From Brooklyn to Belfast: A Peacemaker’s Story

Many of us are consumed by the day-to-day of life’s hustle and bustle, doing our best to navigate our relationships, provide for our families and live comfortably. A select few meet with great success on all fronts.

Fewer still somehow manage to lead extraordinarily accomplished existences with gumption, energy and talent left to spare, positively impacting circles far larger than their own family unit. 

One such exceptional person, and longtime Peachtree Corners resident, is Jim Gaffey. Allow me to introduce you to the most extraordinary neighbor you never knew you had. I had the honor of speaking to him while he was spending time at his second home in the North Carolina mountains.

With a charming wife, thriving children and grandkids entering the fold, the former BellSouth executive is winning in the game of life. But it’s his heart for seeing others win that is something to behold.

He worked up from an entry-level installer pulling cables to a successful career in telecommunications, and from a first-generation Irish American teaching youngsters to read in Spanish Harlem to having a hand in peacemaking efforts in Northern Ireland.

With modesty, Gaffey would tell you that his work in Northern Ireland wasn’t remarkable because there were a plethora of well-funded protests taking place when he was a young man in the 1960s and 70s. I beg to differ.

Why The Troubles were troubling 

After gaining its independence in 1922, Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom to become the independent Irish Free State except for the six northeastern counties that comprise Northern Ireland, creating the partition of Ireland.

The Nationalists, largely Catholics, wanted Northern Ireland to become part of the republic of Ireland. The overwhelmingly Protestant Unionists wished to remain part of the United Kingdom. The violent sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland known as The Troubles erupted in 1968 after having been stoked by hundreds of years of tumultuous history.

Gaffey described the rather draconian, anti-Catholic situation, which he prefers to view through the lens of “the haves versus the have-nots” instead of joining the media in playing-up the battle of the religions. In truth, voting laws seemed fair; but in practice, they were very unfavorable to Catholics. 

Local voting was subject to property qualifications which made matters even worse. Business owners — disproportionately Protestant — who owned multiple properties got multiple votes.

“You had some people with no vote at all and some people with overloaded gerrymandering of the districts and sitting in parliament,” Gaffey said. This would ensure a Protestant majority in as many constituencies as possible.

Hence, in Northern Ireland, the religious makeup of your community determined the quality of your housing, public services and the jobs available to you. Peaceful protests were not kindly received.

Understandably, those who had enjoyed centuries of unfair advantages wanted to keep things just as they were. 

Brooklyn boy

The son of Irish immigrants, Gaffey was moved by the civil unrest going on across the pond. He authored an essay about the crisis while studying at City University of New York with a focus on the Special Powers Act passed by the Parliament of Northern Ireland in 1922. The act was meant to restore order but was ruthlessly used to suppress the Nationalists’ opposition to politics that significantly favored the Unionists.

“The Special Powers Act allowed the authorities in Northern Ireland to arrest without charge and hold indefinitely up to six years without a trial or any kind of a court hearing. People were placed in concentration camp facilities,” Gaffey explained. 

The British Army began a policy of internment without trial in Northern Ireland in 1971 during Operation Demetrius which would last until 1975.

Skin in the game

In 1969, when Gaffey’s university paper was distributed to the head of the Transport Workers Union in New York City and to the National Council of Churches, it was decided he should be sent to Northern Ireland to learn what was going on and report back to the United States. The street smarts he’d acquired growing up in Brooklyn were about to be put to the test.

Gaffey first landed in Ireland on August 15, 1969 — the day after the British army had arrived. Armed only with legal writing pads, he was instructed to walk the streets, meet and live with the locals, observe, write weekly reports detailing his findings and send them through the postal system, as was customary then.

“When something big was happening, like the British army going into a certain area, we used telegrams,” he said.

“The Unionists began to attack and burn whole villages, trying to force out the Nationalists and stop the civil rights movement. The British government decided that too many people were being killed and driven out of their homes. Whole rows of homes were burnt down. All those families had to flee,” Gaffey said.

The U.S. didn’t want to interfere but craved a better understanding of what was going on with their close allies in the United Kingdom.

“People here, even people in Irish organizations, couldn’t understand why two Christian communities were attacking one another,” Gaffey explained.

Between 1968 and 1972, Gaffey traveled to Northern Ireland 12 times, living in both Unionist and Nationalist communities, learning from them. He shared what was unfolding with the U.S. by reporting to congressional officials and testifying to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

An uncomfortable situation

Asked if he was fearful, Gaffey replied, “I was very cautious. I was stopped and frisked in the streets by British soldiers and held for a period of time until my paperwork could be approved by some officer at least 12 times,” he revealed. 

Anyone moving from one tiny community to the other in that area — no larger than Connecticut — or traveling with recognizable people as he was, was likely to be stopped, especially if they were obviously not dock workers or coal miners, the type of individuals one would expect to see there.

Observers knew to always carry their passports and visas, and say they were just visiting friends and relatives if questioned. “We were sent in with the cards of American diplomatic officials to call in case it got serious,” Gaffey said.

Gaffey recounts harrowing tales like that of the late John Hume being taken to meet the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the trunk of a car to start the peace process because he wasn’t allowed to know where he was going. 

Hidden under a blanket is how Gaffey was once driven speedily across the border into the Republic of Ireland when violence broke out in Derry. Besides developing an instinct for knowing when it was time to leave, when he wasn’t evading hostilities, he found himself in discussions with very aggressive, angry people resisting the push for change. 

“Communities were devastated, people were beaten. It was a horrible situation,” Gaffey stated.

Forward, march!

“I was in three civil rights marches in Dungannon, Belfast and Londonderry: two in 1970 and one in 1971. I was pelted with rocks and stones by folks who did not like these marches in Northern Ireland,” Gaffey shared.

Just the thought of marching in such circumstances with 12 to 14,000 people organized by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) would strike terror in the hearts of most people. But men like Gaffey are a different breed.

“I was too busy ducking horse and cow manure to be terrified. When you were marching through these farmlands into cities where an election might be coming up, they got pretty feisty,” he said.

According to Gaffey, Nationalist chants were met with cries of “No surrender!” by Unionists who had a monopoly on everything.

— “We shall overcome!”

— “No surrender!”

— “We want jobs!”

— “No surrender!” 

When the guns came out and things got extremely violent, the observers were pulled out of Northern Ireland. 

After Ireland

What Gaffey had witnessed in Northern Ireland motivated him to help even more. He became the National Student Organizer of the National Association for Irish Justice (NAIJ) and traveled across the United States speaking at numerous universities including Yale, Harvard and Berkeley.

His goal? To educate students about what was going on in Northern Ireland and encourage them to become involved by protesting the blatant discrimination against the Catholics.

“We were the financial supporter in the United States for the NICRA who modeled themselves after the Civil Rights Movement in America,” Gaffey said. Able to garner support from the universities he visited, NAIJ chapters sprang up. Gaffey later served as the National Coordinator of the NAIJ.

As the Coordinator, Gaffey formally represented the NICRA in the United States at speaking engagements, public presentations and protests.

Over the years, Gaffey has met with four sitting U.S. Presidents about Northern Ireland: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. and Laura Bush and Barack and Michelle Obama. He served on a committee of 20 charged with organizing the Obamas’ first trip to Ireland.

Luck of the Irish

John Lennon, who had participated in a march in London, backed the civil rights movement and supported the NICRA. Lennon attended NICRA meetings and spoke at rallies in the United States. Gaffey had dinners with both he and Yoko Ono. 

“He carried around our first son,” Gaffey beamed. “He was one of the most empathetic people I’ve ever met. Anything that was happening around him affected him emotionally, almost physically. When he was associated with us, he was taking in every bit of information,” he added.

Lennon and Ono wrote “The Luck of the Irish” in 1971, donating all proceeds from the song to Irish civil rights organizations in Ireland and New York. Other supporters of the cause were Arlo Guthrie and the group Peter, Paul and Mary, who entertained at rallies and fundraisers free of charge, as did Lennon.

The lyrics of U2’s signature song, “Sunday Bloody Sunday” evoke the horrors of one of the darkest days of the Troubles in Northern Ireland when British troops shot and killed 13 unarmed Roman Catholic civil rights supporters, injuring 14 others (one later died), during a protest march in Derry on Sunday, January 30, 1972.

The Good Friday Agreement

On April 10, 1998, Irish Nationalist politicians John Hume and David Trimble, the Northern Irish leader, steered the Protestant majority and their Catholic rivals into a peace deal known as The Good Friday Agreement.

“Unfortunately, Trimble doesn’t get a lot of play because his community hated him for doing it,” Gaffey said.

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to Hume and Trimble that year “for their efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland.”

When it was all said and done, 3,720 people in a population of about 1.5 million were killed in Northern Ireland over a 30-year period during the Troubles.

With 21 miles of “peace walls,” separating Irish republican from British loyalist neighborhoods, increasing in number and size since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, it’s clear there is ongoing turmoil. 

Martin Luther King III

In 2015, Gaffey was asked by those in Northern Ireland trying to settle things down to bring his friend Martin Luther King III with him to meet face-to-face with people on both sides. Gaffey followed through with King by his side.

“I think eventually, possibly within our lifetimes, we’ll witness the unification of Northern Ireland and Ireland into one country,” Gaffey stated. Despite the continued unrest, Gaffey maintains a vision of hope. Call it pollyannaish if you must, but I think I’ll join him in his prediction of a better tomorrow.

Avocation life

Gaffey discusses avocations like they’re as essential as breathing. I suspect he assumes we all partake in multiple activities in addition to our regular occupations. 

In 2002, he founded The Gaffey Group, an international trading company. He’s brought 47 companies out of Northern Ireland to the United States on trade missions. Today, he assists the successful ones by procuring investors.

“I’ve gone on trade missions to Northern Ireland with Governor Sonny Perdue and Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle. I also took Governor Bob Riley of Alabama and a team on a trade mission there,” Gaffey said.

Gaffey serves on the Peace Harmony Joy Alliance which mirrors his own belief in leading a purposeful life. 

As an advisor to The Carter Center on conflict resolution, Gaffey has investigated third world and local issues. 

In case you were unaware that it might need saving, Gaffey serves on the ad hoc committee to save the Good Friday Agreement. Deeming it necessary for future success, he calls it a pressure group.

He explained, “It’s always in peril. Although everybody signed a peace agreement, they’ve found less than half of the weapons that were being used. There are still incidents. They’re still looking for people who were never found.” 

Leaving a legacy

Gaffey plans to donate an archive of over 300 documents to The Linen Hall, the oldest library in Belfast. His records of fundraising and support include financials, what they did, who they were raising money from, who they supported as well as communications addressed by leaders of the NICRA. 

“I can’t believe the news today,” Bono first crooned in the 1980s about the heightened conflict in early 1970s Northern Ireland. Regrettably, we can look at wars going on across the globe today and say the same.

It seems as long as humankind exists, so too will conflict. The only comfort is knowing there will also always be those upholding justice and equality. If you’re lucky enough to meet one such person committed to peace, seize the occasion to hear stories of hope that can emerge from even the deepest trenches of despair. 

There you have it, Peachtree Corners! I hope you’ve enjoyed meeting our very notable neighbor Jim Gaffey as much as I have.

This article originally ran in the October/November issue of Peachtree Corners Magazine. You can read the digital edition here.