THE Queen’s visit to Enniskillen in June, 2012, and her subsequent meeting with local clergy in their churches, has led to a novel approach to forging closer ties between the four main churches and their flock.

The Irish Churches Peace Project (ICPP) project has been at work quietly over the past several months among the Ireland’s four largest churches in Fermanagh, and the Irish Council of Churches, towards peace building.

The project will take a fresh turn tonight, Wednesday, when local church representatives meet in the Killyhevlin Hotel. The involvement of all denominations is equally welcome.

Glenn Harvey, the Good Relations Officer with ICPP, has met with around 50 clergy across Fermanagh, posing the question: ‘What are the issues here?’.

He explained: “You have to recognise as well that even though we’re as a wider body, encouraging peace building, there are pockets of good practice where people have already been doing it.”

Among the 50 clergy that Mr Harvey has met with, he has found, a ‘generally’ positive response.

“Most clergy would have been open to engaging more. There are some who would have been less reticent, and some didn’t want to meet at all.

“But, it’s a common principle across the different denominations  to be ‘a good neighbour’ – so there are no theological issues of people coming together over a cup of coffee and talking.”

Keith Hamilton, the director of the project, revealed that the Queen’s 2012 visit to Enniskillen, and the response to that from church leaders, was among the reasons for the project coming here.

“The thing that was happening was that society was seeing the likes of the Queen coming to Enniskillen and both (local) church leaders welcoming her.

“There was a question posed: What about the people on the next level of leadership, what do people think – and the idea of our project is that we engage the different levels so that if the minister or priest moves on, that the onus of peace building  doesn’t go with them.

“It means that the churches have good links with each other going through the different church structures.”

But, while he experienced an openness to good relations, he admitted, ‘there is still work to be done’.

“What has been highlighted to me in Fermanagh is that while people have good relations, there’s still an element of mistrust.

“That’s what we’re trying to get into. People will get on well with each other at one level – but have they ever had discussions around politics or religion? These seem to be ‘no-go’ areas.

“There are conversations that people don’t seem to have. For some people that’s fine. But for others they just want a bit more openness – that these are things we can talk about.”