Day 16–18: Belfast – much more than the Titanic
Travel is supposed to broaden the mind, but I think the most important effect should be to sharpen one’s curiosity. We haven’t visited a place in all our journeys where we haven’t wanted to find out more — more about the history, more about the geography, the people, the culture. Like so many other places the North, it owes its origins to Plantation and the importation of an English and Scottish population. It’s wealth was founded on the production of flax by cheap agricultural labour and linen by cheap industrial labour (mostly Catholic), exported with cheap provisions to the slave colonies in the West Indies, and used to purchase imports back to Britain. Industrial growth brought wealth to the Protestant majority in the city, empowered the Orange Order, and provided an impetus to the Volunteers that were to oppose Home Rule before the First World War. What we saw were the fossilised remains of the old industries, the dormant tensions between the communities, and the money that still appears to flow into the city. It has been a fascinating few days.
The Titanic Exhibition was a given, but we wanted to see more of the town and understand its recent history. We found a brilliant tour company to take the two of us around the Peace Wall and the main divided areas of Belfast, Shankill Road and Falls Road. Cab Tours took us around — great company, owned by a Catholic and a Protestant. We were taken to the communities and shown the murals and told the stories.
Particularly on the Protestant side, the appropriation of military language was confronting. If we are smiling, it’s because the memorial to ‘Top Gun’ McKeag (the most successful hit man in this community) is like the Mona Lisa: the eyes and the guns follow you. The Good Friday Agreement has had its successes, like the mural of the Peace Quilt produced by Shankill Road women, but the Peace Wall stands, taller than Berlin’s ever was, and the gates still close at night and on Sundays. The communities have learned to work together, but they can’t live together.
We loved Belfast, and so much of the story came in to focus once you stood in ground zero. The Catholic side was perhaps sadder, with the memories reaching back a century.
Bombay Street is ground zero: the burning of houses here in 1969 was the spark that began the troubles and resulted in the formation of the Provisional IRA. It’s an appalling litany of death, injury and destruction; the dead on both sides were the victims of terrorism, and the more one learns about the history, the more one sees British politics rather the enmity of communities as the ultimate cause. Neither the UDF nor the PIRA used rubber bullets. But the murals, the wall and the memorials to the dead on both sides were shocking and sad. Lord, may that Peace Accord hold: another 25 years and the dead may sleep quietly.
Once you know how to spot the neighbourhoods, you can’t unsee the divisions: the union flags and bunting in the Protestant areas, the lilies and the Gaelic street names in the Catholic. A block is all that might separate them, but the memories aren’t yet faded. Yet it’s a grand town with friendly people, but history is hard to forget.
