Francis was our tour guide in Belfast. He had many jobs over his 60+ years which makes him the perfect guide to take us through Belfast.
Coming home from school one day, Francis, a latch key kid, would be have been about 9 or 10. He hears a quick succession of gunshots as he makes his way home in west Belfast. Francis looks over his shoulder and sees a 15year old neighbour dead on the street, looks up to the roof , he sees the sniper pointing the gun at him. He scrambles for his keys and holds his body close to the narrow frame of the door. Bang, bang, bang the sniper misses and catches the bricks beside the house. The sniper hands his gun to his IRA buddy below, telling the other boy to get him. The British army is patrolling those streets in the early 70s.
A Catholic factory is targeted by men from the Protestant side. They capture two young boys and go upstairs to the administrative building, talk to a couple of secretaries who willing handover what money they had. No trouble! No trouble! The girls are told to face the wall and get down on their knees, they are shot in the back of the head. Running off they then shoot the two young boys as well.
A Protestant factory is within sight of this tragedy and seeking revenge, IRA men, early morning, walk into the factory and order Francis and two of his coworkers down on the ground. One of the men is disabled and can’t bend his leg so is struggling. The men with guns are impatient and shoot him, heart and head. Francis comforts the victim as he lies dying and the men run off. They are not caught.
Francis shows us a picture of his father’s friends from the same era, one is with UVF and in prison for the mass murder of 500 Catholics, another is in jail for killing a couple more.
About 25 years ago, Francis takes his 10 year old daughter out to buy a television set. She has to stop downtown to let her friends know that she won’t be joining them, she gets out of the car, lets them know, and is chatting too long while Francis is parked awkwardly on the street.Hurry up, let’s get going. She is in a huff, they drive away, and two minutes later a bomb goes off in the location they just were, killing one of her friends she was just talking to.
The trama of these multiple first person accounts permeate and destroy lives.
Francis wants to leave the past there and move on. There are faults on both sides. Both were awful. Leave it be and move along. But in Belfast there are these constant reminders.
A peace wall was erected in 1968 that runs along the river through the west side of Belfast. It was to keep the peace and the Catholics and Protestants apart. The division was to be for 48 hours. They became permanent walls with gates that still are locked today just to keep the peace. is there not peace?
Police departments are fortified with cameras, razor wire and tall walls.
Cameras in the streets are monitored by the British police.
Graffiti “This is are land” where new mixed housing is going in. The spelling mistake seems indicative.
There are murals that don’t tell the whole story of the “troubles”. And tour groups that take tourists to these false narratives.
There are political parties that benefit from fear and ensuring people remain suspicious and untrusting of each other. That’s how they make their money. very much like other places in the world.
Take down the murals, take down the peace walls, build more mixed communities. Find the truth. Do this in order to move onto something better.
The world around me 