Ireland - Day 14 - June 18, 2013

What a beautiful day in Belfast.  I had the mental picture this morning of Robin Williams saying, "Good morning, Belfast" on my mind.  I know it's nowhere close to Vietnam, but that's just what popped in. I don't know why, but it just did.

After a hot breakfast, which have been few and far between on this journey, we set off for a Black Taxi tour of the city.  This company is a taxi company, but they specialize in their drivers giving tours with a personal connection...the drivers have lived it.  We began the tour in a neighborhood with painted murals on the sides of their buildings, much like Derry.  These murals are very moving because they are very vivid.  Not say those in Derry were not, but there was just something about these.  After analyzing them for a few minutes I realized the different.  The ones in Belfast are more militaristic in their tone.  The one below caught my attention the most.  This young man is being celebrated because he was known for murdering Catholics and the local Garda (police) had a hard time making any charges against him stick because of a lack of evidence, so therefore he never really legally paid for his crimes.

Here are several others...

This particular mural is kind of creepy, because no matter which way you walk the gun follows.

After looking at the murals, our drivers took us to a wall that separates the two religions communities. There are some 40 walls around Belfast to separate the religions.  Like London(Derry) the gates surrounding the communities are locked after 9:00 p.m. to keep the troublemakers at bay.  We take for granted too often the free world that we live in, but there are places in the world that live a restricted life.  There have been instances over the years to try and make the walls more peaceful by installing decorative artwork and allowing for peaceful and positive graffiti to be painted, but still instances happen.  As a matter of fact, the very night after our visit a petrol bomb was thrown over a wall very much like the ones we saw.  This is the story and since then (as of 6/24), there have been five more thrown.  To the outsider, it is hard to understand why the violence continues.

After the wall, our drivers drove us through the Catholic neighborhood behind the wall.  It is a very obvious difference between the two communities.  The Catholic community was more neatly kept and the people seemed to be more of a friendly community.  Maybe it was because they were all living within a walled neighborhood.  The northern part of Ireland is about 48% Catholic and 52% Protestant, even though Ireland is a predominately Catholic country.  It will be very interesting to bear witness to what changes will come to Northern Ireland when the Catholics become the majority.

Being a child of the 1970s and 1980s, I can remember a good bit of the new relative to the troubles in Northern Ireland.  Thinking back, I think the first I can remember hearing about was the hunger strikes that were going on.  The mural below is dedicated to the memory of Bobby Sands.

Bobby Sands was the first person to die in the hunger strikes of 1981.  He went 66 days without food, only talking in water when needed.  He was an Irish volunteer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).  The IRA prisoners were protesting against the removal of Special Category Status.  SCS was de facto prisoner of war status and would provide them with some of the "privileges" of POWs such as those specified in the Geneva Convention.  This mean they did not have to wear prison uniforms or do prison work, were housed within their paramilitary factions, and were allowed extra visits and food parcels.  While in prison, he was elected as a member of the British Parliament.  His death resulted in a new surge of IRA recruitment and activity.

The word above the eagle is "Saoirse" which means freedom

There is 2008 movie, Hunger, which depicts the events of this period.

The afternoon brought the group free time to just wander around the city and appreciate its beauty and historic importance.