Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
It’s wrong division
Why our comics are standing up for integrated education
ownpatrick comedian Colin Murphy used to do a bit about the bus station in his home town where I happened to go to school. He talked about how the different uniforms helpfully identified which foot we all kicked with. I was a Red – that crass burgundy blazer alluding to my catholic upbringing. Us Reds tended to talk to the girls in Blue or the boys in Black. Confusingly, anyone wearing Green was likely a prod. Like most Reds, my first girlfriend was a Blue. But my second was a Green. A Red among Greens was deemed a little off piste and a tad rebellious. As I lived in a mixed part of the country – Newcastle – and went to football and music stuff outside of school, I had a few (shock, horror) protestant friends. But other guys and girls I knew who lived in the countryside or didn’t do much extracurricular activity had to wait until they entered the real world – getting a job or heading to uni – before they encountered people wearing different colours. This concept of colour-coded segregation at school – which is essentially what this was – felt a little antiquated even back in the mid 1990s. Yet, here we are, 20-odd
years later, and only the bus station has been modernised. In 2018, 93% of schools in Northern Ireland reflect just one religious culture or tradition.
Indeed there are merely 20 integrated colleges in the entire country. It’s blatant segregation, totally unnecessary and very unhelpful if the country aspires to continue moving forward.
The Integrated Education Fund is the official representation of our collective frustrations. They’ve contributed more than £25million in grants to support the growth and development of integrated education and compile the statistics that inevitably wind the likes of myself up.
Next Thursday, they’ll host a special night of comedy at The Ulster Hall. Unlike what I’ve written so far, the night promises not to be preachy or in any way political. The aforementioned Colin Murphy will be there, alongside fellow comedians Wendy Wasan and Neil Delamere. Also appearing is David Meade – a sort of mind magician guy who once did a mind-reading trick on me (while I was live on air) which was so bizarre, and borderline upsetting, that I think about it all the time. To quote Colin Murphy, ‘It’s not that long ago we’d have burnt people like him at the stake’. He’s incredible. The night is hosted by Tim Mcgarry, a long-time supporter of the IEF and a man who, like me, can’t quite comprehend the integrated schooling issue in this country. Unlike me, he’s able to exercise a little discipline and speak succinctly about it.
He said: “It’s going to rely on another generation to create a better society.
“It’s segregation that has caused that. At the minute we have two political parties who don’t need to make an effort because they have the same voters. We vote against the other tribe because we don’t know each other and that’s because a lot of us don’t mix or grow up together. And that is starting at four years of age. There is serious division and sectarianism in our society and children need to grow up together.”
Tim Mcgarry & guests play the Ulster Hall for the Integrated Education Fund, next Thursday, September 27.