The monument is both a goal and a process. Life cannot be lived with the stillness of statues.”
On his visit to Northern Ireland in 1995, three years after the statue was erected, Bill Clinton said that the statue “is a beautiful and powerful symbol of where many people stand today… Let it now point people to the handshake of reconciliation. “Hands Across the Divide” (Image credit: IrishFireside, Flickr) It is this gap which most profoundly represents the decades of hurt and anger caused on both “sides”. Their hands reach towards each other in expectation but they do not quite touch. The statue depicts two bronzed figures towering above the city. It was created by local sculptor Maurice Harron and was unveiled in 1992, twenty years after the tragic events of Bloody Sunday. It is located at Craigavon Bridge as you enter Derry/Londonderry. It is this message that the “Hands Across the Divide” statue aims to embody. Peace is something we achieved in theory following the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, but we have not fully put it into practice. Violence in our communities has not been consigned to the history books, as illustrated by recent rioting and destruction on our streets – an ominous reminder of the fragility of peace, even in 2021. Despite the fact that we are living in a “post-conflict” period, it is clear that the wounds have not fully healed and that resentments are still extremely prevalent today. I am lucky to have grown up in a time of relative peace. I can never claim to fully understand the impact of three decades of fighting because I didn’t live through it. Northern Ireland is well known as a place divided, with deeply rooted religious and political divisions and a long history of civil unrest perforating our community relations.
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