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Meeting
Dad off the Belfast ferry at Stranraer
My Dad used to work for the British government and he spent some time in Belfast during the height of the Troubles of the 70s, trying to help sort things out, I guess. Hopefully he'll tell you that story himself one day. I'm mentioning this so that you'll understand that Northern Ireland figured quite prominently in my early childhood. It wasn't just on a personal level, it's hard to imagine now but footage of hooded paramilitaries at republican funerals, bomb damage, Ian Paisley, Bernadette Devlin, kids killed by rubber bullets and English soldiers tear-gassing the streets were part of the everyday iconography as I grew up. Despite this, it wasn't until later in life that I began to think about what the Troubles were about. It still shocks me that, other than being afraid of being blown up by a bomb, or condemnatory of the bombers, or wanting peace, few English people seem interested in what's been happening in Northern Ireland. And then, last Autumn, there was an exhibition which made me decide to go and have a deeper look at things. The Bogside Artists at the Horse Hospital The Horse Hospital hosted a travelling exhibition of the Bogside Artist's murals. Originally they were painted on the gables of houses in the working class republican Bogside area of Derry, also known on the loyalist map of Ireland as Londonderry. For this exhibition the images were printed onto giant wall-hangings. They were very moving, very powerful. It made me want to see them in their home context, and it reminded me of being a kid, being intrigued by the loyalist murals I saw on the news, wanting to but not understanding them. I knew I had to see more. Flutterin' flags The first thing I noticed as I drove myself and Simon in the hired car out of the airport and into Belfast, were the ragged Union Jacks on high flagpoles alongside certain sections of road. Later we saw the odd tricolour. It was the week before the elections, and campaign posters were everywhere. Maybe it's usually quite hard to know what kind of neighbourhood you're in, but in republican areas we saw smiling Sinn Fein candidates, and in loyalist areas we saw posters for the Democratic Unionist Party, so we knew upon which side of the line we stood pretty much all the time. Vending There was a vending machine at our hotel containing sweets and booze. Something for everyone. Regeneration Belfast is undergoing a yuppification, if the city's publicity department is to be believed. People want to make a better life for themselves and their children. There's a fabulous new concert hall on the riverside, and bars and hotels too. We met up with my friend Ruth at one of the trendiest coffeeshops I've been to in years. It's all looking good - kind of. One street away from a shop selling Ikea-style furniture is Sandy Row, a neighbourhood bordered with red-white-and-blue painted kerbstones, the sign of a sectarian enclave. We ate a very good fry-up, featuring fresh and delicious soda bread, as we watched a scabby wino with snot pouring down his face get kicked out on the street by the café's bouncers. That's Belfast, we said to ourselves. We are Urbans On Saturday we drove the 60-odd miles over the beautiful Sperrin mountain range on our way to Derry. The sun shone, the roads were empty, the air was crisp, there were cute and vocal little birdies everywhere. I made a pathetic attempt to walk in nature - approximately 20 yards from the car before the mud stopped me - whilst Simon didn't even attempt that. Yes, in the immortal words of one of my Norwegian friends, we are Urbans. Police stations They are still heavily fortified. Even in the most miniscule village the police station will be protected by a huge wall of corrugated iron, miles of razor wire, a tall look-out post with cameras attached to it at every angle, and harbouring a generally oppressive atmosphere. Derry We did the obligatory city wall walk and were startled when mischievous locals said Hello to us, maybe they knew we were scared of them. The Tower Museum is excellent, we got a bit teary-eyed at the Undertones memorabilia proudly displayed there. Later we learned about the apprentice boys, and the Battle of the Boyne, which helped make sense of our ignorance of the Troubles, but it's hard to understand why these events, which took place over 300 years ago, are still the cause of strife today. People have a raw, living hatred of monarchs who died centuries ago, "No Surrender" is a statement of pride rather than inflexibility or the lack of a will to get on with others. I don't know how anybody can live with such bitterness. The Bogside As with all the working class sectarian neighbourhoods we visited, the place is plastered with dog shit and desperation. The houses are kept neat and nice, but the streets themselves are really grim. We saw a funeral procession make its way up the road. There's a plaque on a fucked-up pub, a tiny thing on an obscure corner commemorating the short life and death of a kid who was shot by the English. The murals are very potent, you can see them from the city walls. They are memorials, commentaries, sites of resistance and identity. It's no wonder that Derry is proud of them, they are remarkable. Free Derry Corner This is a real place, just down the way from the Bloody Sunday Memorial, and the H Block Monument. It's my favourite place in Derry, the end of a house from a row long gone. It's fierce and provocative. To me it represents resistance against the English, but it could also mean a lot of other less right-on things too. I don't know why it appeals to me so much, when No Surrender appals me. The Tower Hotel It's a bland business hotel where we stayed. There's an expensive restaurant where we ate overpriced and unimaginative food, plus a sauna on the top floor, in which we had a pre-dinner sweat, and a gym "overlooking the historic Bogside area," it said in the guide. It makes me wonder what the dirt poor inhabitants of the historic Bogside area make of yuppie tourists gazing down as they programme the step machines for a ten-minute workout. The North Antrim Coast It's very beautiful. We stopped at White Rocks Bay and wandered around in the sunshine. Further along is the Giant's Causeway, for which there are only two descriptive words I can summon: Fucking Awesome. We saw Scotland over the sea, and tried not to allow a 'Mull of Kintyre' earworm to plague us all afternoon. I scooted along switchback roads to Cushenden, partially designed by Clough Williams-Ellis, and then we were back in Belfast. West Belfast We got to the heart of the trip on Monday with a leisurely stroll through the Shankill (loyalist) and Falls (republican) areas via the charmingly named Peace Line. These places are packed with murals. They are pristine, often laughably naive in style, and very heavy and oppressive. They are great and terrible at the same time. I don't know how people live with them. Troubles Tourism We left Derry with a little plaster model of Free Derry Corner, which we bought in a tourist tat shop filled with leprechauns and shillelaghs, and Guinness fridge magnets, and all kinds of Oirish crapola. In Belfast I bought postcards of Bobby Sands in the main tourist office, and in Shankill you can get postcards and keyrings of parmilitary insignia, or little models of Orangemen, and marching ephemera. Taxi drivers take you on tours of the Peace Line, and there are open-topped bus trips around the Falls area. It's amazing to think of the Troubles being turned into a tourist feature, and you can't help hoping that this is the best result, that it'll strip the place of badness, lighten it up a little, and that the influx of visitors will make those who have invested in violence a bit more self-conscious and less certain that their way is the only way. Read more • Factotum publish The Annex, the best local paper in the land. • The BBC has a good section explaining some of the themes and issues surrounding the Troubles called The Search for Peace. • If the BBC is too annoying for you, visit CAIN - Conflict Archive on the Internet. It has a photographic archive that is second to none. |
                     
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