A Matter of Perception

Sean Patrick O'Connell was the son of Donald and Mary Pat O'Connell. His was a middle-class upbringing in a middle-class neighborhood. Though he went off to college after high school graduation his performance was less than stellar. When he left college he volunteered to serve during the Vietnam War. His was an exemplary, though short, military career. At the war?s end he returned to school and did well. In his senior year he submitted a Fulbright Scholarship proposal which was approved. What distressed his family, classmates, school and the Fulbright committee was that his studies would place him in the midst of sectarian violence between Protestants and Catholics in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Sean had undertaken his study of The Troubles to discover a solution to three centuries of violence. What he could not have anticipated was that he would be thrust into the very center of the conflict.