Eurojournal-20 Sept 2006 (Belfast, Northern Ireland)

Today we went on a black Taxi tour of Belfast. We saw toured the Shankhill and Falls neighborhoods. Shankhill neighborhood is the highest concentrations of Protestants and Falls is catholic. 85% of schoolchildren in Northern Ireland are segregated according to religion. The schools are state schools which are predominantly Protestant. Some schools are mixed meaning that if one is Catholic, they do not have to partake in Protestant religious lessons. There is no separation of church and state here. If a person’s religion is something other than catholic or Protestant, people will ask if they are(let’s say they are Muslim) are Catholic Muslim or Protestant Muslim classified by what neighborhood they reside. Certain places are mixed like the city center and the neighborhood where we were staying. Others are not. The Protestant neighborhoods are clearly marked by waving the union jack flag (British) and one neighborhood had their curbs painted red white and blue. The Catholic areas are not so obvious. We drove on a main road separating the neighborhoods. All police stations are heavily walled. Neighborhoods are fenced.

We first visited Shankhill, the Protestant area. Shankhill means old church. Murals were everywhere in this neighborhood. People are very tight knit here and have been for generations. It was a normal green grassy neighborhood with townhouses. On the sides of the townhouse buildings were the murals. One honored the factions fighting for the Protestants. According to the guide they are illegal. Their guns are not obtained legally. One of them is called the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) another is the Ulster Voluntary Force (UVF). Two murals were memorials dedicated to specific men who died. One man was murdered by the UVF, demonstrating infighting within. The most disturbing mural was that of a person in a black ski mask with a gun pointed at us. No matter where we went the gun pointed at us. This mural lets people know that they are being watched.

We came upon the Peace wall. This was built by the British Government in the 1970’s as a result of heavy fighting. It was so bad that the British sent in “peacekeeping” forces to build these walls. Even now, at night the gates are closed. All over the walls are murals and peoples’ names form all over the world. People from Canada, Australia, Africa. Our guide gave us a marker and said while he cannot encourage vandalism, he has a marker if we would like to write something. We took it and looked at the wall in amazement. The small murals were historical accounts. The rest of the wall were names. Each of us added our name. Luna wrote a peace sign in hers. Quite powerful.

We proceeded to the Falls neighborhood, the largest of all Catholic neighborhoods. It was not as obvious. Behind the peace wall the Catholic houses lie very close. We saw a string of murals in the neighborhood. Just for clarity, not the same as the place wall or even near. The first mural was that of Kieran Nugent also known as the first blanketman. He began the protests as a political prisoner which lead to the hunger strikes later. I recommend watching the movie Some Mother’s Son with Helen Mirren to understand the hunger strikes. Next was about Palestine. Another was a tribute to Irish POWs, Frederick Douglass, and Bodenstown. The Bodenstown mural had a picture of the president of Sinn Fein who was killed by Protestants in the 1970’s. Another mural had Bobby Sands and two spaces were dedicated to George Bush. Bush is sucking the oil out of the Middle East. Ah, Byron and I took humor in that one. It stared a discussion on what the Irish think of him. Our guide was clear that no one really likes him and definitely no one supports the war regardless of Catholic or Protestant. He said that the Catholics do not support the troops or invasion whereas the Protestants do not support the invasion but will support the troops. The Catholics and Protestants also agree on English futbal (soccer).

We passed by the Europa hotel which is the most bombed building I Europe. I asked the guy if he had fear living here and he said it was like where we are in CA with earthquakes. We really don’t think about them. A little timeline or at least my understanding of it. This whole problem began in 1606 when the Protestants came to Ireland. Later the issue with Britain came adding to the problems. 1916 was The Easter uprising or Bloody Sunday. 1988 was the worst bombing. 1994 there was “peace.” With only a few bombings since then. I am hoping to do more work on this and write more. What was really interesting is I have always heard about the IRA as a terrorist group in the states. Yet I have never heard of the UVF or UFF. Both sides have their paramilitary forces yet the US considers only one on the list of terrorists. Perhaps the other groups are considered as well but not as famous in US media. I wonder why. Is it because the protestants groups are aligned with British forces?

Sooooo..after our tour we returned to the hostel to finish laundry and check out. We ate lunch at a Chinese restaurant. We arrived in Dublin and walked around the city foraging for food. We found the Dublin castle which was pretty neat. It’s a cute city and rather mellow. Though I was tired and cranky, everyone else was relaxed and polite.


First two murals are form the falls nieghborhood (Catholic) and last two are the Shankhill (Protestant)