Our day began in a haze of attempting to recall what exactly happened the night before (bucket list number 7). After checking out of the Ibis hotel, which was like sleeping in a steamy futuristic time capsule, we walked across the street to pack-up our rental car with all our bags. We had a bit of a set back when I forgot where I parked the VW Golf. Although my memory of what level I had parked the car on was a bit hazy, I knew for certain I had parked it next to an open window overlooking the street below, and the concrete parking spaces were painted green. Only after retracing our steps exactly from how I would have driven into the garage and walked up through the garage two levels, bags in hand did I realize where I had parked the car. A slightly frustrating set-back but we were quickly off...
Once the car was all loaded we went back down to the street corner to find one of the famous Black Taxis which offer tours of the two rival neighborhoods in Belfast, normally off-limits to tourists. After being introduced to our cabbie, Murphy, we headed out with a brief history lesson on the Troubles. Dan was a bit more knowledgable of the background of the Troubles and seemed to follow the thick Northern Ireland accent of Murphy much easier than I did, or maybe he just tuned him out. Basically, what I understood is that starting in the early 1700s Northern Ireland had a very brutal relationship with its colonial possessors, England. Murphy said that back in those days if you were Irish and not loyal to the crown, the English would have you shipped to the West Indies to work alongside the African slaves. Then in the late 1960s during America´s Civil Rights Movement, the Northern Irish Republicans began picketing and protesting in a similar fashion to MLK Jr´s marches on Birmingham and Washington. Since the late 1960s there have been outbursts of violence between the Protestant Loyalist neighborhood and the Catholic Republican neighborhood, which eventually led to a complete political upheaval in Northern Ireland. During this time, known as the Troubles, the IRA began a campaign of guerrilla warfare against the British police and military. Violence overtook the streets of Belfast and the footage from 1969 on Falls Road looked more like something from WWII. The Troubles eventually came to an end in 1993 with the signing of the Good Friday Peace Agreement.
We set off to tour the West Belfast neighborhoods with Murphy as our guide. Our first stop was in the Loyalist neighborhood, Shankill. This working-class neighborhood looked like a run-down project yard with trash scattered in the grass lawns and the houses not very well kept. Obviously most outsiders immediately notice the political murals painted on the ends of the apartment houses and the Union Jack flags flying on each doorstep. Some of the murals honored famous Loyalist commanders who were born and raised in Shankill, others were murals devoted to honoring the Queen of England and even Martin Luther, the founder of the Protestant Reformation. The one thing that sticks out in my mind during our tour of Shankill was not the murals, but rather the interment prison, Crumlin Road Gaol. We learned that Murphy had served time there as a political prisoner of war. During the Troubles the British implemented a program which made it legal to imprison Catholics, whom they believed to be dissenters, without any trial or due process. This internment without trial lasted nearly 35 years and many of the Irish Catholics died in Gaol prison without ever seeing any trial or jury.
After visiting Shankill and passing Falls End Church, the red-brick Protestant church which marks the southern boundary of the Loyalist neighborhood, we took a quick right turn and immediately we were in the Republican neighborhood known as The Falls. This neighborhood was much better kept, with beautiful flowers and green grass in the yards in front of the redbrick apartment buildings. The most impressive part of seeing The Falls was the murals for sure. These murals were lined along Divis Street, one after another, stretching for nearly one mile. These murals had similar themes to the Loyalist murals: tributes to political prisoners and those who died in the hunger strikes. But there were also murals that paid tribute to famous political revolutions around the world, including the Cuban Revolution and the Palestinian Conflict. After touring a museum dedicated to preserving the history of the Troubles and female POWs, we took a quick drive down to the Peace Line.
The Peace Line is a several mile-long street with high lofting walls, protected by razor wire on each side. The Peace Line is meant to be a dividing line, separating the two neighborhoods and protected under the Good Friday Agreement. Murphy mentioned that one day we may see these walls come down, but not until each side is ready to come to terms with the past. I was definitely struck by this somber cord and realized that these walls were placed to separate two warring neighborhoods that were divided based on their religion. And the saddest thing was that both sides worship the same God and are branches of the exact same religion. Obviously the national and political divisions play a significant role here as well, but really these two neighborhoods were warring and continue to harass each other based on their religious beliefs, which makes the Peace Line a very sad reminder to the brutality humans can inflict on each other in the name of religion. Murphy asked us to put our John Hancock on the wall and Dan and I both signed our names to honor the peace between these neighborhoods and recognize the struggle and political turmoil that continues to plague Belfast.
Murphy dropped us off right in front of our favorite pub in Belfast, The John Hewitt. After an excellent fish and chips and a quick pint, we were headed south to Dublin, on the final leg of our trip around Ireland.
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