Learning By Cab
After spending time in Derry, we wanted to learn more about the Troubles in Belfast. To do this, we took a cab tour of the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods.
Somehow, we got gypped out of taking a black cab, but it turned out okay because our tour guide was very passionate about explaining the Troubles to us. When the tour ran long, he told us that always happens to him because he talks so much. Luckily, his talking was interesting. He drove us around to different sites in the neighborhoods, such as places that had been bombed, murals, the church where developments for the Good Friday Agreement took place, and memorials. Along the way, he gave us a running commentary. He told us right off the bat that he tries not to be biased, but it quickly became apparent that staying neutral was impossible for him. He had grown up in the Catholic neighborhood, and his family was forcibly removed from the neighborhood when he was little. While it would have been nice to talk to someone from the Protestant side as well, it was fascinating to hear about the Troubles from someone whose life was so directly impacted.
He spent a lot of time explaining the meanings behind the murals on Falls Road, which runs through the Republican/Catholic neighborhood. It helped to hear the reasoning behind some of the murals. For instance, I assumed that the one mural was an ad for the taxi company giving the tour – Taxi Trax – but we learned that the murals was in commemoration of the taxi cab drivers who continued to provide transportation to the Catholic area of their own accord after the city stopped public transportation there.
He took us to a memorial park in remembrance of those who had died during the Troubles from the neighborhood. Next to the park, a giant wall known as the “Peace Wall” divides the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods. The gates are still closed every night to minimize trouble. According to our guide, the British government places the wall smack dab against the houses in the Catholic neighborhood, while a large expanse lies between the walls and the houses in the Protestant neighborhood. I’m not sure if the placement of the wall was intentional, or if there is some sort of rationale for the placement, but we saw that the wall was much closer to the Catholic side as he said.
People on tours write messages of peace on the side of the wall filled with graffiti. Our guide told us that he hoped that someday, we could watch them tear down the wall on television like they had done to the Berlin Wall. Only then, he said, would real peace and progress be achieved.
After we left the Falls Road area, he took us to Shankill Road, which runs through the Protestant/Unionist neighborhood. In the Catholic neighborhood in Derry, we saw Irish colors everywhere. In the Shankill Road area of Belfast, British flags flew all around. (Later, we realized that the neighborhood in which we were staying also flew British flags, which we had not noticed earlier. I found myself beginning to wonder about the religion and politics of every person to whom we talked.)
Our guide told us that a couple of years ago, he would not have entered the Shankill neighborhood, and he would have handed us off to his Protestant counterpart. It was obvious that he felt uneasy being in the Protestant neighborhood. I think he was relieved it started raining harder, so we didn’t have to get out of the car much.
The Troubles are a fascinating part of Irish history, not the least of which because they were so recent. Like many things we learn about during our travels, more questions are raised than answered, but our learning process continues.
On our trip I found that recent history was far more interesting to me than ancient history. Reading this reminds me of how I felt in Berlin or Vietnam, thinking about their recent troubles and seeing the efforts to overcome it.
Gillian, I agree – I found the recent history in Northern Ireland, South Africa, and the former communist countries in Europe to be fascinating, perhaps because it happened in my lifetime or the lifetime of others in my life. It is interesting to put what was happening all over the world together in context.