I went to Northern Ireland over spring break to see more about the conflict that we all study (yes, a totally geeky professor thing to do) and it was fascinating. This blog will mostly be pictures to give you a sense of the different neighborhoods around Belfast but let me start by saying that it is amazing. The downtown quarter is lovely with Victorian architecture. And there is a fabulous new museum on the Titantic (my favorite saying: Irishmen Built It; Englishmen Sank It) which also gives you the tone for how many of the Irish view the English!
The next day we (mom and sisters) took of tour of the Belfast neighborhoods where the population lives. And the separation barriers (aka peace walls) make Jerusalem look like child’s play. There are over 90 peace walls–yes, that is the phrase that they use–and over half of them were build after the Good Friday Accords. The peace walls are concrete barriers topped by fencing (apparently the first round of concrete was not tall enough to prevent molotov cocktails from being lobbed over them). Just mindblowing.
So here are a few pictures. First, above is a typical mural on the Falls Road side (the Catholic neighborhood.) This one commemorates the IRA hunger strikers that died. The picture below is another mural and then a plaque, also from Falls Road, over the Sinn Fein headquarters, and is a memorial to someone who was killed. These plaques are quite typical and ubiquitous, unfortunately, thoughout the neighorhoods noting each location where someone was killed.
Next is a picture of the peace wall from the Protestant side with a good perspective of how high these are. And the picture next to it is a typical mural on the Protestant side on Shankill Road. Note how the mural begins with World War 1 (the Ulster force is known as the first troops over the trenches in the Battle of the Somme) and, in the bottom right, how Eire (Ireland) is the path to war.
Completely amazing to see—the walls clearly work in terms of preventing violence. On the other hand, the constant and visual reminders of the past no doubt make it very hard to move forward. Really interesting!
Great pictures, Andrea.. I went on a “terror tour” of the Troubles shortly after the Easter Peace accords with the BBC (N. Irish) reporter who covered the Troubles.. The amazig murals and walls I saw had the Catholics identifying with Palestinians and the Southern confederacy as “rebels” for freedom and they identified the Protestants as the “North” and “israelis”– it was a sad commentary on the uses of “bad” but symbolic history. I show my pictures (older and not as good as yours) to my students to show a bad example of reactive devaluation and false identifications (the enemy of your enemy is my friend)…. All DR professionals should do these trips as you do.. my major work these days is on the cultural specificity of these conficts–N. Ireland is really NOT like Israel-Palestine though we can still learn from studying them in comparison.
Thanks for sharing, !!!