and drive continuously until I arrive home, and the kids were very small and they would be all excited and they would, I’d be exhausted and they were excited, and you had two forces pulling, and not possibly in the right, in the same direction, but again... we survived it. Maire got Myra to visit, that was one of the guards, the sergeants from Dublin, and his wife was in the last... days nearly of pregnancy and eventually, it was I actually got the house, and I gave it to him... because he was in the worse situation than I was, and he came, he brought her up, they had three other young kids, and she had the baby and everything was fine, and ‘twas a place of anchor for Myra and my kids when they came up afterwards and they used to have a great time together, you know, they visited maybe four or five times, well four times anyway I suppose while we were there, shall we say... the effects of... that period of policing in myself, I... I, it didn’t change me, I don’t think as a person, it changed me... on my outlook on the values real and substantial values of life, as to what all this was about. Well... I suppose it’s back to the human being, and the human nature in all of us, and I suppose it’s... the power of one society over another, or man’s inhumanity to �man, or what way would I put it, but I suppose that’s the basis of the whole thing, if... truthfully, and I’ve lived through lessons which I don’t want to go into, but if our country wasn’t occupied we wouldn’t have, I don’t think we’d have that problem, full stop. That’s what it was about, and while the majority of the people wanted to deal with it by peaceful means, there was an element that thought otherwise was the best approach, and that caused extreme difficulty for... all police forces involved, for both armies involved, and for many many families and it created some great sad occasions for many, I, that way I, it made me think more deeply about society in general, not that I felt that I endured the hardships of the whole thing well enough, I don’t think I was personally scarred... by it, but it made me think as to why we can’t, if there was a little bit of peace and not... we were all a little bit more accommodating in sharing with one another, then these things mightn’t happen, but I suppose... society is such, what effects did it have on my family? I think... the third, I have three girls and a boy, he’s the youngest [pause] the third girl was just about two, two and a half and I think my coming and going affected her more than anybody else. She was at an age just, she couldn’t understand why I’d come home tonight, late and I’d be there for two, forty eight hours, and I’d put ‘em to bed, then we’ll say at half six, seven o’clock, and when she’ll wake next morning, I was gone. She was all the time, why was this... it took her a while, and incidentally she’s the only one that’s joined the Guards, she’s a guard now herself! Isn’t that strange? It is, and she’s quite happy in it, and grew to be big strong girl, bless her, she’s five foot ten, but... the son [pause] we, when we came from the border, he was too young, but he, during my year and a half there and he was couple of months before I went, it was, but anyway by the time we were moving house, after selling our house in Kanturk and moving down here, he was at that stage he was just two then, coming up to two, and he was talking, quite well, and the day we left actually, having sold our house, and had moved out all our stuff, and just coming down to anchor here, I remember well, he had no stammer or anything, he was talking perfectly, and on the way down, we were all quite sad leaving it, and to be honest, and he was in the back of the car, and he started repeating, he started calling Maire ‘mam-mam-mam’, and we came down here... it took him ages, a good, when I say ages now, maybe six months to settle, he was, as far as he was concerned, he was just only living in Skibbereen, but his home was in Kanturk, and during that period, up to... he developed, we feel as a result of it, the shock, a stammer we were told subsequent, we took him to every specialist, speech therapist and specialist that we found out about, and eventually we were told he’d be eleven... before he would overcome it, and between ten and eleven... and at eleven years of age, I, it was a remarkable thing... he was cleared, that stopped. That is the truth, if you go in and ask Maire, it’s the very same thing, and the only thing we did was, we were told to speak to him at times, slowly, and when he’d get excited, ask him to slow down, and that, that was the therapy, there was nothing more complicated than that, but it’s yielded great results anyway, as far as we were concerned, so we got back, and he’s now a grown man, he’s married and he’s fine, but that little thing, it took its toll, I suppose, and on the family, I, going back again, again he was going to go in the Guards, he’s in engineering now, but he was going to go in the Guards one time, and, but he did the interview and got it and all, but he didn’t travel, and maybe, I wouldn’t have minded him, you know, I wouldn’t mind, in peacetime now, but I joined I suppose... in 1964 as a [pause] and people say like, there’s such a thing, he, he was a born �policeman, I don’t know whether I was or not, but I joined as they say for the want of money, for a job, truthfully, but I adapted I think well to it, and I hope I did [pause] a reasonably good job, and that I was honest and decent with the public, and that you know when you join you know you’re not joining a shall we say, a popularity contest, you’re not, but so... the ups and the downs, like you have to take them, and if you feel you were basically right and honest, you don’t, I wouldn’t have any regrets, any... my daughter is saying it, but she’s in the in-service training school in Cork, she’s not out... at all, but it made no difference, if she was, she was, and that’s the way it fell for her, but... I did have contact with the RUC on a number of occasions, on as I say, through the... scramble telephone, and we had a couple of occasions like, we had to deal with mental patients that incidentally, got out... got free inside in the six counties, and came across to us, and these things like have to be dealt with very very cautiously like, and we did, ‘twasn’t a question just handing them straight across the border again, they had to be put into... the mental institutions in the southern side, and had to be properly negotiated and written and dealt with, officially to get them back out again, but that was happened. There were a number of shootings then, Lifford has a place called Croghan Heights, it’s a very high area, like just out here now, but it’d be closer to the town, and the outskirts of the town, and Strabane police station was kind of inside, in the, more or less in the centre of the town, but in a low-lying area enough, but it was encased in about, oh I’d say about at that time, four or six different encasings of wire, but we used to have to be watching this on a constant basis, but you mightn’t have left the place, or some incident might have happened, and there’d be men taken away and there’d be shots fired from there, because they could have a good view, across into the, in at the RUC station, and beyond... ‘twas difficult too, they’d always try and escape across into, when something would happen, as they say across in the north, they could come across to... Lough Swilly, across the river, you know, the... and the Foyle as it was known there, which ‘twas the Finn up as far as Lifford, and Strabane, and as you know there’s only the... the bridge between the two places, and there was good interaction there now, those two towns, and... we were, shall we say we had to deal with a good number of incidents now, and there was, I remember one evening it was... it was very very tragic and very... I suppose ‘twas a murderous act, happened in the north where somebody rang up and pretended to be the parish priest of suchand-such a place in... Derry on the road into Derry city down there, and [pause] and but some people had... some fella had been left outside his door, and he was dying and the RUC went to go out, and on the way out they were ambushed and, two or three of them killed and there was... definitely the river was being used and they had their, the escape route plotted and, and they came down through the fields and across into boats and ‘twas very difficult terrain now, this was difficult terrain like to, to search it, and especially when you didn’t know the lie of the land, and we spent days searching it now, and there was finds but there was some of the, I I think as far as I can recollect, there was some of the fellas got all right, but ‘twas a major incident now, there was police inspector I think killed, and there was one or two of them very seriously injured there, they were fired on, and their jeep crashed and overturned and... but so, all in all, as I say, we, again there was an awful lot of arsons there of... can I say it was the other... persuasion, Protestant persuasion that �had people in the south, their... farmyards and stuff were being burned out by a cell of the IRA basically, oh yes. Well they would be there, you see yeah, because there would be certain people who would believe they’d be sympathetic to... the other side, whether that was, that was the belief anyway I suppose, and when you have that belief I suppose these things happen. Well we used to be going... constantly patrolling there, well there’d be fellas on checkpoints, there’d be constant patrols, and there would be spots patrols, as well, where you’d just, you’d drive down the road and you stop here and you mightn’t be stopping in that place again for a month, but just kind of unsuspecting stop and checkpoints as well, along with the permanent ones that were manned, with the, we had the Customs, the Army and the Guards together, and you’d the same with the other side. We could see the [British] Army, I mean if you were in, you were in Lifford now, and... when you get to know the lie of the land like, and you were driving kind of west towards Stranorlar and... Ballybofey, the road goes parallel with the river, on the southern side, equally on the north side, you go from Strabane on into Claudy, which would be predominantly republican area, you could see the aerials, you could see the RUC cars driving along, and you could see the aerials of the RUC, or the British Army trucks... going along but, we never met them as such, face-to-face. There was a lot of, a good bit of smuggling of stuff going on there too like, under the cover of this, like, ‘twas, there was... cattle being smuggled. But... there was a good bit of smuggling went on too, with cattle and you name it. Oh I go into the north I visited, yeah. I visited the north... a lot, actually, I was in Derry I’d say at least ten, twelve times at that time, I did, I just wanted to see what the lie of the land was, and how you’d be, shall we say, treated, I mean you’d have to go through the checkpoints, and which we did, we had to produce, we always had our ID cards and driving licence and stuff, and... we went into the Bogside and into Free Derry at that time, just wanted to see what it was all about, maybe it wasn’t the safest thing to do now, with a southern registered car, but we did it anyway. I remember one day myself and a couple of the young fellas off the unit, we went in about, finished at two o’clock, we went in about three, half past three... and it’s, I think, I forget now when it was... but I think there was a Foyle Valley... Festival on, and the Guildhall anyway got a bit of a damaging that day, and there were a lot of prefabs at the back, and we witnessed a share of them being set on fire, from the distance now, and that again like would set off, spark off all kinds of moments of, but thankfully I was... never felt in danger, while... there were one or two little bombs went off all right, but I don’t know whether it was... being... naive or not, but well we took precautions now, because the car I got, we got the car that was involved in that shooting that I referred to earlier and we got it inside in a wood, later that, the following morning, after being out all night, and the first thing you would say, we saw that the doors were open and the lights were left on, and it was driven in, it was slammed off a tree and, first thing you’d say to yourself, ‘is this thing booby-trapped?’ You would have to be thinking that way, kind of security �conscious, and everybody was alert enough, and... I suppose time and when, I suppose, you know effective policing is effective policing, but how far does it go in so far... goes to a certain point, but I always remember what John Hume says, said like that you must... you must join in unified hearts and the minds of the people, I think, and after that, when that did happen, we came with it, I suppose, and a lot of peace, and... tranquillity and I suppose a lot of other benefits for, for others, for everyone, for everyone, to society in general, I suppose when you go up first like, and I went through the north a good few times, coming and going, I didn’t, I, to vary the journey like to take the border more ways, I often went to Dublin, got the train to Dublin, left my car in Dublin, and drove through the north, up through Monaghan, and Aughnacloy, and on through the, Omagh, and out in Strabane, and... it’s amazing like, the feeling you get I suppose when you’d see the red, the red, white and blue, like but, and then you get pockets of either, and you know that then but I suppose these are the experiences of life, and ‘twas of our time, and we were of the age and we had to deal with it, and you know... I don’t know did it do me any harm? Well it was now, it was, the fact that like that you were so far from home, and family life was... I mean when a man is married, I suppose and to be thrown into this situation, it would no other, other choice, but into digs again, I found that like, there was an element of loneliness in it, especially, you know when you were off duty, like... it was, like, and I could see like that if you weren’t as strong, you’d want to be fairly strong and level-headed, you could, even though I never drank, say at all at any stage of my life, but I could see how fellas like they weren’t able to hack it, it could affect them, now that danger was there, and I think that like affected the RUC by, because I used to, as a delegate I was at their conferences on a few occasions up in the north, as a fraternal delegate from... and we detected that, we listened to their motions and discussions, and ‘twas a big factor in their lives like, because not alone were they watching themselves, their wives and their children, it wasn’t, you see it isn’t just watching in the morning, you have to watch where, come out when you, after parking the car to do a bit of shopping, you have to come back again, and you have to check and check and re-check, and keep re-checking, and that makes life very, very stressful, there’s no doubt about it, like and I think it took its toll on a lot of... yeah it’s difficult for a lot of the fellas that were kind of permanently working up there too, there was a certain amount of fellas that were... from that we’ll say guards were on Donegal, Monaghan, Cavan, that area and a lot of them were maybe close to home, well then they were kind of stuck with this, year in, year out, like and an awful lot of them gave their lives at it, the majority of their service, thirty years at it, which was... the Garda Síochána then like was a different job to the similar man down here, there’s no doubt in the world about it, and it’s amazing how... following that pattern of... policing up there... how you could latch on to it, and how, I had a, I can specifically remember kind of thinking, like... you have to adapt, it’s slightly different here, people expect a different, you had to, there was, you weren’t looking over your shoulder and, to stop that yourself, and to think, �It is, you know, yeah you’re going from totally two different situations, and how I got to deal with this, and ‘twould take you a little bit, there was an adjustment period, I thought there, even though we were always conscious to do exactly what suited the given situation, yeah you know, but... I don’t know is that of any value to you or not? The same job, and while you must look after yourselves, yourself, you also must think of those like, and try and guide, guide them, a young fella of nineteen like, it was a lot of responsibility, a lot of, there’s no doubt in the world, and I used always try to tell them, and advocate like that I think that, the fellas of twenty three now have been up there, and one fella had been up there for, since he was nineteen, now he had four years of it done, and I always said to him, look I think you’ve enough of this work done, and I, if I were you, I would look for a transfer, and incidentally, each one of the unit, I was down here, and I had to go back to a number of court cases afterwards, and I met him, because they were involved with me, and... and they all had got out, but like, they I think the system too recognised that there was a necessity for this thing, because you could become a bit of a robot there I think. Not knowing how to, I mean newly enacted laws could pass you by there fairly quickly other than those, there were those that were relevant to kind of subversion, subversive crime, and there was a new instruction coming out about that, and you know very very often, very frequently, and... so, sin é [that’s it]. Tá fáilte romhat [you’re welcome]. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Green and Blue Across the Thin Line (collection) [NC] Description An account of the resource A collection of 39 stories that were compiled as part of a project with the aim: "To develop a storytelling project reflecting the cooperation and interaction between former members of Royal Ulster Constabulary and former members of An Garda Síochána along the border from the establishment of the two Police Forces to 2001." (From the Green and Blue website.) Extracts from the 39 recorded interviews were published in book format in 2014. The associated Green and Blue website contains full transcripts for 24 of the interviews. The website also contains 18 interview audio files (as of 22 January 2016). URL Non DC - URL of Organisation / Project http://www.green-and-blue.org/ Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Diversity Challenges Board Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014 Stories Collected Non DC - Number of stories recorded as part of the project. 39 Stories Deposited Non DC - Number of stories deposited with Accounts of the Conflict. 18 Collection Permission Form Non DC - Collection permission form signed and returned. Yes (signed: 21 March 2015) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Published book; and Web site Language A language of the resource English Delayed Access Non DC - Yes/No on request for delayed access. No Availability Online Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain) deposited Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Police Services; Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland; 1920s to 2001 Publication A book, article, monograph etc. Author Author of the publication Con McCarthy Date Type Publication, Submission, Completion date etc. Completion date 2014 Publication Title Full title of publication, as it appears on item. Transcript of audio interview. Publication Status Published, in Press, Unpublished, etc. Published on-line Number of Pages 8 Publisher Location Place of publication: city / town Website Publisher Diversity Challenges Board Publication Type Report, Book, Manual etc. Transcript Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Untitled Story, by Con McCarthy (story transcript) Description An account of the resource Transcript (PDF) of the audio recording of interview with Con McCarthy which was recorded as part of the Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF version of transcript Language A language of the resource English Availability Online Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain) deposited Catalogue ID Non DC - ID for the Catalogue entry that relates to this entry 2868 Diversity Challenges Green and Blue https://k8s-accounts-01.ulster.ac.uk/repo24/files/original/27b4cecaac952d191ac4946b41d55b1b.mp3 c20e7abf1a422a3add28917fb595f315 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Green and Blue Across the Thin Line (collection) [NC] Description An account of the resource A collection of 39 stories that were compiled as part of a project with the aim: "To develop a storytelling project reflecting the cooperation and interaction between former members of Royal Ulster Constabulary and former members of An Garda Síochána along the border from the establishment of the two Police Forces to 2001." (From the Green and Blue website.) Extracts from the 39 recorded interviews were published in book format in 2014. The associated Green and Blue website contains full transcripts for 24 of the interviews. The website also contains 18 interview audio files (as of 22 January 2016). URL Non DC - URL of Organisation / Project http://www.green-and-blue.org/ Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Diversity Challenges Board Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014 Stories Collected Non DC - Number of stories recorded as part of the project. 39 Stories Deposited Non DC - Number of stories deposited with Accounts of the Conflict. 18 Collection Permission Form Non DC - Collection permission form signed and returned. Yes (signed: 21 March 2015) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Published book; and Web site Language A language of the resource English Delayed Access Non DC - Yes/No on request for delayed access. No Availability Online Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain) deposited Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Police Services; Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland; 1920s to 2001 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Transcription also available Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Digital Audio File: MPEG-2 Audio Layer III (MP3) Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 13 minutes 9 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 192 kbps Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Untitled Story, by Declan O'Callaghan (story audio) Description An account of the resource Audio recording of interview with Declan O'Callaghan which was recorded as part of the Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project Subject The topic of the resource The experiences of former police officers from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC; Northern Ireland) and the Garda Síochána (GS; Republic of Ireland), especially in relation to the border between the two jurisdictions. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Diversity Challenges Board Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014 Relation A related resource See also the Green and Blue website: http://www.green-and-blue.org/ Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio (MP3) Language A language of the resource English Availability Online Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain) deposited Catalogue ID Non DC - ID for the Catalogue entry that relates to this entry 2874 Diversity Challenges Green and Blue