For 20 years, teenagers from Northern Ireland have been coming to Middle Tennessee for the Ulster Project. The program started two decades ago to give Irish Protestants and Catholics a chance to interact in a neutral environment by living with American host families for a month.
Northern Ireland has been plagued with religious-based conflict in the past century.
While most of the teens dismiss the conflict as a problem of the past, none have a hard time seeing how religion divides them. A Catholic school sports team would never compete against a Protestant team and nearly everyone attends high schools segregated by gender and religion.
Fifteen-year-old Vicky Coalter attends a Methodist church in Northern Ireland.
“I think it’s still an issue between schools, but it doesn’t affect me. Like, I don’t deliberately not associate with Catholics or Protestants, it makes no difference.”
Still, she says she doesn’t have any Catholic friends because none of her activities involve them.
Once in Nashville, the Irish teens attend Protestant and Catholic worship services together and do things like feed the homeless or swim at Nashville Shores.
Organizers say many of the Catholic and Protestant teens remain friends when they return to Northern Ireland. The teens flew home this afternoon.
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