ABSTRACT
I was born into a street of poor people. In 'rooms' above a pub, called The Phoenix, in Brown Square. My mother told me that, during the war, 'poor prostitutes' used the pub's doorway, and sometimes the snugs, with their American soldier clients. One half of the street comprised poor Protestants, one half poor Catholics. It was what would now be called 'an interface community'. When the Twelfth of July came around the Protestant people stopped talking to their Catholic neighbours. 1 Nothing personal-some may have wished to do otherwise. That's just how it was. One Twelfth, when I was a child of about three, I was attracted by the street bands. I danced away from my mother-to the music. A neighbour lifted me up into the arms of a woman sitting on a donkey. The woman, draped in a blue veil, was being drawn through the parade in mockery of Catholic reverence for the Virgin Mary. The Protestant neighbours thought it a great laugh. I suppose I stood for the baby Jesus in the moving tableau. An appropriate muddle of gender, political and religious mimicry. We moved to Ballymurphy. The Brown Square area has been redeveloped. No Catholics live there any longer.
