Hard Gospel exhibition hopes to break paramilitary past

After years of being associated with loyalist paramilitaries, the Rathcoole estate in Newtownabbey, north Belfast, is about to display another side of life.

Called "Our Kind of People", a four-day exhibition highlighting the success stories of people born and brought up in the area is to be held, documenting the life stories of 85 people.

Some of the participants still live in Northern Ireland while others have forged successful careers in countries around the world. They include the former Northern Ireland and Manchester United footballer Jimmy Nicholl, the BBC sports commentator Alan Green, the playwright Gary Mitchell and George McKim, a former loyalist paramilitary who is now senior pastor of the Whitewell Metropolitan Tabernacle.

The exhibition is being organised by the Church of Ireland's Hard Gospel Project in conjunction with St Comgall's Parish in Rathcoole, and will be officially opened by North Belfast MP and DUP MLA Nigel Dodds next Monday.

"Rathcoole has suffered from low employment and a poor take-up of training and third-level education for a long time," said Stephen Dallas, the Hard Gospel Project's Northern Ireland officer.

"St Comgall's, along with other churches in the area, are trying to highlight the difference that education and training has made in the lives of the people included in the exhibition. We hope to inspire others to have a bigger vision of what is possible."

The Hard Gospel Project was founded by the Church of Ireland to help counter sectarianism and racism, and to find fresh ways of developing a shared future in the Ireland of the 21st century.

The exhibition will run until Thursday 29 November.