Notes on Belfast
Our trip to Dublin, though shortlived, set up the rest of our trip. A two-hour bus ride north took us to Belfast, our location for the rest of the week. Belfast is a beautiful city, and in the downtown area, it feels like any other major city in the UK. Under the surface though, this city is very different.
Belfast has had a long history of industrial business thanks to its bustling port. During the industrial revolution, it was the worlds largest linen producer, then it became the home of the shipbuilding company Harland and Wolfe, who built the Titanic in its shipyard there. Since the early 1900s, Belfast has continued to be focused industrial business with the building of arms taking over the dockyards. It has also become a centre of art, technology, and education. I mention the economic focus of the city, because it is important to the history of the city, with most of its people coming from working-class backgrounds.
After the partition of Ireland in 1922, everything except for 9 counties in the North became the Republic of Ireland. Those counties remained part of the UK as Northern Ireland due to the amount of Ulster Scots, or Protestants, in the region. The influence that the British had in the region became a very salient issue and the area became divided between those who wanted Northern Ireland to stay with the UK (Unionists, Loyalists, Protestants) and those who wanted Ireland to be its own entity as a whole island (Republicans, Nationalists, Catholics). The divisions led to violence, with over 3,000 people being killed during a time called the Troubles between the 60s and 80s. It began with a series of peaceful protests against the discrimination of Catholics, inspired by the human rights marches in the US. The protests became violent and the city quickly became a war zone for urban guerrilla warfare. Eventually, a peace agreement was reached in 1998 known as The Good Friday agreement, but it has not stopped the deep-rooted division from keeping the city apart. To this day, people from either side disklike the other, and in some neighbourhoods, it has reached a point that structures called "peace walls" have been raised in order to keep violence and threats to a minimum. One side of these towering structures live Catholics while on the other live Protestants. These partitions between communities are not always giant walls but are also hospice homes, old folks' homes, hospitals, and schools. Since the peace agreements, more have gone up than come down.
We visited Belfast at a particularly divisive time, due to the Eleventh Night. On the night of July 11th, loyalist groups will collect as much wood and wooden pallets as they build some of the biggest bonfires you will ever see. They do this in remembrance of July 12th which marks the anniversary of a battle during the Glorious Revolution. The people were getting tired of their Catholic King James VII and so Parliament invited William of Orange and his wife Mary to challenge James for the throne. William was the grandson of Charles I, who was beheaded by the people not too long before. The battle of July 12th took place in Northern Ireland. There were supporters of James, known as Jacobites, residing there, and in order to quash their constant rebelling, William went in to fight them. Those who were on his side lit fires along the route, called beacons. To commemorate the defeat of the Catholic Jacobites, the Protestants in Northern Ireland build these fires and light them the night before the 12th, like they would have been. The celebrations that ensue around remembering this battle are condemned by some in the Catholic community. The fires themselves are actually illegal and unregulated, but they continue to go on with no legal repercussions because there would be violent protests if the government were to stop these "cultural" celebrations. Each year, violence breaks out around the 12th, reaffirming that Belfast is a city divided.
Belfast is still suffering from the height of the violence during the Troubles. it is estimated that more people have died since due to suicide than during the conflict. Northern Ireland has the second highest suicide rate in Europe, and the estimate of people who have suffered from mental illness, including PTSD due to the violence is roughly 200, 000. Paramilitaries run neighbourhoods, much like gangs do in some cities in the US, and when they resort to violence to keep people in line, no one goes to the police out of fear of threats and repercussions from the paramilitaries. Not much seems to have changed since the Troubles, other than every day there are not riot police and members of the military lining the streets.
Belfast has had a long history of industrial business thanks to its bustling port. During the industrial revolution, it was the worlds largest linen producer, then it became the home of the shipbuilding company Harland and Wolfe, who built the Titanic in its shipyard there. Since the early 1900s, Belfast has continued to be focused industrial business with the building of arms taking over the dockyards. It has also become a centre of art, technology, and education. I mention the economic focus of the city, because it is important to the history of the city, with most of its people coming from working-class backgrounds.
After the partition of Ireland in 1922, everything except for 9 counties in the North became the Republic of Ireland. Those counties remained part of the UK as Northern Ireland due to the amount of Ulster Scots, or Protestants, in the region. The influence that the British had in the region became a very salient issue and the area became divided between those who wanted Northern Ireland to stay with the UK (Unionists, Loyalists, Protestants) and those who wanted Ireland to be its own entity as a whole island (Republicans, Nationalists, Catholics). The divisions led to violence, with over 3,000 people being killed during a time called the Troubles between the 60s and 80s. It began with a series of peaceful protests against the discrimination of Catholics, inspired by the human rights marches in the US. The protests became violent and the city quickly became a war zone for urban guerrilla warfare. Eventually, a peace agreement was reached in 1998 known as The Good Friday agreement, but it has not stopped the deep-rooted division from keeping the city apart. To this day, people from either side disklike the other, and in some neighbourhoods, it has reached a point that structures called "peace walls" have been raised in order to keep violence and threats to a minimum. One side of these towering structures live Catholics while on the other live Protestants. These partitions between communities are not always giant walls but are also hospice homes, old folks' homes, hospitals, and schools. Since the peace agreements, more have gone up than come down.
We visited Belfast at a particularly divisive time, due to the Eleventh Night. On the night of July 11th, loyalist groups will collect as much wood and wooden pallets as they build some of the biggest bonfires you will ever see. They do this in remembrance of July 12th which marks the anniversary of a battle during the Glorious Revolution. The people were getting tired of their Catholic King James VII and so Parliament invited William of Orange and his wife Mary to challenge James for the throne. William was the grandson of Charles I, who was beheaded by the people not too long before. The battle of July 12th took place in Northern Ireland. There were supporters of James, known as Jacobites, residing there, and in order to quash their constant rebelling, William went in to fight them. Those who were on his side lit fires along the route, called beacons. To commemorate the defeat of the Catholic Jacobites, the Protestants in Northern Ireland build these fires and light them the night before the 12th, like they would have been. The celebrations that ensue around remembering this battle are condemned by some in the Catholic community. The fires themselves are actually illegal and unregulated, but they continue to go on with no legal repercussions because there would be violent protests if the government were to stop these "cultural" celebrations. Each year, violence breaks out around the 12th, reaffirming that Belfast is a city divided.
Belfast is still suffering from the height of the violence during the Troubles. it is estimated that more people have died since due to suicide than during the conflict. Northern Ireland has the second highest suicide rate in Europe, and the estimate of people who have suffered from mental illness, including PTSD due to the violence is roughly 200, 000. Paramilitaries run neighbourhoods, much like gangs do in some cities in the US, and when they resort to violence to keep people in line, no one goes to the police out of fear of threats and repercussions from the paramilitaries. Not much seems to have changed since the Troubles, other than every day there are not riot police and members of the military lining the streets.
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