If the optimists among us think that “the Protestant-Catholic thing” in Ireland has gone away, we got a couple of sharp reminders last week that there are still elements who define some in the “other side” as unworthy of their respect.

Indeed, worse – they’re ‘fair game’ to be denigrated simply for what they are.

The story of Eden Heaslip from Crosskeys in County Cavan is truly heartbreaking. On RTE Prime Time last week, his father, Raymond, recalled that his boy took his own life two weeks after his 18th birthday last September, suffering mental health problems after years of bullying at school and online. Raymond is a Protestant, and his wife, Maggie, a Catholic.

Being a product of a “mixed marriage” apparently was enough for the bullies to tell Eden to “go home to your own country, you black Protestant b*****d” before they forced his head into a filthy toilet bowl on a regular basis.

Meanwhile, in Co. Derry the week before the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, Parachute Regiment flags were erected in Drumahoe and Newbuildings, ostensibly to honour the soldiers who shot dead 14 innocent people on one of Northern Ireland’s darkest days, but furthermore to inflict hurt on the relatives and community of the Catholic victims.

We like to think that time has moved on, and that the Catholics who sickeningly intimidated Eden, and the Protestants who sent a horrible message to their neighbours up the road in Derry, are representative only of a minority.

And indeed, their actions were called out; among those to tweet their anger at the Cavan bullies was a former Fermanagh Councillor, Tony McPhillips.

I’ve known Tony for years; he’s an Irish Republican, but his track record shows he’s not sectarian.

Principles

Holding political principles while not allowing yourself to be bigoted seems a fairly good template for respecting diversity.

The Para flags were also condemned by Ulster Unionist leader, Doug Beattie, a former British soldier.

Before his own Twitterstorm engulfed him, he said the flags did nothing but hurt the victims and survivors.

But at least one commentator cited the Cavan incident as evidence there would be no room for Unionists in a shared island.

And on social media, some extrapolated the disrespect shown by some Protestants in Drumahoe as representative of a Unionist people full of hate.

There are times, I think, when we gain a certain comfort in retreating into old silos, rehearse old tropes, and generalise about “them ‘uns”.

We can’t ignore that old attitudes die hard in some cases, and people with confirmation bias will happily stick to their single story.

In such circumstances, it’s important to remember how far we’ve come. We’ve all been on different journeys, and I still maintain that the few stuck on stations like Drumahoe and Crosskeys are vastly outnumbered by those who have moved on down a more positive track.

Looking back at the past and how it provides context for how we view the present is, of course, a very personal thing.

Someone said the facts of our lives are less important than the way we remember them, and all of us look at the past through the prism of personal experience and our personal world view.

In Kenneth Branagh’s new movie, ‘Belfast’, he takes a look at the city of his birth from the perspective of his nine-year-old self when his family left in 1969 to get away from The Troubles.

It’s been received favourably; though one critic did describe it as “rose-tinted whimsy”, and indeed, it doesn’t seem to reflect the gritty reality of the city I lived in briefly as a student in the mid-70s.

I find it hard to believe that it’s now half a century since Bloody Sunday, and I think back to the year of 1972 from a personal perspective, and reflect on how its significance had an impact on shaping me.

Two days before Bloody Sunday, I was shocked to hear of the death of a young policeman, Raymond Carroll, shot dead in Belfast while off-duty and working on a car when his killers approached.

At 22 years old, he was just a bit older than me, but I knew him well as a neighbour from Wickham Drive in Enniskillen who often played with us when we lived in Westville Terrace.

While I was very aware that community strife and tension was building, and had heard of other killings in my home county, suddenly in early 1972 The Troubles seemed more real and personal.

A couple of days later came Bloody Sunday; at the time I was only a few months into my first job as a clerk in the Crown Buildings in my home town, where Protestants and Catholics worked well together.

But the atmosphere at work in the week following was surreal as everyone found it difficult to absorb the awful events.

Difference

I felt it accentuated difference in people, and became aware of my feelings that, whatever side of the community you were on, right should be right, and wrong should be wrong.

All the while, my own personal circumstances were foremost in my thoughts. As the oldest in the family, my father had just taken me aside to tell me quietly that my mother was terminally ill with cancer and only had months, maybe weeks to live.

And in March, 1972, on St. Patrick’s Day in fact, she passed away at the age of 40.

As I’ve often written before, I was particularly close to my mother, and I was devastated. The previous year, her own mother – my granny Woods – had died when, as a young teenager on his own with her, she collapsed and died at my feet.

I suppose I now feel that coping with the personal trauma of my mother’s passing built a certain resilience in me, and while I was coping with family life, I was also going out into a world where the turmoil of violence in the community continued apace in 1972.

It was the worst year of The Troubles with 497 people killed.

Many people suffered bereavement or life-changing injuries. It’s what we euphemistically call ‘legacy’, and people are still living with the hurt, sometimes even passing it down the generations.

In a small county like Fermanagh, 20 people were killed. The way the mind works, some had more impact on me than others, and I remember some more vividly; which is not to disrespect anyone’s memory, because every single one of them was precious.

They included seven UDR men, two RUC men, five British soldiers, one Garda Inspector, two Protestant civilians, two Catholic civilians, and one IRA volunteer.

It was a particularly awful year, but only one year in a conflict which went on for over a quarter of a century.

I saw a quote this week that: “We always walk in the footsteps of those souls who went before. So listen for the ghosts of our shared and precious past.”

I wonder what those souls and ghosts would tell us about the lessons of 1972, and the circumstances of division and mistrust between people which descended into an abyss for so long and hurt so many on all sides.

If there’s a lesson, it should be that the attitudes of those individuals in Cavan and Derry that I referred to earlier can only lead us down one path.

Instead, I want a society where everyone can respect difference. Where there’s a place for people of all religions and none, for people of different colour and ethnicity, where your sexuality doesn’t single you out to be degraded.

And a place where women can feel safe and valued as equals.

Personally, I see the best way of achieving that in an all-island context, whatever constitutional arrangements that involves. But everyone should have their say.

Responsibility

We all have a responsibility for the type of society that is created, and that includes what our attitude is towards others.

We shouldn’t accept that the old divisions of the past have to form the basis of our future. Our individual pasts may have shaped us, but we can shape a better future.

The quote I referred to about souls and heritage of the past ends with the line: “One day we will be the people in the shadows.”

What sort of a society are we going to pass on to future generations?