By Colm McNaughton

 MELBOURNE - In my first radio documentary Awakening from History? the listener is invited into my own story as a way to enter the vexing question of intergenerational trauma in the North of Ireland.

In what follows, I examines some of the difficulties encountered and the strategies pursued both in the field and the studio to producing this piece.

The documentary was aired on the Radio Eye program on Radio National, and won a Walkley award for best radio documentary in 2008.

Loyalists marching through Belfast on July 12, 2007

For those who do not know, after thirty years of war the north of Ireland is undergoing a peace process. The guns, bombs and torture manuals have pretty much been put away and this fragmented and deeply wounded society is trying to reinvent itself. It is important to understand that this most recent conflict in the north is just the latest in a long and painful 800-year history of British colonialism of the nation of Ireland.

When I talk about inter-generational trauma, I am talking about how the psychological patterns associated with experiencing horrors such as hunger, torture, marginalization and rape can be passed on through generations.  This then feeds into another generation of conflict.

In making this claim for the existence of intergenerational trauma I  want to challenge the individualistic assumptions of mainstream psychology and psychoanalysis, which erroneously presumes that it is through the prism of the individual that we can best produce knowledge, heal and reflect on the impact of trauma on people. I contend that this perspective is way too limited, especially in the case of societies that have been colonised.  What people are suffering from is not so much post-traumatic stress disorder, but rather post-colonial stress disorder.

I want to contend that it is only through being able to understand the collective dynamics of trauma and how it is reproduced that new possibilities can be understood, let alone be realised.  This is the introduction to Awakening from History?

Audio grab: no. 1 (2 min 50 sec.)

I want to now focus on the research dilemmas I faced and the strategies employed to work through them. To get to the heart of the matter I wanted to address I had to develop contacts. To achieve this I needed to really know the background to the conflict and thus work through relatives and local experts.

Knowing my stuff
I work in media and know that before people will speak openly you really need to know your stuff. You need to know your history, the words and actions of the people you are talking with as well as a having a ability to read and shift so as to really communicate with people where they are. This is no mean feat and an art that can always be refined. So while I already possessed a good knowledge of Irish history, for six months before I left I read widely, especially on the politics and history of Loyalist paramilitaries and Irish literature. I also researched the question of intergenerational trauma not only where it referred to Ireland but also many other nations and peoples. At the same time I also began to line up contacts and interviews.

Relatives
On my father’s side I have heaps of relatives who live in the North. I knew that if I could engage with them I could tap their contacts, resources etc. But there were a few problems. The main one was that when I was eight I was raped by an uncle who at the time was fifteen. This issue while it had reared its head at my father’s funeral was largely repressed within the family.  I mention this to you so that you can understand that my interest in healing from intergenerational-trauma is not just an abstract question, but something I live with, moment to moment. Before I left Australia I had decided I wanted to forgive my uncle.

I do not want to suggest even for a moment that what I did is right, the only or the best way to respond to being raped. This is my story. I am explaining to you my decisions in the context in which I found myself. Please understand that while I took this path it is not necessarily the only or best one, nor indeed in many cases is it even an option. I am explaining this to you because it directly impacted on my ability to do the research.

Allow me explain the reasoning behind my decision to forgive my uncle.
• When I was raped I was eight years old. He was fifteen. He was still a kid. This doesn’t excuse what he did but it is a factor.
• I am pretty sure it happened to him – as it had to many in my family…along with domestic violence, alcoholism and experiencing grinding poverty.
• At times in his life he was targeted for execution by Loyalist paramilitaries – and he escaped death many times. So in my book he too had suffered.

Armed with an understanding of collective healing, I wanted to move from my being locked in my own suffering to be able to support a process of collective healing.  I also wanted to explore how could I support the process of collective healing to undermine the roots of such destructive behaviours?

Basically, I was able to meet with my uncle, and while we never talked directly about what happened between us, I was able to hold the contradictions that this implied and move anyway. This story is the hidden, and I would suggest, transformative narrative of this documentary.

Being able to face my family resulted in valuable contacts, including Mark Harbinson, an active Loyalist paramilitary from the village of Stoneyford.  I could broach the topic of intergenerational-healing (though not in those terms) and this was captured in the documentary.

The experts
To make a documentary in a conflict zone, or even a post-conflict zone, you need a local guide to engage with the combatants or ex-combatants.
My guide was Bill Rolston, Professor of Sociology at the University of Ulster.  He facilitated introductions to ex-IRA prisoners.  Here Padriac McCotter talks about his experiences in prison.

Audio grab: no.2 (1 min 09 sec.)

Republican mural in Ballymurphy, West Belfast

My own republican and socialist sympathies made for easy contact with Republicans.  However, I felt intimidated by ex-British soldiers and Loyalist paramilitaries.

In Northern Ireland, the name Colm, is a signifier.  What is more to the Loyalist community it is a signifier that could lead to violence or death.
I had to be careful.  Bill Rolston told when to use my name. He explained if you are with a Loyalist paramilitary / soldier one on one, give your name. If I was with a group of Loyalists – complete with shaved heads, tatts on the forearms and lotsa bling, under no circumstances should I give my name.  I followed Bill’s advice and I am still here to talk about it.

I was keen to record the Orange march through Belfast on July 12.  Bill explained that under no circumstances was I to cross the march. To emphasize his point he told stories of people who were savagely beaten in full view of the police.  The police refused to intervene, saying, “He won’t cross the march next time…” Needless to say I heeded Bill’s advice.

Bill also helped find Billy Frazier, and ex-soldier. In his silver Mercedes, he took us on a tour of the sites where his father, uncle and numerous friends in South Armagh were killed. This area was once the most militarised part of Western Europe and where most British soldiers died in the recent conflict. Here is part of Billy Frazier’s story.

Audio grab: no. 3 (1min 49 sec.)

This mural marks a shift in theme in Loyalist murals, just off the Shankhill Road, West Belfast.

After gathering the material for the documentary I was faced with the question of how to present it.

I made the decision not to name my uncle. I do not support witch-burnings and while what he did was wrong, I believe my work on intergenerational-trauma is a significant contribution to the question of child sex abuse in the Irish context. Maybe I couldn’t change what has happened, but I could plant the seeds of new possibilities.

The next issue was how to represent Unionists and soldiers, people I categorically disagree with?  And how do I represent the dead, of all political persuasions. This was very difficult. I watched Gillo Pontecorvo’s film, The Battle of Algiers. Interestingly, this film is proudly anti-colonial, however, the music for the French and Algerian dead is the same. While I may disagree with a political community, I felt deep in my bones that there is something wrong in dissing the dead. So in the documentary I was very respectful of the dead from all sides.

I also had to decide whether to allow the Loyalists to speak for themselves, or provide a narration to untangle some of the contradictions they articulated.  With Billy Frazier and his tour of the killing sites of British soldiers, protestant workers and RUC men in South Armagh, I allowed him to speak.

Mark Harbinson, who I interviewed him in the village of Stoneyford on July 11, was a different story.  He is still an active Loyalist paramilitary, a man who has killed and tried to kill many family members and friends over the years, I actually did a bit of a job on him. I explained who he was and what he does best – harass and kill Catholics!

As part of my attempt at exploring new possibilities in a post conflict society, I used the medium of radio to bridge the gulf between working class communities.  I edited Claire Hackett, a Republican from Falls Road in West Belfast, with Billy Frazier, the Unionist from Armagh.  I cut them so that one starts and the other finishes the sentence.

Audio grab: no.4 (1 min 19 sec).

The lesson I drew from making this documentary was that to engage with difficult, though potentially transformative material, you must prepare for the inevitable contradictions and work around them.

This is difficult but possible and there are many fine people who work with these dilemmas daily.  Instead of looking to new possibilities based on forced forgetting, we should focus on the more difficult work of re-membering.  If not, sadly we may no longer exist on this big beautiful blue planet. This is a very real threat each of us must live with and respond to. If not me, who? If not now, when?

Thank You.

The gravestone of Bobby Sands (amongst many others), Milltown Cemetary, West Belfast.