Belfast, a city I wouldn’t have dared visit 10 years ago left a big impression on me in many ways. Firstly it was really, really cold. And windy. And rainy. Of course, it is the northernmost of the island of Ireland’s capitals on the same latitude as Scotland, and I was still suffering from the tail end of the fluey thing, and I did get wet butr I can’t remember feeling this cold before on my trip. Perhaps the very friendly Irishman making my coffee on the ferry to Stranraer (Scotland) summed it up best. He visited Australia (Sydney and Mandurah, WA) in January and February. “God I was so depressed when I got home,” he said. Although I had some difficulty deciphering our conversation – the Belfast accent is the difficult Irish one – the one that seems to almost be a cross with Scottish. He was cute too but alas our conversation was interrupted by him doing his job. He probably had a girlfriend anyway. Single Irishmen seem to be a bit thin on the ground.
The people in Belfast are extremely welcoming and friendly, keen to spread word to the world that Belfast is a vibrant modern city that lives in peaceful harmony, that the ‘troubles’ are behind them and that everybody lives happily together. But Belfast is still a city divided. Over the years the conflict here has drifted in and out of my consciousness prompted by TV news reports, films, people who’ve come into my life (including Irish neighbours while I was growing up), music and just my general interest in politics and political history. So I knew who had died, where they had died and the decades of political struggles between the two communities in Northern Ireland and the hundreds of years of struggles between the two countries.
What I wasn’t prepared for was the wall. While Berlin has an outdoor museum deploring the culture that brought about its long-demolished wall, there’s a wall, probably five metres high made out of what look like the same concrete panels, with corrugated iron and razorwire atop it running down the centre of west Belfast. While the city centre and many other areas of Belfast can be traversed freely, this wall that separates the staunch protestant (and Ulster Unionist) community around Shankill Road from the staunch catholic (and Republican) community around the Falls Road can be crossed in only two places and even these entrances have gates that can be locked down when trouble starts like during the marching season. [‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ – U2 – this just seemed appropriate somehow, even though U2 are from Dublin and this song describes an incident in Derry]
The thing you don’t expect is how close and how different the two communities are. Both roads run west from the city centre and at some points are less than a couple of minutes walk apart. Another road runs in the same direction between them – it is on the edge of the unionist side and the wall runs along its edge. I knew there would be murals but I didn’t realise how many. On both sides of the wall almost every spare expanse of wall has a mural painted on it. Alongside the murals commemorating deaths during the troubles and declaring streets and housing estates as Unionist or Republican held, there are anti- Iraq War protests, homages to Che Guvera and in some spots, where particularly millitant murals have been painted over, in a sign that things are calm enough for commercial interests to take over, murals advertising local businesses.
I took a walk down Shankill Road and while I took some photos of the murals, I felt like an intruder into something that is a very personal conflict here – and a fragile peace that could break at any moment. The shops along Shankill Road sell any number of English products, including football gear for teas like ManU and Chelsea. You actually get the feeling you are wandering through an ex-pat community, as if it was the Indian quarter or a China Town. There is a focus on white trim, often with shutters and English gardens on this side of the wall. Down closer to the wall, there are once vacant houses being redeveloped and on the morning I walked through, there was a real estate agent showing a couple through one of them, while another had a moving van out front unloading furniture. There are signs all over Belfast declaring various building projects like this one as ‘urban regeneration projects’ supported by the council. After my stroll through here, I hit the wall and wandere3d along it, back toward town, to find an entrance through.
From here I strolled up and down the Falls Road. Belfast famously has black taxis which will take you on tours of the city. On the Falls Road they have green taxis (albeit shaped like the black ones with a coat of paint). There were also foot tours you could take with a guide but rather than get taken to the places someone else chose to show me, I was happy to wander around the town. The shops along the Falls Road couldn’t be more different to the ones in Shankill Road. To begin with, most of the have their names displayed in Gaelic as well as English, there are a number of Irish cultural stores and services, a Sinn Fein shopfront and even a gift store with pro-republican merch (Lots of T-shirts with Bobby Sands and more Che Guevarra T-shirts than a student rally, even T-shirts with Sinn Fein on them. I thought for five minutes about buying one but then realised I’m not sure where I would wear it. It felt a bit too much like jumping on a bandwagon once it had well and truly left town. I was going to buy a really cool pin but they had none left and wouldn’t sell me the display one – It was a celtic cross with doves at the base. [‘New Year’s Day’ – U2, back before Bono had his sunglasses surgically attached and back when they were making music about the trouble in their own country rather than ntrying to save the world – back when I liked them best.]
The thing that strikes you walking around Belfast is the amount of shops and businesses (as well as suburban areas) that are protected by razor or barbed wire. I went to wander into a very old graveyard just north of the troubled areas, perhaps one with victims or heroes, perhaps not but at any rate, it was padlocked and the top of the fence was wrapped in razorwire and where they ran out of that, in barbed wire. It really left a huge impression on me about how lucky we really are to live somewhere as comfortable and safe as Australia (and as warm).
After my cultural tour it was time for a very late lunch and to sit somewhere warm for a while. I enjoyed a big bowl of homemade carrot and pumpkin soup and a mug of tea. I think there will be more tea when I return. I am really enjoying tea. However, it is debatable whether tea will be the 10am pick-me-up I require to deal with whatever crisis presents itself on any given working day. But for now, the relaxing, warming quality of a good strong cuppa is fitting in with my traveling just fine.
As I went straight onto my impressions of Belfast, I skipped relating my Belfast food experience. For breakfast I enjoyed an Ulster Fry. In Noirthern Ireland it appears just about everything is fried so I thought if I’m going to try something fried, it should probably be breakfast and a traditional one at that – the main part is the same as we would serve with an egg, a sausage, two pieces of bacon and a tomato. But it also comes with baked beans (like in England) and soda and potato bread. Soda bread is a dense bread made with baking soda and buttermilk instead of yeast. It was then pan fried and crispier than regular bread. Poytato bread, though, is something I remember from my childhood. It is more bread-like than a hash brown as it actually contains flour.My aforementioned neighbours – one from the Republic and brought up in England and the other from Northern Ireland, used to cook these regularly and just like her kids came around to our place when they knew waffles were o offer for tea, so I went around there when I knew they were making potato bread. My only regret was that I had to leave too early the following morning to have potato bread again. A mission when I get home – find a recipe.
After my late lunch, I wandered around a bit more and then it started raining. Now Belfast rain when it comes doesn’t feel heavy but it is constant and by the time I got back to the hostel I was cold and wet. Firstly I had chosen to wear my jeans again and they just soaked the water up. My new thick woolen hat soaks in quite a bit of rain but eventually it started dripping as well. And as I had packed the puffy jacket away, I was wearing my repel fleece jacket. Now it did a good job of repelling but it was also soaked through by the time I got back. I had planned to go and find the big fish at the harbour (given my interest in big things that was probably fairly predictable). I had also planned to try and find the restaurant that featured Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams burgers on its menu. Instead I curled up in my tracksuit and did some washing while I had the opportunity of a laundry on the premises.
After I warmed up and my chores were done, I headed out to find some dinner – I had planned to grab some Indian takeaway and go back to the hostel but I couldn’t find anything that appealed. Then I found the nice looking restaurant with roast beef on offer for 9 pounds so I sat down and ordered. Just after my dinner arrived these two Irishmen – a Dad and his son (George and Steven respectively) sat down next to me for dinner and started chatting. George was a builder – he had friends in Australia and had always wanted to go there. Steven had been working in Liverpool for the past three years but met a girl from Belfast there and so they came home. They chatted with me throughout my meal, about Australia, about Belfast and about Chopper. It made for a more interesting dinner than I’d had since Venice although George was one of those blokes that doesn’t really listen to what you say because he was too busy talking, I thought they were just being friendly or maybe even angling for a free place to stay in Australia, Then I realised George was hitting on me (I can be pretty thick when it comes to these things). I decided it was the right time to bid farewell. To George and Steven and to Belfast.
I agree with you 100% about U2. I’m definately an old album girl myself. I kind of lost interest when they did all the ‘Pop’ rubbish. ‘Unforgettable Fire’ is my favourite album.