The Murals of Belfast

Just wanted to clear something about some of the things I write. For one, these posts are in no way meant to summarize a location, it’s people or culture. Furthermore, they don’t summarize everything that I’ve experienced in these places because most experiences simply can’t and shouldn’t be recorded in any tangible form.

I felt it was necessary to put that out there as I write about Belfast. For those who don’t know I suggest you read up on the history of Northern Ireland. Up until the past couple of years there was great strife in the city between the Loyalist Protestants and the Republican Catholics, with many innocent casualties on both sides. Nowadays the peace seems to be holding and the time of troubles has ended. However, the relics of this fighting is evident in the murals, peace walls and over all feel of the city.

Belfast is no war zone. At the center it appears to be a bustling city of the United Kingdom with well dressed cosmopolitan inhabitants on their way to work or school. Busses, taxis and cars crowding the streets. Electric advertisements, beeping crosswalks and fast food restaurants line the streets. The buildings also have the air of the Royal style so often personified in the media’s depiction. This was truly a different country.

This was the City Centre, but my real interest was elsewhere. After getting some directions from my hosts, I decided to head to West Belfast, the location of some of the more publicized aggressions between Catholics and Protestants.

The walk up to Shankhill Road was a quick one but you realize where you are very quickly once you start seeing the British Union Jack and the white and red English flag draped from houses. The real evidence is off of the main street onto the side streets and alley ways where you can see the giant murals painted on the sides of houses. Though most are commemorations of people who have died, others are powerful images of masked gun men, Oliver Cromwell and many feature the image of a red hand.

When traveling one has to remind himself to not judge, merely observe and try to understand. The truth is, standing there in a row of houses looking at such powerful images and thinking about their meaning was a bit surreal, considering this was a modern British city. Granted, at no point did I feel in danger standing in this place, but it did occur to me that a Catholic person would not dare step into this neighborhood as a protestant wouldn’t dare step onto Springfield Ave the adjacent Catholic area.

Towards the end of the main thoroughfare on Shankhill Road you come up to Lanard Way which crosses perpendicularly and leads through one of the main gates in the Peace Wall in that area. I was told there are roughly 17 such walls separating neighborhoods all over the city. With the most recent one only going up a few years ago, this one is one of the older ones. The wall, as shown in picture, goes rather high and is littered with graffiti. Facing such a wall in such a modern city makes one think of other walls separating people in other cities worldwide.

Springfield Avenue as a neighborhood quite resembles Shankhill with the difference being the content of the these murals. Avoiding all bias, there is a clear absence of gun men in these depictions. Rather, memorials of people who have fallen in the troubles, along with some Catholic imagery. Here there is also a presence of Celtic style pubs and the Irish tricolor hanging from businesses. Though this imagery appears to be quite less violent it behooves one to know that this is the domicile of the I.R.A., a group that has committed an equal amount of violence to the opposition.

All in all the experience was quite eye opening. Having decided to make a loop around the Island I’d come expecting to find a city somewhat similar to the other places I’d visited in Ireland. What I found was a completely different country with it’s own story to tell. Let me remind you that different doesn’t mean bad. The strangers that started talking to me in the pubs after hearing my American accent were no less curious and friendly then those in the pubs of Donegal. They all wished me a happy stay in the North and were free with their laughter and recommendations. It was this warmth and kindness which created the strange juxtaposition to the suffering sowed here.

Sorry if this seems a bit disjointed, it's so hard to put something like this into words especially when you're surrounded by sun and palm trees.

As usual more photos at dimakay.fotki.com