Belfast

12-14

Belfast

Went up to Belfast with Seth today. Great day. This being said we spent four hours on a bus for a one hour tour but ehh, what are you going to do, pass up a free nights stay? I didn’t think so.

Belfast was great. We got a black cab tour. This was more or less a cabbie driving us around to a lot of the Murals in Belfast. We went the Shankhill road (protestant area) and down the Falls road (Catholic area). What I hadn’t realized was that they were so close together. Literally the two roads are 1 block from each other. The peace wall from that was erected under Tony Blair is still up dividing the two communities. On Sunday’s (today) the walls are closed and there is only one-way in and out of either communities. We had a protestant tour guide but he was very even handed. His brother was in the PSNI and had been killed in an IRA attack, but he was still very cool about the whole thing. It was really amazing.

The murals were very powerful. Many talked about historical events, or groups. Others were commentary on the way the world is today – one very anit-bush one reading “America’s greatest failure.” What was interesting was that the protestant murals seemed much more militaristic than the Catholic ones. They would show armed UDA and UVFers while the Catholic ones were almost all geared towards peace or History.

The whole thing was just really, really, bizarre. It wasn’t quite as creepy as Derry, but it still was very strange. To think that such a small, closed community could have such divisions is really just beyond me.

One interesting thing that the tour guide brought up was the difference between people who lived through the troubles and those who watched from the outside. He said it’s really easy for people who didn’t live it to talk up the rhetoric and not move on, but when you’re there day in and day out knowing that you might not come home from getting your groceries it’s easy to move on, it’s the only option.

I also got to meet Chris’s mom tonight. She was a bizarre little lady. Didn’t seem very happy, but nice I guess. She was put off by my Belfast Tour and couldn’t understand that a Protestant talked about both murals. She had left in 1972 and I think really felt like it was still 72 in the North.

Made it back to Chris’ watched some South park with his roommates and went to bed. Ready to go to Barcelona!