Belfast Child

Michael and I took our first international trip for 2016 to Belfast (Depending who you ask it may not be).  We caught to the afternoon train however we had to alight at Newry due to heaving flooding in the area caused by Storm Frank.  We traveled the rest of the journey by bus and arrived at precisely the same time that we would have if we had caught the train all the way.  Naturally, it was pouring with rain, so we had a wet walk to our hotel followed by a fast food meal as everywhere else was closed due it being New Year’s Day.

Sampson and Goliath

The streets of Belfast were still lit with beautiful Christmas lights, the most impressive being the lights on the City Hall.  The City Hall is a grand building and it was lit with a colourful display of lights, which showcased its magnificence. 

The live nativity scene with donkey, a goat eating the decorations, sheep and kids

He eeaaways says that

The next day, the weather was much kinder, so we were able to take in the sights.  I love the Victorian architecture of Belfast, as it is so different to the Georgian buildings of Dublin.  We both had a Belfast Bap for breakfast at the St George’s Market, which were so enormous that they kept us going for the entire day.  The market is always great to walk around as they sell many quality Irish handcrafts and artwork as well as fresh food and coffee.

Belfast Bap - Fried Egg, 3 rashers of bacon, 1 sausage, 1 black pudding and 2 hash browns

We took a long walk up to the Ulster Museum, as I wanted to view the painting, The Green Coat by Sir John Lavery.  There is something very striking about this piece, and it was wonderful to be able to view it again.  There was also an exhibition, Silent Testimony by Colin Davidson.  This was an exhibition of portrait paintings of eighteen people and the stories of their individual experiences of loss through the Troubles.  This was a powerful way to show the impact on everyday people, those injured, their families and of course, those who died.

The main reason for revisiting Belfast was that we wanted to take a black cab tour around the Shankill and Falls Roads area.  When we were last in Belfast Michael and I walked the area and we noticed these black cab tours taking small groups of people and explaining the history of the area.  We had a guide all to ourselves and we spent a fascinating hour and a half driving around whilst having various points of interest explained to us.  Our guide grew up in the area and would not tell us whether he was Protestant or Catholic until the very end of the tour, when he asked us to guess which religion he was.  Both Michael and I guessed Protestant however we were both wrong.  It was a testament to how he tried not to tell us a biased version of events.  There were a number of things that we learned during the tour, for example, Michael and I had seen the huge gates around the area but assumed that these were relics from the past however we discovered that they are still used today.  In fact, the gates around the Catholic area are closed and locked every weekend to minimise the trouble from young people in the area.  Another thing we learned was regarding rubber bullets.  When I had heard rubber bullets mentioned in news reports, I pictured in my mind a projectile the same size as an ordinary bullet but made of rubber.  Wrong.  Our guide showed us an actual rubber bullet and it was 15cm in length and weighed 140 grammes.  It was huge and looked like something you would use to shoot an elephant.  Our guide told us at the end of the tour that he was struck by one of these bullets as a child and to this day he has quarterly cortisone injections to relieve the pain it caused.  The most fascinating thing we learned was regarding the poppy.  I had noticed on Remembrance Day that no one wore poppies in Ireland and I couldn’t see them on sale anywhere.  I assumed that this was because of their British association and also the complex history of the Irish in WW1.  It turns out that whilst those reasons are partially true, the real reason that the Irish do not wear the poppy is because the UVF have appropriated the poppy as their symbol.  In fact, we saw one mural depicting a UVF commander with a wreath of poppies around his head, each poppy representing a person he had murdered during his career.  The tour, whilst it was a grim reminder of the recent past, also showed hope for the future.  Our guide has moved out of the Catholic enclave and now lives side by side with Protestants.  His children attended a non-sectarian school and he firmly believes that whilst there are still terrorist groups on both sides, that things will never go back to the violent days of the past.