Mischief in Europe: Belfast and the IRA

Ireland has been great for meeting folks. It's so easy to make friends for the night just goin to a pub and striking up a conversation. It's really great. Belfast was my first stop. I took a ferry over from England. The only ferries I've been on are the Jamestown ferries back home. I was expecting something like that. Nope. This thing was waaayy bigger. It had 8 decks total (only a few were for passengers to poke around), a restaurant, a couple cafes, a couple bars, even a VIP section if you couldn't be bothered with us commoners. It was class, as they say here.

The Troubles (I was going to try and explain it quickly if you don't know much about the conflict in NI, but there's no short explanation. So here's the wiki.) might have ended with the Good Friday Accords but I still found Belfast to be divided. It's not a dangerous place these days but folks still have their opinions on the matter. Things like a social club for Northern Ireland supporters, a bar called The Royal flying flags from all over Europe but conspicuously missing the tricolor from the Republic, wall murals, and lastly the comments of the residents. I took a walking tour through west Belfast (Catholic area) that was led by an ex political prisoner and volunteer (soldiers are called volunteers) of the IRA. He is still technically a volunteer, you're in it for life, but because of the end of hostilities he's "retired". His background made the narration a little... one sided we'll call it. Everything he had to say was extremely informative and very intense. He recalled personal experiences at street corners and from things that happened in his very home. He told us about how Catholics had diminished civil rights and about their hardships in Belfast. How the Ulster Volunteer Force had been gunning down Catholics and bombing electric stations. We started at the base of Divis Tower where one night the UVF entered west Belfast and terrorized Catholic families. Many homes were burned and people murdered. One of the slain was a 9 year old boy who was shot by loyalists when their armored cars with machine guns mounted on the top opened fire directly into Divis Tower.

A few personal stories from him

At age 14- rushing down to the base of Divis Tower to help evacuate families under attack by the UVF. How they flipped buses to create barricades and threw rocks and bottles at the assailants. He and his mates asked to join the IRA following the attack.

The British Army was very heavy handed in their raids on houses, more appropriately their raids on neighborhoods. They would kick in the door in the starry hours of the morning, terrorize you, beat you up, line you up against the wall. You didn't know if you were going to be gunned down like so many others before. Outside you'd see the whole community being raided looking for contraband weapons. This sort of abuse went on until he left home. He'd have to helplessly watch his father get bullied and his father would watch his sons get knocked around.

At age 17 you were eligible to join the IRA. They had been watching him since he was 14 when he asked to join to see what kind of person he was. If you ever stole, dealt/did drugs, or broke the law they wouldn't accept you. When the time came and they asked him if he still wanted to join he was swept away to a safehouse with 14 other boys who wanted to join from his neighborhood. They told them what life would be like if they became a volunteer. You had to abandon your family, you instantly had to live a life on the run, and how you would kill the British and how you were going to be killed. They sent them back home, leaving the safehouse 2 at a time to avoid suspicion, and let them think it over for the next day. Out of the original 14 only 4 came back. His father wouldn't speak to him for 6 years after he joined. The IRA sent him off to be trained with guns and explosives.

He took us to a pub where he personally fought the British. Outside he showed us how his team planted a small amount of C4 at head level in a drain pipe and waited for a couple of soldiers who inevitably would be passing by. One man waited in a chip shop with a concealed radio watching and waiting. The others sat on the roof with a wire running down the drain pipe to the explosives. He showed us holes still visible in the wall across the street from the shrapnel. It was an intense and fierce narrative.

The last place we visited was a cemetery. He recounted stories of whole Catholic families buried together because they were dragged out of their homes and shot. He knew many of the dead IRA soldiers buried at memorials there as well. The cemetery was a sobering reminder and visual of everything he had told us. The oldest volunteer buried there was only 32. Most were 18-22. He ended it with "At the start of The Troubles we needed to pick up the gun. But now I'm glad we can put it down." He, as well as many other volunteers, don't want another war. They achieved what they fought for.

I thoroughly enjoyed hearing him speak and talking with him. It was very interesting to hear it from someone who was there and participated in it. But, that's enough heavy reading. Belfast is a lovely place, but an even lovelier place is the Giant's Causeway. The ride along the Coast Road is voted one of the most scenic in all the world. It's deserving of that title. The Giant's Causeway is "an area of 40,000 interlocking basalt columns" to quote wikipedia. I had a full battery when I left the city, was taking pictures at all the stops on the way there, then once we arrive. Dead. I'm super bummed about missing the opportunity to shoot there and share it with everyone. Ah well, I was there. I experienced a mini nor'easter walking down the hills to it. Driving rain, wind blowing you backwards and making the rain cut your face, and sunshine. Loads of sunshine.

Haven't seen many white altars. Thought it was pretty neat.

The IRA volunteer

Every community in West Belfast has a memorial garden for the volunteers from their neighborhood.

A clever Republican pin

That seemed to be Brad's feelings too.

This cemetery is divided, Catholic and Protestant. At one point their distaste for one another carried over into the graveyard. They built a wall underground to separate the two, even in death.