There and Back Again: A Belfast Tale (Part Two)

The whole group in front of Stormont

Stormont and the statue of Sir Carson

City Hall

     I left you on a cliffhanger there didn't I? Or maybe you are reading the posts back to back so there was not a long break for you to contemplate what Stormont is or to suffer agonizingly as you wait for the next post. Well, to answer the question of what Stormont is, it is the Northern Irish parliament, though they call it the Assembly. It is located outside of the city in the area known as Stormont, which is why they call the building that, because it sounds a lot more impressive than Northern Ireland Assembly. The area is very nice, covered in trees and stunningly beautiful; it reminded me a lot of Hyde Park with all the grand houses and woodlands. Stormont's grounds are a huge park that is open to the public and very well maintained and manicured to perfection. The word that I would use, strangely enough, is civilized; very Victorian, and it seemed as if no blade of grass was out of place. There was no security really and it was a lovely place. It was built in the 1930s in a Classical Greek style reminiscent of the architecture of Washington DC. The guide said that it was basically the Northern Ireland equivalent of the White House, and at this point we were all very much still in shock from the lack of border security and how you could basically just waltz right up to the building, which would obviously never happen in the States. I am sure there is security (later we would see a Northern Ireland Police Services vehicle that looked like a tank, which is a throwback to the Troubles), but it was not terribly obvious. Being American we are all just used to not being able to do anything or go anywhere without a lot of police and security--not that I am complaining, they keep us safe--even customs and immigration at the airport was very relaxed.

St. George's Market

Republican Murals on Falls Road

       Continuing on about Stormont, in front of the building is a statute of Sir Edward Carson, who was an Irish Unionist politician in the early 20th century. Carson was very much against Irish Home Rule, and worked very hard to make sure that Ulster (Northern Ireland) was exempt from it. He famously stated that "Home Rule would mean Rome Rule." The Republic of Ireland has a Catholic majority, but in Northern Ireland their is a Protestant majority, though over the last century it has not equalized to about 55%  Protestant to 45% Catholic. The Protestant British regime in Ireland was very oppressive toward Catholics, and Northern Irish Protestants feared that if Home Rule happened and they became a minority in the Irish Parliament, revenge would be taken against them, and they would be persecuted. This is more or less the basis for why the Troubles took place, fear of what Catholics would do should they be given an equal voice in the North. Gerrymander of the vote and discrimination was common in the North after the partition in the 1920s, and in the 1960s the call for Catholic civil rights to be granted would help set off the Troubles as Unionist politicians tried to keep the status quo.
      After Stormont we were driven into the center of the city and dropped off outside of City Hall. We were provided with lunch, which was just sandwiches,fruit, and crisps. Though I try not to eat gluten or dairy products I had to have something to eat (Northern Ireland uses the Pound Sterling, and I only had euros) so I had one of the sandwiches of cheese and cucumber. As we ate my friends and I wandered around the little city center. The City Hall was architecturally a lot like Stormont, and the buildings around it were Georgian or modern. We found our way to St. George's Market, which was an indoor market where food and goods were being sold. We were only given an hour to explore, so we did not have time to see that much, but I liked the city overall.

Unionist signs (the Union Jack and the red hand of Ulster)

          Then the buses took us to the Sectarian neighborhoods, where during the Troubles (and too this day) violence between Unionists and Republicans took place. These areas tend to be poorer, and during the summer it is Marching Season, meaning that there are marches and tensions between the two groups tend to arise. In the Republican neighborhoods there are Irish tricolors and it feels more Ireland than Dublin, while in the Protestant neighborhoods you would think that you were at the heart of the British Empire. July 12th is a holiday celebrating the Battle of the Boyne, which was fought in Ireland between William of Orange and James II in July 1690. William of Orange won a crushing victory, which secured the Protestant ascendancy in Ireland for generations. It retains huge symbolic importance in Northern Ireland, where it is celebrated by the Orange Order. The two main neighborhoods are the Falls (Catholic) and Shankill (Protestant), which are right next to each other. In the murals you see commemoration to heroes from both sides and symbols of the respective neighborhoods. Separating the two areas is the Peace Wall, which is seven miles long with gates allowing people in and out of the neighborhoods.

The gates that desperate Falls Road and Shankill

The Peace Wall

      After this they rushed us to a some pub or group meeting place where we were to listen to Pat Sheehan who is currently a member in the Northern Irish Assembly as a West Belfast representative for Sinn Fein. It was a very interesting place, as everywhere you looked there were memorials to IRA members that have died and it is basically the dictionary definition of Fenian. The reason that we were there is because Mr. Sheehan is a former member of the IRA who did two nine year prison sentences for his activities, and was a part of the 1981 hunger strike. At the age of nineteen he was sentenced to nine years in prison and would volunteer to hunger strike. This is the time of Bobby Sands and the height of the Troubles. For 55 days he obtained from food, which is pretty impressive and required a lot of dedication. The hunger strike would eventually end after several deaths, and Pat Sheehan was nursed back to health before returning to prison to finish his sentence. He would be freed, but then jailed again three years later, only to be released as part of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. He was very interesting to listen to, and was actually quite articulate.

Where we listened to Mr. Sheehan speak

By the time we left Belfast it was past six o'clock, and we had a two hour drive back. As my bus made its way back to UCD, the other bus dropped people off at the city center as they were going to be spending the night there. We did not make any stops on the way back, and once on campus I had to get a bus home, meaning it was past nine before I was back in Rathmines. After a quick dinner I went to bed, with a greater appreciation and understanding of Belfast then I had had previously. In all honestly, I loved the place, and would go back in a heart beat. It is an immensely complex place, steeped in history and culture.