Davy Adams

Davy Adams is someone who turned his life around 180; he was a paramilitary insider at the height of the conflict who went on to help make peace here and then travel to war torn parts of the globe as an impassioned peace advocate.  Our conversation begins with honest reflection on why Davy joined the UDA and his great regret over that.  He provides insights into the building of the loyalist ceasefire and his involvement in the 1998 peace negotiations, before he stepped away entirely to work for international aid agency Goal; a role that took him all over the world, shaping and reshaping him.  He’s a fascinating character with a refreshing authenticity about his past and a heart for reconciliation, integration and inclusivity. 

Transcript

00:10 - Jude (Host)

You are listening to Piece by Piece back with a second series. I'm Jude Hill-Mitchell and I'm happy to tell you I've got myself a co-host this time and she is Sara-Louise Martin and she's here. Sara-Louise, our paths crossed at the brilliant Four Corners Festival in Belfast a few years back and we really connect it. Do you want to just do a little bit of an introduction for people? 

00:29 - Sara-Louise (Host)

Yeah, it's really great to be here with you and to be on season two of this awesome podcast. I've been really passionate about peacemaking in Northern Ireland for a long time and I've been exploring that specifically for the past number of years. And just by way of background to me, I work with entrepreneurs across Europe and the Middle East and my heart is really around business being the opportunity to solve some of the most complex issues that we have in our society, and I work really closely with business leaders and startup founders and I'm driven by building ecosystems to help businesses thrive. 

01:08 - Jude (Host)

Brilliant and it is so good to have you, and we will be reflecting at the end of each episode. But this piece is still the same as the first series and each episode will be in conversation with people who we're calling peace activists, who are out there pushing on with the hard graft of peacemaking. We'll be listening in as they reflect on personal challenges and losses that they've recycled to give them the grit to keep going and to grapple with some of our most hard to have conversations. 

01:38 - Sara-Louise (Host)

Then we'll introduce a chatty part at the end of each podcast where we reflect together on some of the themes that have surfaced throughout, and the hope is that we can expand our perspectives as we work through some of these post-conflict conversations. 

01:52 - Jude (Host)

And ultimately the hope is that some of this will spark conversations out in the real world, where you are. I guess we're wondering how we can all understand more of the differences in the stories of this place, expand our empathy and maybe, just maybe, piece the piece of this place together a little more. Wikipedia definitely doesn't do full justice to today's guest because it only tells half the story, or not even. Davy Adams joined the UDA during the conflict here and talks with great regret about that. He was a key figure in the loyalist ceasefire and sat at that table as the statement was read out by Gusty Spence. Davy went on to play his part in the 1998 peace negotiations and then stepped away entirely to work for International Aid Agency GOAL, a role that took him all over the world, shaping and reshaping him. He's a fascinating character with a real passion for reconciliation. 

03:05 - Davy Adams (Guest)

I'd apologise here again for being an apologist, for being an excuse maker for the inexcusable. There's nothing I can do to change the past. Of course I have to dedicate myself to trying to help change the future. 

03:20 - Jude (Host)

Today's Piece by Piece guest is Davie Adams. There's so much in your life that we could talk about and that we will talk about, but I want to just get right into the chat with you and it was a question I sent you on. Tell me what home means to you, what makes you feel most at home in your life. 

03:41 - Davy Adams (Guest)

I know it's a cliche, but my family is to be quite honest. What I learned over the years was that I could go anywhere and fit in anywhere and be quite comfortable, depending on exactly where it was, but relatively speaking be quite comfortable, and the only thing I ever missed was my family. 

04:02 - Jude (Host)

Let's just get straight into the conversation, because there is so much we could talk about, and going right back to the conflict and your proximity to it, Do you mean from I joined the UDA? What made you join? Why were you so proximate to the conflict in that way? 

04:18 - Davy Adams (Guest)

The honest answer to that is I have no idea what made me join and I can only think of something that one of my family members said at one time, and that was I think it was one of my parents, maybe my father, who said you know, our David has tons of brains, but he hasn't an ounce of common sense. And I think that was it. I mean, I remember thinking to myself at one stage when my oldest, our oldest, fella Kevin the oldest child actually, he was about 15 and I remember thinking to myself this wee guy's more common sense at 15 than I had at 35, you know, and now it's a very weak excuse, but in a sense it's an excuse. I'm trying to explain just how it was. I mean, I was raised one of ten children, eight boys, two girls two years were the oldest. So soon my parents were left, just for the boys. But very happy family, very anti-sectarian family, and I was raised in a small estate, a very small rural housing estate where I mean we were the only Protestants family in our row. The rest of the estate, most of the rest of the estate, if I remember rightly, there were a couple of other Catholic families, but most of the rest of the estate was Protestant and I mean. So I grew up with Catholics, fled with them, fought with them everything I mean, and I grew up with Catholics, played with them, fought with them everything I mean, and just felt no difference at all. And I was. 

05:51

I have another thing coming up soon and I had cause to reflect on my schooling as well. I went to a very small primary school. In Blare's primary school there were about 30 of us and I. There were Catholic families when we were alone with us, and then when I passed the 11 plus and went to grammar school, there were Catholics in my classes with us. I had absolutely no excuse. And nowadays, you know, and people in far worse situations than me had, who had lost a lot of people we could have dreamed of joining a paramilitary organisation, people who, if you stretch it, you could say they did have an excuse, they did have a reason. I didn't have that. Most of the young people in Northern Ireland didn't, the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland didn't join paramilitary groups, but I did and there's no excuse for it. What drew you? 

06:47 - Jude (Host)

in, then Were there encounters or what I suppose was your headspace at the time when you did join up. 

06:57 - Davy Adams (Guest)

I was quite disappointed in myself. Having gone to graduate school, got a very, very good education, I didn't get a decent job, I didn't push myself, I couldn't go to university and all of that sort of thing. So I ended up in dead-end jobs and the conflict seemed to be going on forever and I didn't have any family seriously injured or hurt or killed or whatever. So I was into the self-destructive mode and it's very hard. You know, I'm through a period of really really painfully honest self-examination. I just had to be honest with myself and I try to be honest now all the time with myself and there really was no excuse for me joining the paramilitary. There really wasn't. I ended up in the political end of things, so that's what I was involved in, far more than anything else. 

08:00 - Jude (Host)

And looking back, I'm always interested in people's attitudes, I suppose, to violence. When you see it up close like that, how, what was your mindset towards the violence? Were you able at that point to explain it to yourself, or was it just that was the world you were in at that point? 

08:21 - Davy Adams (Guest)

That was the world we were in, but also I was told about. 

08:25

I had many cupboards in my mind, and you have in that situation, you have a cupboard where you store things you know face, you know you push them in there and if it again when I'm saying this about what we discussed slightly earlier I had no excuse, even on the not knowing people from the other religions, you know, and the fact that stop me from buying it not because I just knew it wasn't true and I couldn't kid myself over that. 

08:59

You act as an apologist Somewhere deep inside you, you, at least in me, I can only talk about myself deep inside you. You know that this is what it really is and gradually, over a period of time quite a short period of time actually I could feel and sense my upbringing from what I'd been taught and what I'd learned from as a child. I felt it began to come to the surface and I made a couple of half-hearted attempts to suppress it, but by that time I was more ashamed of what I was involved in than I was frustrated with myself in terms of I was thrown away every two days, you know, after the education and all the rest of it. So I just let that come to the surface. Actually, and that's where the whole painful self-examination and painful honesty to myself with about myself and being careful not to let that stray into any sense of self, that sort of nonsense. So I think I need to sit down with a psychiatrist to get it all out. 

10:14 - Jude (Host)

And did that personal journey? How did that coincide or how did that kind of weave into the moves within Loyalism towards the ceasefire in the end, because you were there on the day as it was announced, you sat there, you contributed towards the ceasefire in the end, because you were there on the day as it was announced, you sat there, you contributed to the ceasefire announcement. How did your personal journey kind of link into that? 

10:35 - Davy Adams (Guest)

It seemed to do well, actually, because I had reached the position that I described earlier Not quite the peak of that position, but quite a long way along the path. A very close friend of mine, Raymond Smallwoods, he and Gusty Spence. It started with him and Gusty Spence getting together and chatting. Now I don't know how it worked between the two groups, and it was. It was our, it was our idea and our push. 

11:12

I wasn't privy to any of those meetings and but I started to be taken to meetings and we would spend our time discussing with people, senior people, about how this was just an end of cycle. 

11:32

We had to find a way to bring to an end an honourable end, honourable with an inferred balance. And as well as that, there were people, numerous, numerous people, um, decent, I'd say, people who were only too willing to help and give guidance, none in face, just you know, and chat to us, um, and of course and I think I've now emerged to um, the IRA. I was thinking I'm not in the very same lines. I have to unmerged. The IRA was thinking about them in very same lines. I have to say as well that the Loyalist Ceasefire almost didn't a ceasefire first, because it would look as if they were playing catch up. I know it sounds very childish but you know it's how the world works in many instances. But it seemed to Loyalism that it was so obviously an attempt to knock the ceasefire talks within Loyalism off track that it was sort of kind of a and when that line was actually crossed, what were your own emotions then, in that seismic moment? 

13:04

Absolutely delighted and I could not feel very sad as well. The trail wasn't there to see it, but now it was fantastic. But also, I mean, I just thought it was an actual. 

13:17

The politicians grabbed this opportunity, but so there was that sort of dread Breath and negotiations, and it was sorry a good phrase negotiations it was a matter of trying to keep everyone on board and trying to explain to you know, this wasn't you, but honestly the such and such would happen to be. It was that the government or the governments of other parties were suggesting they would hand, because you could hand up the fall guy very easily. And there were also people working behind their backs within the organization, people who would be very quiet at meetings and say right, it'll, but would go away and say a lot when they get back to their own territory. Or others who would be very supportive at a meeting or at least try to give out oppression, but hedging their bad step and back and say to their people you know them, and for rubbish and things that they had supported themselves. So it was, if you like, it was office politics writ large. 

14:19 - Jude (Host)

How do you think victims were treated in at all in terms of the settlement, and were enough messages sent to them in terms of how they had suffered in it all? 

14:31 - Davy Adams (Guest)

I think the CLMC statement was actually an advertisement I was going to say. Spencer wrote that I mean every word of it and he meant every word of it, every word of it and he meant every word of it. But after that, um, the greece and the great shreddy agreement was endorsed. I think factories have been treated horrendously early to be a sort of fallen and I know we are talking about society and proposed particularly political parties have fallen into the uh, our victims and their victims sort of mentality where, at least in many cases where there was our, all that ignored upset, when there's an opportunity to use and to make a political point or to score a political point or for a photo op, um, and then I forgot the word again they just fagged away again. I mean, I'm not certain how you deal with victims. That's to be honest with you, because we talk about them as if they're a macho group. They're far from us. But I think it has to be dealt with. 

15:32

Irish history teaches us, going through centuries, if issues are left unresolved, that somewhere along the line they will manifest again. How often in the past must people in Ireland, both our South, have said to themselves, after a round of bloodletting and extended round of bloodletting. Oh, thank goodness that's over, that couldn't happen again. Reconciliation is another massively unresolved issue and has been been tackled. And I'm not talking about the brave souls who have been genuine community workers Anything seems to help them working on their faces for decades and often have their work undermined just by a few photo in. 

16:21

I'll throw away comments about politicians, but to set the politicians that storming up and running that decommissioning and they say that about, yeah, it's fine, I mean that's not a peace process, I mean it's a peaceful start process. The whole point of the peace process, of any peace process, is reconciliation. That's terribly hard and sometimes you wouldn't know where to start for it has to be done, every effort has to be made and they're always for people who understandably can't be reconciled. And another brilliant aspect that's totally ignored is that large sections of our community are living in single identity areas. Generation after generation don't know anyone from a different background to themselves. Stereotypes, and these stereotypes are more often than not reinforced by some of the people that pop up on radio, television and newspaper articles. A glimmer of hope for the enlarged glimmer of hope actually a great supporter and advocate for, for, uh, integrated education I'm curious as well about your own journey with reconciliation, because obviously you talk about it so much Like. 

17:44 - Jude (Host)

have you had any moments of reach out in terms of victims of UDA violence, or do you have any message to victims of UDA violence? I'm just I'm curious about how you've walked that out in your own personal life. 

17:59 - Davy Adams (Guest)

Well, I have certainly spoken of being of it. I've had family members who were killed by the UDA. I have friends, very good friends, also, old friends and new friends who I remain vital friends with, some of them who lost family members to the UDA. And my simple way, aside from that, my simple way of reaching out, is trying to put myself in other people's shoes and say the word as they say it and from their experience, and also making clear my support for things that any reasonable person should support. I mean, for example, the most recent example was the Finucane family managing to have an inquiry into the death of Patrick Finucane. I mean how anybody could begrudge that family. 

19:03

That inquiry is beyond me. I mean this family have been chasing that for what is it? 30 years, 35 years, and that again falls into what I was speaking about earlier of this mentality of their victims and our victims. There's no such thing. They were all our victims, all of them, and I have apologised in a print and I apologise here again today for for being an apologist, for being an excuse maker or an attempted excuse maker, for the inexcusable. There's nothing I can do to change the past. 

19:44

Of course I have to dedicate myself to trying to help change the future, not having just a repeat of what it's always been. I mean, when I retired, I came back to this place and nowhere on this earth did I intend a resurrection, a public profile, absolutely not, and nowhere on this earth. Even more determined in that regard when I found it. But I just couldn't sit back and say nothing. 

20:20 - Jude (Host)

And you've mentioned it there, so we can move on to talk about it, because you obviously ended up completely in the post-conflict space and I was really disappointed. Your Wikipedia page only has one line about your work with Goal, which feels wrong. But how did that 180, well, it wasn't a 180 at that point, but how did that come about and what was it like working across the globe? 

20:45 - Davy Adams (Guest)

I had a column at the time in the Irish Times. I had written a piece on Seadbure, leedson and Cassidy and the end for being very little there. This was before social media had really taken hold. So you checked the letters page and there was a letter a 13-year-old from a john o'shea gold and I saw told with just some place of a house and you know the environment. But next thing was I got a phone call from john. He was the ceo and founder of gold. Um, although we get on the ashton found channel three just out of the next thing. 

21:20

I know I was on a plane to Niger, to the famine there, and it just all went to there and I worked in. I worked in all sorts of places and I think it was 10 or 12 countries, some of them for a short period of time, some of them for an extended period of time. Places like Sierra Leone during the Ebola crisis, syriac during the war, or there were just too dangerous for Westerners to go in, south Sudan, places like Northland Uganda, which was terrible as well. But I loved my work. I really, really did. But people at the time would have said to me I was not stuck in those countries. I was being perfectly honest and saying it's not. You know, the big shot is when you land at the first Western airport on your way back and the obscenity of riches on the spread. But I love my work and wonderful, wonderful people that work with us. 

22:17 - Jude (Host)

And you've listed off a whole raft of really conflict-ridden countries, but obviously you've really connected with incredible people there as well. But just when you think of here and some of the post-conflict stuff that we are wrestling with, or maybe not even properly wrestling with, what are some of the main things you've gleaned from other conflict, post-conflict places? 

22:41 - Davy Adams (Guest)

This place has been really put in perspective by these other places, and that's not to denigrate anybody's loss or suffering, but what I learned as well was I was a bit of a smart aleck about religion, you know. You know I would baffet and slayer and all of this sort of thing, but there were so many people around our ward who, for them, if they didn't have the belief that the next life is going to be better than this one, they would just hope for this. Also, no matter where I worked and this applies to this case in relative terms women, young girls and children suffer by far, far, far more than men In terms of what we can learn. I think South Africa is still an example to this. If it hadn't been for Mandela, I believe not every white person, or not a white people, would have been hired from an outpost when South Africa gained its freedom. Its leadership that's the sort of leadership we need here, and we need people to realize here that you can't play with the notion of, oh, you can't play with that and think that all you can raise tensions but it won't spill over in a conflict. 

24:16

In the conflict, it really is playing that, and there are people here who. It's my opinion they would be happy enough if the caution took a break out again. I really do believe that Now. I do think there are many of them, but some of them had a platform. So I worry about things like that. I worry about the future for my grandchildren. I mean my future. God knows how long it'll be. You know, that's what drives me on just to get involved and then sort of raising a profile and raising my head up on the part of it. 

24:49 - Jude (Host)

And looking at loyalism then from your vantage point, I'm really keen to get your insights into where you think it's at at the moment. How do you currently see it, and what would a healthy loyalism look like and actually mean for peace and this place? 

25:06 - Davy Adams (Guest)

Well, let's just say that I have to be very careful in what I say, which gives you an indication of where things are at at the moment. 120 years ago, myself and my family were playing at home, and the scars of that, the emotional scars of that, are still with my family, and so the fact that I'm talking to you and being very careful with what I say is a statement of self about where things are at. The word transition, to my mind, I know exactly what transition means, but in our context it's totally lost all meaning as long as it's a ticket to transition back in that community that you said you were always part of, who you would argue you were operating on their behalf. 

25:54 - Jude (Host)

What will it take to break some of the strongholds that are there to break that coercive element? The structures that are still in place? What are some of the elements that would break that course of elements? The structures that are still in place? What are some of the elements that would break that down? 

26:09 - Davy Adams (Guest)

I mean right across society. Here we have to realise how abnormal things are. The abnormal is our norm. We have to recognise that first and start trying to develop into an enormous society. I was in an enormous society and the rule of law placed everyone as I was peer of favor. And I think particularly our politicians have to stop playing to certain audiences, have to be courageous. They have to lead. Leadership is about leading the stand, about following the herd. Part of the reason, I think, why the real effort has been made on socialising in Towerisle of integrated socialising, is you're almost guaranteed votes, but you aren't guaranteed votes. Housing is you're almost guaranteed votes, but you aren't guaranteed votes. 

27:04

People used to live in fear of the other, and play up to those stereotypes and all the rest of it in the round to an election and then reach the benefits electorate. When we talk about this case, we always talk about these two communities the Sparrowfell Road and that now that has improved to us recently people with different skin colour being attacked and driven out of their homes. The support for Aguila, that now that has improved to his recent, like people with a different skin colour being attacked and driven out of their homes, their businesses, simply for that fact, having a different skin colour, a different death, isn't it? I mean, the Islamophobia here in certain wars is outrageous. When I was with Goal I much preferred working in Muslim countries Now not as bad when it's on England but the people were extraordinary in their welcoming, in their integrity. But of course, in this part of the world, all we are treated to are the most extreme, are the extremists. It's just people claiming that our militaries here represented, you know, catholics and Protestants, you know, and their endowed. It's even worse than that. 

28:12

So, and the people who are attacking Muslims and their businesses, their places of worship, they haven't first claimed, I mean, this land. They really haven't. They have not been first clean. I particularly feel that people are covering all of Nairn at the moment and on top of that, for people of the Muslim faith. It's embarrassing, it's disgraceful. You cannot talk about lack of housing, lack of opportunities, lack of jobs, all the rest of it at the same time as you're talking about attacks on people from minority communities. Whether you intend it or not, you're adding some sliver of creeds to what people are doing. So much creeds. There are no creeds. 

29:00 - Jude (Host)

Circling back to reconciliation you speak so passionately about it and the fact that it has got lost along the way. What would it look like for Stormont to prioritise it? How would we see that work out? What would it look like? 

29:14 - Davy Adams (Guest)

Well, I think, to be fair, the First Minister or the Deputy First Minister are playing a blinder at the moment. People can call it tokenism and all the rest of it, and there is a certain amount of that too, obviously, but we should not underestimate the message that's sent out. Look at gestures, what it has to do with all from that a bit of justice, but it has to be evolved from that. Let's see, for example, a deputy First Minister and the First Minister going together to meet people from a nationalist or a Republican background who lost relatives and fight together for justice for them and similar meeting victims groups or individual victors from a unionist background, a lost relatives and need answers and need someone to take an interest in their case. Let them go together on that and the fight corner as well. As I said, said our nets. Make the victims ours, not theirs and ours. 

30:27

I think Stormont needs to get really behind integrated education, and you know this is not an attack on religion of any sort, absolutely not. 

30:41

And it's not an attack on school high performance games, because it would be strange if a school stopped being high performance just because you're people of different religion. Health, but it's necessary and they have to start the educating for, encouraging and pushing for integrate, how socialise Police can know they can forever have places that are just sick of it. I mean it's it's seriously ridiculous and I have to watch every word. I mean it's it's certainly ridiculous to say this about politicians, but be careful what you say, be careful about the insults that you earn. Be careful, even by your demeanour, when you're saying something about people that aren't from your own background. Make a bloody effort, you know on the overall. I mean sometimes you lose hope. You really do Policies and time to work together there and start pushing for the things that will help promote reconciliation. And reconciliation is going to be long, arduous and painful, and not as painful as what would probably happen if we just sit back and not try to reference our communities. 

32:03 - Jude (Host)

Davie, thank you so much for speaking to me and just for your frankness, honesty, lots of openness and insight, so I really really appreciate your time. Thank you so much and for pushing through on the technical issues as well. 

32:18 - Davy Adams (Guest)

I'm a technical expert, eh. 

32:28 - Jude (Host)

So Sara-Louise, Davy Adams there really honest soul searching stuff from him. How did that conversation make you feel? 

32:37 - Sara-Louise (Host)

It really got me. To be honest, I could really hear in his voice the regret, the regret of the things that he was involved in. The self-examination piece is really interesting because in some ways it allows you into his mind where he compartmentalized things. He talks about this cupboard in his mind that he put things in. I think that was really interesting. 

33:02

I think the the key thing that really stood out to me was what he said about reconciliation that it hasn't ever really been tackled. Reconciliation has been forgotten or it hasn't even been touched. The reconciliation point is obviously really important to me at a personal level and it's been part of of my story, which I'm sure we'll chat about it at another point. But the other thing that really struck me and I found it really sobering was he said multiple times I still have to be very careful about what I say, yeah, and to have to say that like 25 years after the peace in inverted commas, you know say nothing has has kind of shifted, maybe just slightly, to be very careful if you say anything, and I think that just really speaks to the coercion and control that still exists in so many communities and the impact that that has on people living there? How do you break strongholds? How do you look at those coercive elements? We need to be able to develop and progress to be a much more normal society. 

34:15 - Jude (Host)

There's so much in what you said and that's because there was so much in what he said and I think you're right. 

34:21

I think it is still unusual to get that insider perspective from within paramilitary organizations and obviously he was very careful to emphasize that. He is just one individual and that is his, his journey. But that unique vantage point in history, like it is now 30 years since the ceasefires, and there he was at that table with that insight and in terms of all that it took, all that had gone before, the pressures they were under at that point and the losses that have been incurred and, as you say, you know the deep shame that he expresses and there was real emotion in his voice and I am always curious about how people who have had proximity to violence, what that is like in terms of their own navigations and I think that, as you say, that sort of expression of there was a cupboard in my mind and he's still dealing with some of what was in that cupboard, I think as well. It was interesting for me in trying to have some of these conversations because I felt myself hesitate even in asking him some of the questions. 

35:37 - Sara-Louise (Host)

You know I could feel that too. 

35:38 - Jude (Host)

Yeah, and there is that sensitivity. Um, I did bulk at the start. Um, I will admit, when I was asking him about joining the UDA, because this is someone, as you said, that has journeyed incredibly and has turned his life around 180, and I think when I listened back to that and heard my own hesitation, it sort of emphasized that these conversations were having. 

36:02

They're not easy and actually words don't always come easily and questions don't always come easily because how you're approaching someone and their own, their own backstory, and it made me laugh because I hesitated and he said what do you mean about me joining the UDA? 

36:17 - Sara-Louise (Host)

you were trying to be sensitive to him, but he also want like it's. It's like he almost wanted to talk about it, but also it's that lovely Northern Irish thing where we're very direct and we just get to it. 

36:29 - Jude (Host)

You know we don't really yeah he brought us straight into it, which was so useful. And, as you say, that self-examination, which is probably well it's. We don't have any surveys, but you know it's relatively unusual to hear somebody any surveys, but you know it's relatively unusual to hear somebody with that degree of self-reflection in terms of his own journey and you mentioned their reconciliation and you know the fact that he is so exercised now he doesn't want victims and survivors to be referred to as their victims and our victims. He has such a universal lens now and that's obviously because of his experience in so many post-conflict societies and his openness. And I just think I don't know what jumped out for you in terms of this, but just the fact he's such a frustration about the fact that Stormont, in his words, are ignoring largely reconciliation and the brilliant quote he said. It's as if they got the politicians, got Stormont in his words are ignoring largely reconciliation. 

37:21

On the brilliant quote, he said it's as if they got the politicians, got Stormont up, got decommissioned, and then said that will do. And that's it, his burning, burning passion now and yeah, you, you mentioned it there as well which is all tied into reconciliation. He's being very careful with his words. He was honest, but he's still being careful with his words and I suppose, like, as we reflect, like, what will it take um for people to feel greater freedom? 

37:47 - Sara-Louise (Host)

and that you know, more conversations are needed, obviously, but communities are living, living under that and that's still a reality yeah, I think often it takes for one person to be brave enough to go a different way, which then encourages other people to say, ok, well, that's what I want to. So, therefore, it's almost like it's given them permission to stand up for what they actually believe, instead of being coercively controlled into. This is the way we do it, because this is the way we've always done it and that's the way it is, and that's a real way to shrink your mindset so much that you, you then start to believe that nothing different is possible, and then that's why people get stuck right, and I think that's where his real passion around desegregating society, integrated education. 

38:42 - Jude (Host)

You know he's travelled all over the world. He was, you know, speaking very passionately about the experience of people of colour here, muslim communities and the other end that still goes on and that we were seeing so regularly. And I suppose it's that it's what you said. It's calling out what is abnormal, and he very much talked about segregated communities and peaceful. Well, that's not called peaceful, it's just the walls that divide and he's calling that out and I suppose it's that generational piece that I think is Part of the tragedy. It's it's it's the past on, it's the transmitted message and the transmitted fear, and voices like Davie are so helpful. 

39:27 - Sara-Louise (Host)

Then, yeah, no it was incredible, it actually it. 

39:31

I really choked up at a point when I was listening to him speak myself, because I just I so deeply heard the shame in his voice and the regret in what he'd been involved in. 

39:45

And yet it's still a part of him, it's still a part of his story, it's still a part of often all of our stories in that way, and so that will be something I think that a lot of people will be able to resonate with. They maybe didn't have the same background as him, but they've maybe held views that have looked a certain way, and then they've had an opportunity to step away and see things differently, maybe through travel or through different things that they've been involved in, and it's allowed them to have a slightly different perspective, and I guess that's what we're trying to do. Right, that's, um, just because, just because you have looked at an issue or, in our in this case, something to do with Northern Ireland through a particular lens, it doesn't mean that it has to remain fixed in that way. This might be an opportunity to ask questions that you've not taken the time to be asked before. 

40:48 - Jude (Host)

You've been listening to. Peace by peace. Thanks so much for joining us. Our big hope here is that these would spark conversations in the homes and worlds we live and move in, as peace by peace, we figure peace out together. We'd love to bring peace by Piece out into the wild and host conversations in your community. If you're interested in sponsoring this venture and adventure, then please do get in touch. 

Key Words: Northern Ireland, Conflict, Peacebuilding, Reconciliation, Post-Conflict, Personal Transformation, Societal Healing, Davy Adams, UDA, Raymond Smallwoods, Gusty Spence, Peace Talks, Victims, Community Engagement, Leadership, Sierra Leone, Syria, South Africa, Loyalism, Paramilitary Organizations, Insiders, Coercion, Control, Marginalised Groups, Perspective Shifts, Travel, Meaningful Conversations, Peace