Belfast Divided

Ireland is a country quite dear to my heart. The first time I came to her green isle shores was in 2002 with my best friend and his folks. We did the quintessential Irish tour. 10 days starting in Dublin, proceeding due west to dingle and on around the southern shore line making our way back to Dublin for St. Patty's day. Fairytale bed and breakfasts, full Irish breakfasts, proper fish and chips for dinner and of course countless pints for the 'strength' required to complete the trip. An unforgettable experience that I'll make sure to bore my children's children with long after I've lost my mind in an easy chair. For about the same price as a souvenir shamrock t-shirt from the Guinness factory in Dublin, you can buy yourself a one way ticket on a 3 hour bus that drops you off smack dab in the middle of a civil war. The shirt I bought in 2002 is nice and all, but this trip I chose the bus.

A mate of mine in Lund, whose from Manhattan, decided it was long overdue for him to hit the shores of the land of the leprechaun. I opted to 'guide' the event as I had been there before. Early Thursday we hit the road. One hour train to Copenhagen, 2 hour flight to Dublin and a 30 minute bus ride to the city center; we were ready for a celebratory pint in the city that Arthur Guinness built. We toured the city on foot, hitting all the major sites to see. Trinity College, the book of kells library, Grafton Street walking mall, Marion Square, St. Patrick's cathedral, temple bar area, St. Stephen's Green, Bank of Ireland, boardwalk on the River Liffey, and of course the gravity bar at the Guinness Storehouse where we watched the sun set from the highest point in Dublin. Yes, we saw it all (and it was pretty much as I left it 6 years ago). After checking in to our hostel (10 euro/night per bed) it was time to revamp and get ready to go see the other tourist sites in Dublin...the pubs. Oddly enough the one mainstay of Dublin (the pubs) is what has changed the most since I last bellied up. The crowd was younger (maybe I'm older) and uninterested. The old men that dotted the wooden institutions of the historic city seem to have disappeared (or died). You can't find a true peat fire near a quaint in all of downtown, and the only cabbage that I saw was part of a trio of vegetables that were adorn as costumes on some pear shaped Irish gals that skulled a few too many pints in their prime (which are now long gone). McFadden’s and O'Sullivans are being replaced by Jimmy Chong Thai Buffets and Abrakababarah Turkish Falafel houses.

After a night of pints and John Denver cover songs it was time to head north....destination Belfast. Here's where things got interesting....2 plus hour bus ride from Dublin city center and you're in the UK. No more Euro my friend, this is the Queen's country where a pint costs you a pound and some pence. The bus dropped us in the middle of the modernized city center. The first task...cash. We needed to pull out some pounds as the money bouquet (Euro, Swedish kronor, Danish kroner) we had was no good here. The first thing I noticed (besides the out of order sign on the ATM) was that the bank notes in Belfast aren't actual pounds. They're this hybrid of GBP and stamped money printed from the actual banks in Belfast. I'll have to research it more, but I think it's basically the Queen's form of allowance to her Irish neighbors. After we grabbed cash it was time for a pint (of course). We found ourselves at the Crown Bar across the street from the Europa hotel. This place is amazing...words do it no justice. The booths where you eat have chest level half walls that surround the tables with a door that closes you and your dinner mates in so you can talk in private. The ceiling and bar back are paneled with carved wood stained blood red. Every window is a stained glass masterpiece. It's just the kind of place that the IRA (Irish Republican Army) would have hatched their latest fire bomb, or perhaps watched it smolder from as the hotel Europa (across the stree) has been bombed 34 times during the conflict. After some pints and some stew we moved on to explore the city. The north side has a great metropolitan feel with loads of renovated modern buildings that pepper the main drags. Further south (where the city gets seedy in a hurry) lays Queen's college, which overlooks a big central green. Queen's is an imposing and intimidating looking institution that would make any student think twice about a spit ball or pissing off a morning class from too many pints the night before. The college campus dropped us right on top of our room and board for the night. Yet another hell hole hostel with bunk beds and 12 of your (newest) friends. We revamped and it was time to hit the streets. Halloween night was in the air. We didn't make it 50 yards before we saw our first fist fight. Apparently there was a big footie (soccer) game tomorrow and the local 'queens men' were influencing the outcome a night early. 6 blocks of broken bottles, trash littered across the street, windows in all the buildings knocked out and no street lights, we finally hit the main drag again. We somehow stumbled into a place named John Hewitt's bar. Classic local dive. Jazz music pumped from the true wooden instruments of the 4 man band, resonated off the walls and landed square in the foam on your Guinness. This was a get in and blend in kind of place. I quickly spotted an older couple with a lovely daughter that my mate took a keen eye to. I noticed they had a bit of available real estate at the corner of their table, so why not introduce myself. I took the mum head on, handed her my hand and said hello. To my delight she offered up the available spot to her starboard. I obliged and quickly extended an olive branch to her husband across the stool. Once I had the corner secured I motioned for my mate and he made the move for the daughter. Brilliant! Apparently the husband was a local blues musician that carried some clout. It was a steady flow of locals coming over to pay their respects, at the same time giving us ours (guilt by association). We followed our new found family to a hole in the wall known as The Spaniard. It was a classic place. Two floors, cheap pints, and not a tout (IRA narc) in sight. At this point we were 10 strong as a group and my new best friend was the ugliest looking lad in Belfast weighing in at a bit over an iron cannon. It turns out his good looks weren't the only thing this guy had going for him. He's also the owner of a pub not too far from where we were located. Our next stop, and so it goes....

The next morning my mate woke up with a head in need of a full Irish breakfast. Apparently the blues mans' daughter doesn't play nice and likes her pints by the dozen. He should have spent more time shouldered with me taking in some foul jokes about the Queen. After a bite at the open air market it was time for a black cab tour. This is one of the things I was a bit unsure about doing as it was expensive, involved a car, and seemed like a tourist trap...boy was I wrong. Our cabbie for the deal was a rounded off god fearing Catholic gent that's been driving cab his entire adult life...going on 40 years now. We headed off for the north of town....Shankill Road. This place is probably 4 city blocks from the metropolitan center of the city. Again, broken windows, glass throughout the city 'park', hills of random dirt that look like foxholes for fighting and random shit thrown about. Not exactly the place you brave an Irish tricolor (flag) on your shirt. There are giant murals on the sides of the brownstone row houses. Each mural signifies different killings, militia groups, and loyalist activists that were either killed in battle or are still in passive operation today. A strangely surreal place. While none of these are easy to take in, perhaps the most disturbing is a painted image of a hooded sniper with a shouldered rifle that 'follows' you around the park as you walk. No matter where you are on Shankill, if you can see the mural of the sniper he's got a bead on you. I watched a 'slightly chubby' kid about 12 years old kick around a half flat football beside a backdrop of a two story mural dedicated to Stevie 'Top Gun' McKeag who's a hero in this part of the world. Stevie murdered 14 (identified) people as the commander of the Red Hand Commando....He died in 2000, a hero on Shankill. Around every corner there's a full mural with the Queen's mark. Names of 'soldiers' lost from each neighborhood have plaques built in front of their families homes just in case the kids and grandchildren ever forget. At closing time of the local pubs everyone rises and sings 'god save the Queen' before they go home. Make sure you know the words if you go.

Our tour continued to the edge of the protestant part of town. Here there is a massive steel wall that dominates the skyline. It stands 20'-30' tall and is a solid barrier to keep trouble segregated to it's own side of the city. There are big gates at the ends of the streets that connect the two sides. On Friday evening the city closes the gates and doesn't reopen them until Sunday morning. The wall that separates the two sides is littered with graffiti and paintings... some promote hate, other promote peace. An awkward scar on the landscape of the city, and a constant reminder that a maltove cocktail is only a throw away. We drove around the barriers to the Irish side of the city to continue our tour. Here the place was much cleaner. The row houses had similar murals and memorials, but all and all it was a likeable place. Gardens were well kept and the monuments looked much nicer than the hooligan fueled mosaics on the other side of the wall. Our guide made it a priority to insert his biased beliefs into the tour by making an extra point of noticing how many innocent children and woman had been killed in the random (and sometimes organized) acts of violence. The lists were astounding and the point was made. Further down the same neighborhood giant murals promoting peace and bringing attention to global injustice became the theme. A strong message is clearly spelled in paint as the title reads America's Greatest Failure. The picture is of Bush with money bubbles spewing from his ears as he sucks from a straw hooked to a well in a smoldering middle east which lay in ruins. The straw is supported by a 'British support hook'.

Our guide left us with one last story about a building that looked very eastern block. Grey concrete, no real windows to note, square, and completely boring. Its function was the headquarters for the IRA commanders to run their efforts from. Entrenched among Irish supporters who lived in the building, the commanders were able to shot call from a high perch above the city. The building itself has a full length garbage shoot that was occasionally used as a human garbage disposal for any bodies that may need rid. A strange departing story to a strange city that still has a long ways to go to bury (no pun intended) the ills of its past.

While Belfast is defiantly not the Belfast of old (according to those who we spoke to), the city is still on edge with its relatively youthful 'peace status' established a decade ago. As a sign of the times a lady, whom offered to help us find where we were going on a map, offered us some sound advice about the parade that was scheduled for the city on Sunday. The parade was a homecoming for the British military returning from battle in the middle east. She wanted to make sure we weren't planning to be around for it. Her fear was not that there was going to be any issues (despite the massive security increase in the city). Her fear was that if the unlikely outcome of violence happened, we wouldn't have had any means to any arms to take up ahead of time. She wasn't taking that chance and planned to be 'ready' for the event.

Belfast is an interesting place in an interesting country. With any luck the divides of the old will shed way to the hope of the now and bring the sides together to formally bury the hatchet once and for all. Belfast could become the Berlin of the Irish isle at which point everyone wins. A last quote from a mural on the Catholic side was next to the most photographed painting in Belfast; the mural of Bobby Sands. Bobby Sands was an IRA volunteer who died on hunger strike in a British detention facility after capture for having arms in his possession. His 1981 death spawned an uprising in the independence movement and the activity and recruitment of the IRA. His death was felt across Europe as reactions to the news caused outrage in many nations. The words he spoke, captured on his mural, read "our revenge will be the laughter of our children."