The worst and the best
Bill & Mary Beth reserved a black taxi tour for this morning, so we joined them. I've been wanting to do one of these for a while, but I really wasn't prepared for the bleakness of the narrative. This mural memorialises an attack by a loyalist gunman at a funeral for three IRA members.
Three men were killed and 60 wounded. When one of those men was buried, our tour guide said, two British special servicemen (like Navy Seals) opened fire at his funeral. Wikipedia said that the two British soldiers came under attack when they mistakenly drove into the funeral cortege. The mourners, believing them to be more loyalist gunmen, beat them and the IRA shot them.
This image memorialises use of a chemical weapon on prisoners in Long Kesh.
Imagine two hours of these kind of stories. This is a memorial garden to civilians and combatants in one Catholic neighbourhood. There are many of these memorial gardens in Catholic and Protestant neighbourhoods, according to our tour guide.
I was aware that our tour guide's narrative was very much from the Catholic perspective. Atrocities by the IRA were not mentioned or were glossed over. But I also realised my sense of history was shaped by six years in Derry, where Catholics are in the majority. In Belfast, Protestants are in the majority and abuse of Catholics was more flagrant; paramilitary collusion with the British military and Ulster police endemic. While I wanted the tour to be about the past, the animosities continue in the present. We passed many high stacks of pallets, which will be bonfires on July 12, when the Battle of the Boyne is celebrated. The Irish flag is on the giant bonfires, as well as statues of the Virgin Mary. I'm just amazed that this is allowed to go on. Granted, the politicians at Stormont are dupes for the Protestant rabble rousers. But I would think the EU, if for no other reason than protecting air quality, would intervene. It is very much Northern Ireland's Confederate flag issue. Protestants' fires and marching bands reflect nothing but triumphalism and provocation of the Catholic minority, which lives cheek-to-jowl with the Protestant neighbourhoods where the fires are lit.
I tried to tell Bill and Mary Beth that these sorts of things are restricted to low-income neighbourhoods in Belfast, but so what? If you look at murders in Philadelphia, they are largely concentrated in some very tough neighbourhoods too. That doesn't make them right. The rest of us look away and nothing changes.
Did I mention doing a 180 yesterday? We spent the afternoon driving along the Antrim Coast, one of the most beautiful drives in Ireland. We stopped in quaint villages, walked along cliffs, photographed white rams in green fields sitting high above a bright blue sea. We went to Giant's Causeway and Whitepark Bay.
The shot above is stolen from the internet. I was having such a good time talking to Bill and Mary Beth that I didn't take many photos. I took this one of Dunluce Castle. It was closed by the time we got there, so I couldn't get a better shot.
Who's to know what Mary Beth and Bill made of Belfast. They saw the worst. And they saw some of the best. I'm still processing all of the history I heard about on the tour. Wouldn't it be great if I could parlay my Queen's experience into something that helped heal rather than reopen the wounds that are so evident in the two communities?
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