(by Suzanne Breen, News Letter)

Their communities might be at loggerheads but Gerard Lawlor and Mark Blaney had a lot in common. Both were 19 and grew up in deprived, working-class areas of north Belfast.

Gerard's home was on the Whitewell Road and Mark lived in Glenbryn, places where the property boom has managed to elude.

Neither were public figures known to the media, so we can't say for certain what their politics were. But they were likely very different and not just on Northern Ireland.

Mark comes from an area which backs Israel. There is strong support for the Palestinians among Whitewell Road nationalists. But both areas share a strong dislike of the government and police.

The teenagers' lives were strikingly similar. Neither had shone academically at school and university wasn't on the agenda. Neither were married but both had families.

Gerard Lawlor was going out with Siobhan and was father to 18-month old Josh. Mark Blaney has an 11-month old son Michael with his girlfriend Angela. Mark liked to play soccer and Gerard played Gaelic football for St Enda's GAA.

Gerard Lawlor was just 100 yards from his home on Sunday night when his killers spotted him. His Celtic shirt sealed his fate. He was shot at least five times by the UDA. He died at the scene.

Mark Blaney was standing in Glenbryn Park a few hours earlier when he was shot by the INLA. His girlfriend saw him fall to the ground. Unlike Gerard, Mark lived - although he lost six pints of blood and it took surgeons at the Mater Hospital eight hours to save his leg.

There was a vigil for Gerard on Tuesday and a big turnout is expected at his funeral today. Yet in a few weeks, his name will be forgotten by all but his family and friends. It would have been no different for Mark Blaney had he died.

During this conflict, 40 per cent of killings have occurred in working-class north and west Belfast. Ardoyne alone has lost more than 180 residents. In 1993, I spent time in north Belfast in the immediate aftermath of the Shankill bomb. The sectarianism, political divisions and bitterness were over-powering.

Nine years later those feelings are as strong, if not stronger, than ever. It's an awful testimony to our society that, despite our much vaunted ''peace'' process, this is the case.

Many of those involved in community life in north Belfast - from the DUP to the Irish Republican Socialist Party - say the situation has deteriorated since the Belfast Agreement.

As local MP Nigel Dodds points out, the Agreement brought stability for the political establishment but the opposite for working-class communities. Both nationalists and unionists were encouraged to believe, by their governments and mainstream political leaders, that they had won.

So both watched unfolding events closely. Marches, flags and symbols became more important than ever. An intense rivalry developed. Every event was interpreted as a triumph or a defeat.

A victory for once side had to be a loss for the other. In north Belfast, where the communities live cheek-by-jowl, this is highly dangerous.

Despite the British government's public hand-wringing over recent violence, the situation on our streets cannot be divorced from its political strategy. Somehow, I reckon there won't be a rethink.

Tony Blair might speak in eloquent and pious tones in the House of Commons, but who believes he really cares about the likes of Gerard Lawlor and Mark Blaney?

This article appeared in the July 25, 2002 edition of the News Letter.

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