Themmuns

›Themmuns‹ is a photo project by Jens Schwarz. Themmuns [ðɛmʌns]: term, slang word for ›them ones‹, the opposing side in Northern Ireland debates among Catholic Irish Republicans and Protestant Loyalists. Fellow members of one‘s own side are known as ›ussuns‹. With UK’s 2016 Brexit referendum Nothern Ireland will have to leave the Eropean Union although a majority of its citizens voted to remain. Local Protestant Loyalists predominantly supported Brexit whereas the other fraction of mainly Catholic Irish Republicans were against it. After more than 30 Years of conflict during the so called ›Troubles‹ one of the fundamentals of the Peace Process declared in the 1998 Good Friday Aggreement is the open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland – wich will, in a post Brexit scenario become an external border of the European Union. Now there is serious concern that such a hard border was very likely to undermine and threaten the peace process in Northern Ireland. Especially the future prospects of the young generation could be negativley affected if old confessional and ethnopolitical lines of cleavage were opened up again.