It Happened on Frederick Street (conversation with Felicity McCartney and Ian Kirk-Smith)

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Ian Kirk-Smith interviews Felicity McCarney in this reminiscence about the Frederick Street Quaker Meeting site during the Troubles.

In August 1969, women and children whose homes in North- and West Belfast had been firebombed, sheltered in the meetinghouse. This was the first of a multi-level response by Quakers, in Belfast and throughout Ireland, during the Troubles. The web of connections and practical service that had been developed during the Famine, and the level of trust built up at that time, was a foundation for the response to a different crisis, a century later.

Felicity McCartney was a community worker with the Centre for Neighbourhood Development when it was based in Frederick Street Meeting’s Institute building. She is co-editor of Coming From the Silence: Quaker Peacebuilding Initiatives in Northern Ireland 1969-2007 (Sessions of York, 2009).

Felicity will be interviewed by Ian Kirk-Smith whose career includes working 1992-1997 for BBC Northern Ireland as a producer. Among his films for BBC NI were the North Belfast documentary The Bonfire, as well as Division or Diversity and Sporting Traditions. Ian has also been a staff journalist with the Belfast Telegraph, and was the first Irish editor of the British Quaker weekly, The Friend, in 170 years.