Set of photographs #1

Commentary from Participant

1. The first pictures are of the Nandi Bull [Nandi, bull vahana (“mount”) of the Hindu god Shiva, identified as the god’s vehicle since the Kushan dynasty (c. 1st century CE). [https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nandi-Hindu-mythology] The statue protects the house.

2. 3, 4, 5 These are pictures of various churches in a small village [Cushendall]. The first one, with the gate, is the Anglican [Church of Ireland] church. The Presbyterian church and the Catholic church are also pictured. I took these pictures because they symbolise the influence of the churches here and the role they could be seen to play in relation to discrimination. Discrimination is ingrained into the culture to an extent which local people don’t understand. Catholic education is universal. I went to the Loreto Convent in Darjeeling. It was brutal, there was physical punishment. I have become aware that there are diverse Protestant denominations here. Each of them has a hold on education, on the school your child goes to. Other people say that there are Catholic schools and State schools, but the governors (transferors) come from the nearby churches. A lot of teachers have changed denomination to fall in with the one which dominates particular schools. I did not know, as a foreigner, that this happens. Teachers get promoted depending on their denomination. Heaven knows what some of these denominations would do with teachers from LGBTQ+ communities. It is perfectly legal to discriminate on religious grounds, then, in Northern Ireland. To get promotion to senior management level, you have to be part of the particular church which is in control in the particular school. You would know this if you were born here.

7. This is a picture of the local ‘chip shop’ in a small village. This illustrates the fact that many people from different cultures, Indian, Italian migrants, live and have businesses here, even in small villages, though people might not think about that.

Summary

I want to end on a positive note. The bull and the plant in the last picture are both presents.

The pictures I took of the churches illustrate for me how discrimination is so embedded, people don’t see it as discrimination. It means that the whole community loses. My mother was an Anglican and the nuns in the catholic school I was sent to described her as a heretic.

Participant 3+4, ‘People have a little bit of fear, mothers do not send their sons to play days when they are run by Indians or other migrants.’