West Belfast and the Middle East

Wednesday through Friday of last week is a bit of a blur so I'll return to murals. In Catholic West Belfast we have murals celebrating the PLO. So it follows that in Protestant West Belfast we have Israeli flags and murals.

The Catholics from West Belfast have been across the peace wall to deface Protestant murals. Not to be outdone, Protestants defaced a mural near this one--still on the Protestant side--because it celebrated Polish war heroes. The logic here is that Poland is a Catholic country, so we can honour Jewish war heroes but not Polish ones.

It's a strange place. My last mural-tour photo is of a children's playground in the Shankill. Elements of the park represnt the Titanic, the Harland & Wolff cranes, and Cavehill mountain. On the left we have a model of the Ulster Tower, a monument to the Ulster Division, which took heavy casualties in the First World War. The celebration of Protestant paramilitaries is very tied up with celebration veterans of the world wars. As the south fought for independence early in the 1900s, a Protestant militia was formed to defend Ulster. The break out of WWI prevented a civil war in Ireland, but provided lots of troops from north and south. My point is, what a strange thing to have in a children's park.

April 3-5