Both Sides of Belfast

The View From My Beer

Earlier on this cruise I learned that Ireland has three major brands of stout. Guinness, the best known of them all, is considered to be distinctly bitter. Murphy’s is the sweeter of the three. And Beamish is considered to be in the middle. Having tried both Guinness and Murphy’s in Cork, I decided now would be a great time to try Beamish. The colorful pub is the Duke of York. Just a normal name for a pub in Australia. Afterwards I thought maybe its name took on greater significance in a divided Belfast..

Belfast

Stop number five on my 14-day cruise around Britain. Belfast is the capital of Northern Ireland, and the second largest city on the island of Ireland. Following the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922, Northern Ireland was partitioned off and has remained part of the UK. This kicked off a series of incidence known as “the troubles”. The signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 brought a lot of the violence to an end.

My Walk

Today’s walk was a city walk with a little difference. I was well aware of the conflict in Northern Ireland when I was growing up and I wanted to take this chance to get to see some of where the conflict occurred and get a sense of the extent to which the divisions may still exist between the two “sides”.

Central Belfast

The port of Belfast was about 6km from Central Belfast making it necessary to take a shuttle bus from the ship. It dropped us off outside the Town Hall, allowing me to explore parts of the city.

I had not done a lot of research on Belfast before today. I was interested in seeing the gates that separate the rival communities of the Nationalists and Loyalists, as I had heard this was still quite a source of tension. I located a place called ‘Peace Wall’, where I thought gates might still exist, and plotted a course West to that site.

The walk out of the city took me past lots of brick buildings. The sides of some were painted with murals. Initially these seemed to be a celebration of West Belfast.

Falls Road

It was quite noticeable that the locals had connected their own struggles with that of the Palestinians. There was a lot of support for Palestine here. More than anywhere I have visited so far.

Peace Wall/Bombay Street

It turned out that ‘Peace Wall’ was a monument to an horrific event in 1969 that saw a mob of loyalists attack and burn down all the buildings on Bombay Street. Many of the buildings were rebuilt, but the side of the street that adjoins the wall that still divides West Belfast is now the site of a monument in remembrance of what happened.

The Wall

Having found the wall I was curious to follow its path. I found it interesting that the map on my phone didn’t show the wall at all, so I had no way to figure out how far it extended. I was curious. I hadn’t realized a wall of this magnitude still existed in Belfast after so many years. On both sides of the wall communities lived almost oblivious to its presence (or so it seemed).

Northumberland Street

Somewhat by chance, I found myself on Northumberland Street and found the gates that pass through the wall. There we two gates, one on the Falls Road side, and the other on the Shankill Road side of Northumberland Street. The gates a kept closed between 8:30PM and 6:30AM each night. Efforts are underway to try and have those hours reduced.

Shankill Road

On the loyalist side of the wall was Shankill Road, a street that ran roughly parallel to Falls Road back into the city. Having already explored the Falls Road area, I decided to cross over to “the other side” to get a better feel of the Shankill Road area.

There were not as many murals, and the murals focused more on the conquests to defend the British Empire rather than focus on the conflict in Northern Ireland. What was also noticeable was the abundance of flags and ‘red, white & blue’ on the streets and houses. Even the KFC on Shankill Road was surrounded by British and Northern Ireland flags.

It was now past beer o’clock so I decided this would be a good place to try out a local beer. The pub was the Diamond Jubilee and I decided to have a pint of Harp Ultra. They had Guiness on tap, but I wasn’t sure if that was a trap to identify those loyal to Ireland. if it was, I wasn’t biting! As you might expect for a pub on Shankill Road, it was filled with lots of British flags and other British regalia. It was also cash only, whereas for a lot of pubs in other countries it was card only. I took that as being consistent with the anti-technology view of many right-leaning groups of people. The lady behind the bar was nice. She had a strong Irish accent. I don’t know why I was expecting n English accent, that would be stupid! She had two sons now living on the Gold Coast, so we shared a few stories about our visits there.

Back in the City

After my beer I was soon back on the outer edges of the city as the political landscape slowly melted back into a more neutral feeling. When I first got off the bus this orning my initial feeling was that Belfast was an old city city under repair. But it grew on me. On my return I had the chance to explore a lot more of the city and i found a lot of cooly cool places.

I already had one candidate for today’s view from my beer, but I soon found another pub in a colorful part of town that seemed to tell a better story. While parts of the Belfast remain divided, there was no evidence of any major trouble and the underlying charm of the Irish culture did shine through.

Titanic Museum

My final destination for the day before heading back to the ship was the Titanic Museum. This was located East of the city. The walk through the marina area was interesting with lots of things to see along the way.. Our own cruise had followed much of the path of the Titanic, having also sailed out of Southampton and visiting Hollyhead (aka Queenstown), our cruise has also visited Liverpool where the ship was registered and finally here in Belfast where she was built.

The museum itself was not overly impressive. The focus was on the story of the building of the Titanic with interactive exhibits designed to recreate the feel of being at this site when the ship was being built. This included a theme-park style ride that took you through the Titanic while it was being built.

The most sobering part of the visit was the giant IMAX style list of all the names of the people aboard the Titanic on that voyage.

A Final Thought

I saw a lot of overlap between the current situation in USA and what I saw today of Northern Ireland’s past. The same threads were there in the loyalist culture… A lot of flag waving, a tendency to sentimentalize and cling to the past, those in power dividing its citizens on wedge issues, and a resistance to change and new technology. The Nationalists focus on the plight of the working class without showing a lot of respect for the important role that authority and capital can play in making an economy thrive. That’s where the US differs. In teh US, many of the working class seem to think the rich and powerful are on their side.

Photo Gallery