TEEN SAYS RELIGION SHOULDN'T GOVERN LIFE

Even though Catherine Fawcett is a Protestant, her views are similar to those of her Catholic peers. The 14-year-old from Belfast believes religion shouldn't govern people's lives. She wishes the fighting political parties would quit bickering. And she says leaders need to find a simple solution to the conflict.

"I was born here, but my parents are British.

"I like Ireland. I wouldn't move away from here unless I have to. My friends and everybody else is here.

"(My neighborhood is) very quiet, lots and lots of trees about the place. It's down in the center (of Belfast).

"I'm in third year at Methodist College, Belfast. School begins at 10 (minutes) to 9. I know you go to school earlier because I've got a friend in America who's my age.

"Then until about a quarter past 1 we have lessons and then we have lunch. And then about 2 o'clock we have lessons until about half of 3. And then I just go home. I sit at home and watch TV or listen to music - rock music or pop.

"You're probably more friendly to each other, do more stuff together. You (have) more places to go after school and things to do after school, (like) go out to bowling places, cinemas or something like that. (In Belfast,) there's not many of those. There's a couple, but they're expensive.

"We can't have (jobs) until we're 16.

"I don't particularly find it interesting going to my church. There's not a lot of things to do for young people. There are no groups that I can go to or anything like that. I don't care much about (religion). Well, I do care, but I don't make it take over my life or anything. My mom doesn't make me do things that I don't want to do. She believes that if I was going to do it, then I should do it for the right reasons and not just because I'm being made to do it.

"My friends are Catholic, Protestant and all sorts of religions. I don't mind. (Five years ago), people didn't think it was right; they were silly about it. If somebody wants to go out with somebody, it's their choice. Religion shouldn't govern what people do.

"There are still people who don't believe Catholics should go out with Protestants, and there will be families who would not allow the two religions to mix.

"People who still believe strongly in their religion, they go to different schools. They go to different pubs and socialize differently because they wouldn't get along with other people.

"(The political situation is) all mixed up. Nobody knows what's happening. . . . I don't pay much attention to it myself because it's always changing.

"(Before the cease-fire) it was very unlikely that you'd ever get caught up in an attack or a bomb or anything like that. But the bomb scares would go around the city center, especially at Christmastime. But they'd be only scares - there'd be nothing too violent, nothing that I'd get myself caught up in.

"My mom works in a school in North Belfast. North Belfast is split between Catholics and Protestants. They live very, very close to each other. The troubles up there are quite frequent.

"There was a shackle bomb (that went off) about a year ago. My mom had just been driving past when it went off, and some of the people who go to her school were killed in it.

"You can almost go outside (now) and know definitely that there's going to be no bomb scares. There's going to be no attacks or anything like that.

"You can go anywhere you want. You could still go anywhere you wanted beforehand, it would just not have been advisable because we have an English registration car. If we were to drive that into a Catholic area, (we would) get people throwing things at it, pointing at (us) and stuff like that. But it was something you could avoid and you would have avoided.

"Since this cease-fire started at the end of August, all the barriers have been lifted. There are no police walking and there are no army walking the streets. There are no army vehicles zooming past your doors or anything like that.

"There are no road checks. Before there'd be road checks everywhere, even outside my house, which is not an area where they would usually be.

"One time the army men actually came into our garden so they could watch their vehicle and make sure nothing was going to happen to it. That was spooky. You didn't know what was going to happen. . . . But you knew they were just doing their job, and it's a job that had to be done to keep the peace. You just had to put (up) with it.

"Sometimes I would say it's a good idea to (have a united Ireland). . . . But I've grown up with it just like this. I'm happy with it. I don't think I would like being part of a united Ireland, but obviously there's nothing I can do about it.

"There's really not a way (to make both sides satisfied). You have Northern Ireland wanting just to stay as part of Great Britain. The south of Ireland really does want a united Ireland, so I can't see them being satisfied unless it is united.

"Political leaders that I know, personally, I think they're silly because they're not willing to sit down and find a solution to this.

"I don't look up to any of them because I feel they don't really want peace here, they just want to be on TV or recognized as trying to do something to solve the situation.

"I don't really understand (the latest peace proposal). It's done in a way that children like me just don't understand. It doesn't affect us directly yet.

"I know my generation can do better. I think children are much more sensible than adults will ever be because we've got simple minds - adults are trying to complicate things too much. If children could just run the world, it would be a better place, because we would do things simply, and that's the best way to do it.

"I wish that everybody could live in peace. Catholics and Protestants and whatever religion can get on without any sort of bickering or anything like that. That's the way people should live. There should be no hassles in life.

"When I'm 18, I will go to a university in England. That's just out of my own choice because I know England. I've got a brother and a sister at a university in England.

"I've noticed dramatic changes (when) I've gone over to England. There's tension in the air everywhere you walk (in Northern Ireland), even now. But in England, it just seems a lot different. You still get children massing a fight, groups of children vandalizing places, but it's not as bad as it would be over here.

"I see myself doing something that I want to do . . . perhaps be in England. That's what I know and what I like.

ASSISTANT EDITORS: Ben Young, 14; Eric Hauser, 14; Megan White, 14.