In Mojo Mickybo, we witnessed the tale of a childhood friendship destroyed by the long-standing tensions between Protestant Unionists and Catholic Nationalists in Northern Ireland.
Mojo, a young Protestant boy, and Mickybo, a Catholic boy, seemed to transcend the brutal conflict that defined the region during “the Troubles” by being friends. However, at the end of the play, the boys get into a fight and later ignore each other as adults; the end of their friendship showed that the Unionist–Nationalist divide was too much for them to overcome.
Mojo Mickybo demonstrated that Northern Ireland during the Troubles was an impossible place for kids to be able to grow up as children. The action that the boys admired in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was actually somewhat present in their lives. Mickybo’s dad was killed and often they would go to sleep to the sound of bombs exploding. They simply could not escape the conflict.
Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote that one of the greatest threats facing the US Civil Rights Movement was the white moderate. He was afraid of the danger that white moderates who were too afraid to get involved presented. He said this because what the white moderate didn’t entirely comprehend was that the problems black people faced affected nearly every single part of their lives; it wasn’t just a political issue.
Mojo Mickybo is an example of that same concept. The sectarian divide in Northern Ireland affected everything from marriages to childhood friendships. Two boys ultimately couldn’t get along because of which side of the bridge they grew up on. The conflict in Northern Ireland and America during the 60’s and 70’s affected real people’s lives on a deeply personal level. It was inevitable.
Your argument is that because the problems faced by black people in America and Catholic Nationalists in Ireland were on a deep, personal level, violent conflict was inevitable. This makes sense especially because groups like the white moderates created so much frustration in the Civil Rights movement. However, is violence the rational thing to do? This is a broad question, but we can find some clues in Mojo Mickybo. Mojo Mickybo debuted in 1998, the same year as when the Good Friday Agreement was signed. The general tone is a reflective one. It seems like the fact that Mojo and Mickybo ignored each other years later not only suggested a deep divide between Protestants and Catholics, but also that years of violence resulted in little improvement. Although the Good Friday Agreement was far from the solution, it at least reduced the collateral damage from the violence and fear. Perhaps McCafferty was suggesting that nonviolence procedures were still the only way to solve the problem, even though it is extremely easy to ignite violence.