The Troubles in Belfast: Conflicting Stories Tour

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Disclaimer: This is a longer post which tackles some substantial political issues in Northern Ireland, some of which you may agree with and some of which you will not. This is only my perspective as a disinterested third party, and I am not endorsing political violence in any way, shape, or form. I must also say that I am a Protestant by belief. I only provide this information, because it is such an defining feature of The Troubles.

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Conflicting Stories in The Troubles

In Belfast, I took the Conflicting Stories Tour. This was a three hour tour which discussed The Troubles, the thirty-year conflict in Northern Ireland which pitted Catholic Republicans/Nationalists, who wanted to unify Ireland, against Protestant Unionists, who wanted Northern Ireland to remain with the United Kingdom. The tour occurred in two parts: the first half presented the Catholic/Republican/ Nationalist view of the troubles and the second half presented the Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist view, each led by someone who participated in their side of the conflict.

Mural on the Catholic side of the Peace Wall

First off, a bit of crash-course history to set the stage. The Catholic-Protestant divide is a bit of a misnomer, as the real conflict was between Republicans and Unionists. However, when the British invaded Ireland in the 12th Century, the Catholic-Protestant divide was a defining feature of European politics, and subsequent settlement ultimately divided the Emerald Isle into Catholic and Protestant communities. After the Irish War of Independence, which saw the establishment of the Free Irish State, the six predominantly Protestant counties in Ulster elected to remain within Britain and opted out of the new Irish nation-state, while the thee predominantly Catholic counties in Ulster, and the rest of Ireland, opted into the new Irish nation-state. This divide ultimately exploded in 1969, when Catholic civil rights marches clashed with Unionists and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), the predominantly Protestant police force. This is widely accepted to have been the start of The Troubles, which saw the paramilitary groups on each side (the Irish Republican Army (IRA) on the Catholic side and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) on the Protestant side, to name the largest of each) engage in political violence, both proactively and in retaliation, until the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, which brought a ceasefire to the conflict (but which noticably did not end it, nor did it disarm any group). During the conflict, the British government erected the "Peace Wall," a 7.3 kilometer-long wall which divides the Catholic and Protestant communities in West Belfast, to mitigate violence between the two communities. Many other such walls were erected across Belfast, totaling more than 34 kilometers of physical barriers between the two communities. These walls remain to day, and, at least in West Belfast, the gates to drive between the two open at 6h and close at 19h every day, 25 year after Good Friday Agreement.

Part One: The Catholic View

The first half of the tour was led by a former IRA prisoner who was arrested at the age of 18 for possession of explosives material. When we met him, it was hard to believe that this fit older gentlemen in a track suit handing out flyers for his youth center was a member of the IRA during the troubles. He laid out his past with a level of frankness which was quite astounding. He told he when and where he was arrested, stated that he knew he was breaking the law when he was arrested, and that he came out of prison "a better person and a better Republican." He told us that he was still a proud member of Sinn Fein, and he still believed in the cause, but that he wanted to end the violence and pursue the political process.

He led us through a community which looked just like the rest of Belfast with one exception: behind the houses and businesses, you could just make out a green fence, a hidden sign that the Protestant-Catholic divide was still very much alive. As he led us through his community, he showed us the Catholic side of the Peace Wall, which is adorned with murals displaying the political and social causes the community believes in. He explained that there is no official way of deciding what goes up. When a mural becomes old and delapidated, a new painter will come along and put up a new one based on the current sense of the community. He told us that in all his time in West Belfast after the wall was erected, he not once has seen a protest against a mural painted on the wall, because the painters all have a sense of the community feeling. He made it a point to show us one which supported Palestinian liberation from Israel, saying that the community did not support terrorist violence against Israel, but did support anyone's fight for their rights anywhere in the world.

IRA / Sinn Fein remembrance garden

We made our way to the Garden of Remembrance, the Sinn Fein / IRA memorial garden where they pay tribute to those who were killed in The Troubles and all members who have since past away. It was a beautifully curated garden with a memorial which emulated the U.S. Vietnam War memorial in Washington, D.C. Our guide pointed out his brother's and his best friend's names, both of which were killed in the conflict. His brother was killed by the Royal Ulster Constabulary while on his way to work, and his best friend was killed in a bombing at the Sinn Fein party office. He got emotional, telling us how his brother waited for him to get out of prison so that he could be the best man at his wedding. He also pointed out that his best friend was the last name on the memorial wall. He told us that he misses his friend every day, but is glad to see his name remains the last name on the wall, as that means there have been no more IRA / Sinn Fein deaths from the conflict.

Throughout the tour, our guide told us of the transformation of the Catholic side of West Belfast, from entire neighbourhoods which were burned to the ground to the deployment of British troops to keep the peace to the erection of the wall to the separation of yet another generation of kids. He showed us older buildings which were left untouched, because they were owned by or employed Protestants, and eventually took us to the spot where his best friend was killed. He told us that the building has bittersweet memories for him, because he both lost his best friend and met his wife there. Finally, he led us to the monestary and church where two priests, one on each side of the conflict, decided to meet and initiate peace talks to end the violence. After this, he took us to what he jokingly called "Checkpoint Charlie," the gate in the Peace Wall dividing the Catholics and the Protestants, where he handed us over to the second part of our tour.

Traffic gate in the Peace Wall separating the Protestant and

Catholic communities in West Belfast

Part Two: The Protestant View

The second half of the tour was led by a former member of the UVF. He didn't give us a lot of background on his involvement, but did acknowledge that the UVF, like the IRA, is an illegal terrorist organisation in Northern Ireland. He kicked off this half of the tour by telling us that we had just come from the other side of the wall where everyone was 100% Catholic and 100% Irish, and now we were on the side where they were 100% Protestant and 100% British. He highlighted to us the total division of the two communities: different bus services, different police forces, different schools, and absolutely no mix between the two. He told us of how the communities asked for a new primary school, the government gave them two: one for Catholics on their side of the wall and one for Protestants on their side of the wall. Neither was even at 25% capacity.

From here, he took us to stand beneath the Peace Wall. There weren't any murals on this one, so we could see the towering wall as it imposed itself on the adjacent neighbourhood. It is 1.3 meters thick concrete and is sunk more than 3 meters into the ground. The original barrier of 20 feet proved to not be tall enough to prevent explosives, rocks, bottles, etc. from being thrown over, so they added another 10 feet of metal siding to the top. When 30 feet proved insufficient, they added 10 more feet of fencing. Our guide commented that a wall like this was indicative that there is no lasting peace, just a peace process. He told us how he remembered being able to run down the entire road as a kid, but now children could only go so far before running into the wall.

From here, he took us to a neighbourhood of newer houses. He contrasted them with some older buildings which somehow survived the troubles, pointing out that tens of thousands of Protestants evacuated the area as every one of the houses was burned to the ground. He told us that this was the second time this community had been razed in the 20th Century, as WWII bombings took its tole 30 years before. He joked that, in West Belfast, they just loved building things, and then got serious and said, "building things isn't our problem. We don't need more houses. We can build houses. You can see them there, there, there...building houses isn't our problem...."

From here, he took us to sites where the IRA had set off no-warning bombs. From a pub to a fish shop to a public library, he told stories of Protestants who were killed in the conflict. (As an aside, it was interesting to me that it seemed that everyone who walked by our tour seemed to know him, and he greeted them all with a smile, asking how they were doing). He emphasized that these victims were not members of the Unionist paramilitaries or British forces, but simply people who lived there and were in the wrong place at the wrong time. He spoke of his frustrations with Sinn Fein, who would not discuss these attacks with him even 30 years later.

Shankhill Road Memorial Garden

He, too, took us to a memorial garden, the Shankhill Road Memorial Garden. Here, the Protestants pay tribute to "H.M. Forces from This Area Who Served and Died" in WWI, WWII, and "subsequent conflict." I did not observe any tributes to the UVF or other paramilitaries. Our guide highlighted how, on this side of the wall, they remembered all of the United Kingdom's fallen, including Ulster and Irish forces who fought on behalf of the UK. As we walked from here, we came upon building fascades adorned with celebration of the late Queen Elizabeth II and the newly-corronated King George III. We also saw signs that read "We Will Never Have Home Rule," indicating the Unionist opposition to Irish reunification and support for the Crown.

We finished our tour at an outside "exhibit" (for lack of a better term) which highlighted IRA attacks the community, the community's opposition to Tony Blair's government and its handling of the Good Friday Agreement, and IRA members who now hold elected office, including ministerial positions, despite their involvement with attacks in the community.

Narrative Differences

I have often remarked of modern U.S. news that both sides tell the truth; it is just a matter of how much of it they tell to support their narrative. This tour was no different. Listening to both sides, I felt like each wanted not just to tell their story, but to wholly ignore the other side's part of it.

Our former IRA guide focused on the politics of the conflict. He openly told us that is what he would be focusing on, because, at the end of the day, all conflicts have to do with politics. He focused on the British carving out a Protestant area of Ireland after their invasion, and gerymandering Northern Ireland (and the province of Ulster) to marginalise Catholic influence. During the partition of Ireland, the six predominantly Protestant counties in Ulster became Northern Ireland and the three predominantly Catholic counties in Ulster were given to the Republic of Ireland, thus ensuring that Catholics did not have a substantial say in the government which ruled them. He told us that the Republican goal is not simply the reunification of Ireland, although that would be ideal, but simply to ensure equal rights of Catholics in predominantly Protestant Northern Ireland. He told us that he takes his youth center to Belfast City Hall whenever he can to show them that they are welcome in Belfast, that this is their city, too, and that they can work for enhanced civil rights for Catholics in their generation. He noticeably did not discuss IRA violence during his tour, as, by his own admission, he wanted his tour to focus on the politics of the past and how they will shape the future.

The most-bombed building in Belfast. The IRA set off with-

warning bombs here to bring the conflict to the journalists.

Our former UVF guide, by contrast, focused on the death toll of the conflict. He hardly touched on the conflict's politics outside of discussing the division between the two communities. He discussed in detail the no-warning bombings which killed hundreds of innocent people on one street alone. He focused on the stories of little children killed by stray bullets, elderly pub patrons shredded by explosives, and public gathering spaces which were destroyed as Protestants gathered there. He emphasized the fact that these were senseless deaths that had nothing to do with the political conflict, and that Sinn Fein's only response when questioned on them was that these deaths were "collateral damage." That answer was suspect and dismissive, at best, as a fish shop, for example, wasn't a political or government target, nor were any government officials killed there. He highlighted how the community will never have trust in the government so long as members of the IRA who perpetrated this violence serve as elected officials, and the consequence of that was Northern Ireland hasn't had a devolved government in over 20 months.

Protestant board highlighting the violence against innocents

perpetrated by current members of the Northern Ireland

government

Contrast with My Experience in the City Center

Jo and I did a walking tour of Belfast city center the morning before I did the political tour. Our guide was a woman who grew up and raised her children during The Troubles on the Catholic side of the wall. While it was obvious to me that she came from a Catholic background based on some of the way she described things (like calling the Republic of Ireland "the South" and her describing bombings against hotels as "warning bombs"), it was also clear that she was glad for The Troubles to be in the past. She talked optimistically of the integration she had seen in universities, primary and secondary schools, and the workplace, and how she was glad her children didn't have to experience the segregation she did. She even joked that their dad may not even have been their dad had she had some more choices when she was growing up. This was a stark difference from my time in West Belfast, where, to quote Harry Pearce the TV show "Spooks," "the dead past lies like a nightmare on the minds of the living."

My Thoughts on the Future

It is hard for me to think what the future of Northern Ireland holds. I've spent 10 years studying and working in antiterrorism in some capacity or another. In very few of the conflicts I've studied or personally experienced have there been parties which are optimistic about reconciliation in the future. Most often, you have resignation to the conflict or hard lines which divide belief systems and causes (even more often, you have both). So on the one hand, I am hopeful that the conflict, while still on-going politically, will remain non-violent.

On the other, however, the communities in West Belfast still feel the raw pain from a conflict which saw a ceasefire 25 years ago, and the British government recently increased the threat level in Northern Ireland from substantial to severe for the first time since the Good Friday Agreement. According to our UVF guide, weapons caches from both sides have been emptied out, and no one officially knows where the weapons, ammunition, and explosives have gone. At the same time, the IRA allegedly assassinated a police official in the Spring of 2023, and the UVF formed a new company in 2022. Some people we spoke to in England after we visited Belfast expressed their concern that Northern Ireland is a tinder box, and that the violence is starting to reappear. It would not take much, perhaps just one Molotov cocktail thrown over the Peace Wall or one official killed in the street, to reignite the conflict.

Mural on the Protestant side showcasing the new UVF

company

The difference between then and now, should a conflict reignite, is that Belfast has lived in relative peace and unity for 25 years, the younger generation outside of West Belfast has grown accustomed to having Protestant and Catholic communities intermixed, and the Republic of Ireland has expressed no interest in the reunification efforts after the Troubles. While these are of course not guarantees against another sectarian armed conflict, they at least play some level of mitigating role. At least in my opinion.

Final Reflection

Regardless of whether you support the reunification of Ireland or the partition, sectarian violence is never the answer to a political problem. Targeting innocent civilians on the opposite side instead of government targets is terrorism plain and simple, and ultimately will not lead to a successful resolution of the conflict. Even attacking government targets will only result in hardened resolve to stamp out the opposing side. The political process is the only way to end the animosity and ultimately bring down the so-called Peace Wall to reunite a divided West Belfast. Sinn Fein abstains from its parliamentary duties as a protest against the UK government, but in doing so exerts no influence over the political process, including triggering the referendum guaranteed in the Good Friday Agreement which would put reunification on the ballot across the Emerald Isle to provide a final answer to the question of reunification. On the Unionist side, their opposition to forming a government which contains duly elected leaders which perpetrated violence during The Troubles is also in direct opposition to the political process. In a democracy, people we don't like, even people who have done us direct harm, are sometimes elected to office. Until and unless both sides are willing to return to the political process, the simmering conflict between them will continue, and it remains to be seen how many innocent bystanders in each community will be caught in the literal crossfire.