Belfast, Northern Ireland
Hilary Lawrey grew up in Belfast during the Troubles, where daily life was shaped by division, fear, and the unwritten rules that kept Protestant and Catholic communities apart. Although she was raised without bitterness, the conflict limited where she could go, who she could spend time with, and how relationships across community lines were formed.
After caring for her husband for fifteen years until his death, Hilary found herself isolated and unsure how to reconnect with the world. Encouraged by family and friends, she took a courageous step by joining Black Mountain Shared Space, an integrated community center that brings together people from both traditions. What began as an intimidating leap into the unknown has become a transformative chapter in her life. She now spends four days a week at the center, where she has built friendships across old divides and rediscovered a sense of joy, purpose, and belonging.
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Hilary’s interview is followed by Mark Vinton’s. His story starts at about 36:37.
“Whatever I have left in my life… I need to get myself out here and I need to start being me again.”
For most of her life, Hilary Lawrey lived with boundaries that often went unspoken. Growing up in Belfast during the Troubles, she learned early that neighborhoods, schools, friendships, and even ordinary social gatherings were shaped by division. Looking back, she doesn’t remember being raised with hatred. “My mother and father kept us together as a family,” she says. “We were never brought up with any bitterness.”
Still, fear quietly determined the limits of everyday life. Friends from the other community existed, but only within carefully defined spaces. “You went to work with these people,” she recalls, “but once you came in from work, that was it.” Meeting socially was another matter. “You weren’t ever gonna go meet them for dinner… because [of] apprehension and fear of somebody seeing you with somebody that they think you shouldn’t be with.”
Years later, those divisions became less defining than another kind of loss. Hilary spent fifteen years caring for her husband before he died, ending a marriage that had lasted forty-six years. In the months that followed, grief narrowed her world. “I needed… to start being me again,” she says. “I classify myself as a sociable person. I enjoy a good laugh.” Yet even walking through the doors of Black Mountain Shared Space felt daunting. The center welcomed people from both Protestant and Catholic communities, and despite believing in its mission, she admits she was “very apprehensive of coming up here because it was both sides.”
Eventually, she decided she could not let fear make another choice for her. “Whatever I have left in my life,” she remembers thinking, “I need to get myself out here.”
That decision changed everything.
Today, Black Mountain Shared Space has become a second home. The woman who once hesitated to walk through its doors now laughs that she has “almost moved in here permanently.” She spends four days a week there, surrounded by people she once imagined she might never know. “Most people were just like me,” she discovered. “They were just here to get their selves out. They were here to meet new friends.”
The greatest transformation, however, is harder to measure. It is the return of hope after grief. Reflecting on what the community has meant to her, Hilary says simply, “It gave me back life.” Without it, she believes “I don’t know where I would have ended up—probably in deep depression.” Instead, she has found friendship, purpose, and even the confidence to travel with women she had never met before.
When she looks at her grandchildren, Hilary sees another kind of healing. They move through a world she could scarcely have imagined as a child. “I’m so happy that my grandchildren can go wherever they like, with whoever they like,” she says. “I couldn’t have done that.”
For Hilary, peace isn’t the absence of differences. It is the courage to open a door, meet a neighbor, and discover that the life waiting on the other side may be richer than the one fear allowed you to imagine.
To read the introduction to this series, follow this link.
The Troubles: Finding a Path Toward Healing in Northern Ireland
To listen to our podcast, follow this link or find us on the platform of your choice.
A Peace of My Mind on Buzzsprout
Credits:
Interview and photos: John Noltner
Field production: summer interns Kate West, Sawyer Garrison, and Kaitlin Imai
Audio engineering: Razik Saifullah