Sudden horrible thought during dinner last night that I hadn’t done a black cab tour of Belfast, which someone had recommended to me.
So I decided to book one for our last morning in lieu of the lecture about the surgeon on the Titanic that I had planned to go to first thing. The first tour that came up was on The Troubles, so I decided to book that as I really didn’t feel like I had a good grasp of it in spite of our museum visit the day before. Plus, I couldn’t come to Belfast and not visit Falls Road.
Kirsten kindly decided to join me so we found ourselves walking through the streets to the rendezvous the following morning in a chilly wind. Our driver was called Martin, and we were a little dismayed to discover he was driving a late model SUV, not a black cab, but it was very comfortable. Martin was a 72 year old local and staunch republican as we found out 30 seconds after meeting him. The website had promised a degree of impartiality which we absolutely did not get, although I’m sure Martin thought he was. He was just telling the truth as he saw it. His passion was very impressive. He hardly stopped talking the entire time,
In my mind, there’s no doubt there was terrible violence, brutality, persecution, and suffering on both sides, the Republicans and the pro British Loyalists. And strong feelings persist, decades after the Good Friday agreement led to a cessation of hostilities. The “so called Peace Wall”, as Martin calls it, and fair enough too, still cuts through the Falls Road area, separating the suburb on sectarian lines.
We spent the majority of the tour on the Republican side, although we did cross through the gates a couple of times.
Martin was very quiet on the Loyalist side, with no mention of the murals or the Union Jacks everywhere. He did reluctantly stop to let me take a photo of a flower filled tribute area to the Queen.
Somehow, early on in our tour, I’d managed to offend Martin, probably with an unintentionally awkward question, and from then on he spent the rest of the time talking almost exclusively to Kirsten, referring to me as “your friend”. It seemed me wanting to take the above photo was all the proof he needed that I definitely had Loyalist sympathies. Awkward, especially as he’d already told us he and most of his friends, many of whom we met as they were also tour guides, were ex IRA.
On seeing a friend stroll up: “Hey Mick, how are you? Busy?” “Yeah, I’ve got a tour at ten, so I have” “Well, might see you later then!” Then, to us “That’s Mick, lovely fella, used to make car bombs, was in prison for five years”.
It was a great tour, highly recommended although certainly depressing. I’d paid for an hour but we got 90 minutes of heart felt propaganda. I guess I’ll have to get the Loyalist point of view from a book. I must say it’s cast a bit of a pall over my innocent view of Ireland. All the Union Jack flags now seem quite sinister.
A last check in at the conference and then on to Londonderry.