It is an important time for the Northern Ireland youth service. Links with the Republic of Ireland are growing and this is helping both countries improve their provision. A range of short-term funding sources are delivering windfalls at the doors of many community-based projects, while the council itself has about 2m a year to distribute to youth projects. And there is hope throughout the service that sectarianism can be defeated and Northern Ireland's young people given a decent start in life.
A degree in physics led Guilfoyle to teacher training and he started his professional life at a grammar school. But extracurricular youth work suited him better, so he switched to a full-time youth work position in 1977, a time when paramilitary activity was exercising a grip on daily life in Belfast and beyond. Guilfoyle worked at a youth club in a Protestant area of Shankill, in north Belfast, which was set up as an open club, but community segregation meant there was no chance of integration.
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