Londonderry - a city with a sad awareness

The Northern Irish-Irish border, remains one of the most important hurdles in the Brexit negotiations. The residents of Londonderry, fearing the outbreak of new hostilities.

Christoph Heinzle, ARD Studio London, currently of Londonderry

is not Before the court in Bishop Street to see much of the damage caused by the huge car bomb from the 19th century. January. On that Saturday evening, there was much action here, around the nearby Pubs and Restaurants of the old town. As if by a miracle nobody was hurt or killed by this first attack in Londonderry for years.

New IRA responsible for the assassination

the police arrested The Suspect, made the small terrorist group, the New IRA for the attack responsible. A shock, says John, with a view to the court. However, the 24-year-old craftsmen feared no outbreak of violence, if there were after the Brexit border controls and resistance to it: "Even in the case of a hard limit I can think of anyone my age, or the violence would be and the old times back, wanted to bring. Because that is not our experience of life. For me, this is history."

For Sheila Higgins is the story still alive. The 71-Year-old is in the midst of Creggan, one of the poorer quarters of the "Derry" as the Catholics called their city. Five decades ago, Creggan was a No-Go Area, in which the army did not trust at the most heavily armored and armed.

The Catholic majority called their city "Derry".

school as an oasis of peace

Higgins, in 1970, began as a young primary school teacher at Holy Child Primary School here in the street, and still recalls the horror of the "Troubles", as the bloody conflict in Northern Ireland: "over There in a Container on the Playground my class room. The IRA fired a grenade at the British army. However, the small community center was directly next door. Everyone thought my classroom would be made, with 42 children."

The lessons went on. And all these years nothing happened. Even if the conflict is part of everyday life for the children was here, have you tried to create in the school "a haven of peace and tranquility."

Sheila Higgins was a teacher at the Holy Child Primary School.

hunting on unarmed protesters

But it got even worse. In the roaring rain in front of the school, Sheila's husband Ciaran remembers the 30. January 1972, "Bloody Sunday", with 14 dead. As his wife, the then-23-year-old Catholic in Creggan started learning to be a protest March of civil rights. Further down towards the old town, which opened in the British paratroopers, the fire and started hunting on the unarmed demonstrators.

A revival of the good old days of the Northern Ireland conflict, Sheila Higgins does not come back. However, smaller riots considers them to be possible, if there is a impenetrable more casual border: "I don't think immediately something is about to change. But if it is the first permanent facilities at the border, then everything is the goal. There is still a group of Dissatisfied and Insecure, as we at the stop the other day."

The mural is reminiscent of the 30. January 1972, "Bloody Sunday", with 14 dead.

"We are an integrated society,"

Pride George Fleming leads the way through the welding shop of his company for agricultural machinery six miles outside Londonderry on the Northern Irish side. Particularly successful he is since the 1990s, progress in the EU customs Union, and by the end of the Northern Ireland conflict. His company had grown from 15 to 115 employees. It was just the open borders and the free movement of people and Goods. "25 percent of our employees come from Ireland. We can't think of a hard limit that all the customs checks and controls on persons is present."

But the border issue is not only about trade, business and Jobs, the 61-Year-old: "We are an integrated company - we cross the border in both directions to shop, to school, to medical treatments. It would be a disaster for this Region if a kind of Berlin wall would go across."

George Fleming can't think of a hard limit with customs and passenger controls.

Alone, the symbolism could were rich

of Course, would look like a hard limit be different than it was during the "Troubles" when British tanks at the Transitions, and each frontier was also monitored suspicious as thoroughly. However, Fleming writes, the symbolism could prepare the few Violence: "If there are duties, then there is smuggling. If there is smuggling, there is a tax collector. And police on both sides, in order to protect the tax collectors. And, finally, army, to protect the police. And these people, it doesn't matter who you hurt."

"A hard limit will cause Chaos"

a Few miles away in Strabane is on the river Foyle on the Irish side. You don't see it in the old, narrow bridge, but this is one of the most important Transitions in the Region. On the direct Route from the North West of Ireland, across Northern Ireland to Dublin.

Across this bridge, the 35-year-old Irish painter, Paul reached to the foot of the Northern Irish side. "A hard limit will cause Chaos. The people will lose money and Jobs. And a hard limit will cause some unrest in the population. My family lives in Strabane, I go every day. I don't want to be controlled. This is an absolute joke. You should just leave everything as it is."

The border bridge to Strabane takes you over the border river Foyle.

The Brexit blow-off

In a car a few meters workshop next to the bridge on the Irish side, a Northern Irishman just the tire mounting. "Even more than the economy of peace," says the 26-Year-old, although he is currently unemployed. "No one wants a hard limit", the young Northern Irishman.

"I hope it's resolved soon," says the craftsman, Paul. "But I can't see how it's supposed to be a Brexit." The Irishman, however, says: "you should call off the Brexit, because there is simply too much disagreement about it."

report from the Northern Irish-Irish border
Christoph Heinzle, ARD London
08.02.2019 08:23 PM

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