COMMUNITY SPIRIT SHINES IN IRIS CLOSE
By Milana McLead

When Habitat World last visited the Catholic Iris Close Estate in West Belfast, Northern Ireland (December 1996/January 1997 issue), two houses were complete, three were under construction and six were yet to be built. With HFH Belfast's help, the community was just beginning to emerge from its former derelict days with an infusion of new life, new houses and new residents. In the years since, the street called Iris Mews-where 11 Habitat homeowners now live-has become more than an address; it has become a community.

Not so long ago, three families in West Belfast, Northern Ireland, faced their own separate, lonely battles.

Bridie Robinson faced an uncertain future when her home in public housing was condemned after a Valentine's Day fire in 1994 that claimed a neighbor's house and the lives of two young children; Jim and Martine O'Neill, their marriage on the rocks, struggled with debilitating depression and feared for the safety of their four children in a tough neighborhood where "the neighbors were animals"; and Fiona McKenna desperately balanced single motherhood, work, school and no place to call her own.

Robinson, the O'Neills and McKenna no longer feel alone in their struggles. Today, they are neighbors, friends and Habitat homeowners on a street just off the Falls Road. All agree-there's no place like home here in the community known as Iris Close Estate.

"Everybody wants to move in here," says Jim O'Neill, a Habitat homeowner since 1996. "It's a different quality of people. …Here everybody bothers with everybody, calling to each other…it takes about two or three hours just to come in for talkin' to one neighbor, then three or four."

To be sure, it's a neighborly place where the teapot is always on and "biscuits" are ever-present. On a waning August afternoon, the crisp, clear air is punctuated by the giggles of children and the greetings of neighbors. It finds McKenna's boyfriend installing a canopy over her door to spruce the façade up a bit. The door is always open, literally, at the O'Neills' house where all manner of kids perpetually come and go. From her vantage through the picture window in the living room, Robinson keeps a loving eye on the neighborhood, as well as on her grandchildren.

Beyond the acquired "extended" families, real relatives are neighbors, too. Robinson's daughter lives across the street and is married to one of O'Neill's brothers; McKenna's sister lives down the street, and other relatives abound throughout the estate.

"It's a close-knit community with very good neighbors," says Briege O'Neill, Robinson's daughter. McKenna's lilting accent and Irish idioms echo the thought: "It's a nice wee estate, I love it," she says. "My friend's 3-year-old can't even go out in the street [where they live] for all the fighting. She loves it to come over here where he can play."

The transformation of their lives parallels that of Iris Close itself. In 1994, when HFH Belfast began building on this cul-de-sac, several houses were boarded up and the street fell derelict after the original developer pulled out. By most accounts the estate was a "wasteland," and as the Habitat houses brought new life to the street, its most recent residents found new life as well.

After losing her home, Robinson became one of the first two Habitat homeowners in June 1994. A two-week blitz build brought a quick conclusion to her anxious wait for a new house. In the years that have passed, owning her own home has brought peace of mind.

"I was worried sick about housing," she says of her fears after the fire. Although it was the only home she'd known for some 23 years, it had its problems. "Sometimes I got depressed, it was so dark in [the old place]." And with no front windows, "I never knew when someone paused at my front door."

When she faced cancer nearly two years ago, her brick Habitat house with the sunny front window was a comfort after extensive radiation treatments.

"This house is totally different," she says. "It was like a miracle to me to get this house."

Next door-literally, as their houses share a common wall-McKenna and her two daughters are finally putting down roots. After struggling to live on her own in a flat, McKenna was soon forced by economics to make a move into her sister's house. The pressures of living on one income and the stress of working far from home had taken their toll.

"This house has changed my whole life," she says.A Habitat homeowner since 1994, she sees a difference in the lives of her young children, Louise, 12, and Sinead, 6. "They're more settled ," she says. "They've got their wee roots now."

And so does she. After three years of study and determination, she's received a National Vocational Qualification-an assessment for child care that qualifies her to work as a "creche" or nursery supervisor. And her horizons have widened, reaching as far as Durban, South Africa, where she recently participated in a Habitat Global Village mission trip. She raised every pence of the trip's cost through local fund-raising efforts. "We were in a township, a big shanty town," she explains. "The housing there was made of old doors, mud huts, corrugated iron." She pauses, then says: "But I don't know how they lived like that. It makes you feel guilty, like you don't deserve a Habitat house."

But she does own a house now, and, like any homeowner, she has plans to improve the place and has renewed hope for her children. "I always hoped they'd do well," she says. "They always come first." Children come first for Jim and Martine O'Neill as well. So much so, that together they have spearheaded organizing a club for kids through the Iris Community Association. Today, the club sponsors after-school, evening and weekend activities, and street festivals for some 60 children of all ages.

"At the start, we probably [organized] it for selfish reasons-we have two teens to keep an eye on," laughs Martine. "But also because there was nothin' for the kids to do here [in west Belfast]. …So we got busy and decided to do somethin' about it."

Jim chimes in to explain: "Teens stand on street corners, but with nowhere to go. They're gettin' a bad name and they're gonna get into drinking, so we try to take them away from it."

Getting away from "it" was hard enough for the O'Neills. Prior to moving to their Habitat house in 1996, they lived on a tough street in an even tougher neighborhood.

"The kids were tortured there," says Martine. "[Our oldest, Nicola,] was even spat on there. Even though [Iris Close] is only around the corner, it's a different breed of people. I'm more content here-I have a life. Before, I'd seldom go out of the house, but here, my nerves are not as bad. This is my own house, I have a back garden, I can barbecue. We never had that before.

"Years ago, on the Lower Falls Road, you could leave your door open-it's like that now here, too," she says. "Everyone knows the door is always open."


Milana McLead is editor of Habitat World.


Reprinted from Habitat World Magazine, December/January 2000.
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©1999 Habitat for Humanity International