Tuesday/City Tour

Tuesday

It’s only been 24 hours, but it feels like a week with all we have done. This morning we took a “Black Taxi” tour through the city with a sprightly driver, Paddy. Paddy made it clear from the beginning that he wasn’t going to tell us whether he was a Catholic or Protestant, but present “both sides of the story.”

The sides have been in conflict for hundreds of years. After partition in 1912, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland were created. The conflict stems in part from the desire of Northern Ireland (protestant majority) to continue to be part of the UK. The Catholics in Northern Ireland and the Free Republic seek a unified Ireland independent of British Rule. The Ulster Defense Association (UDA) and, until 2007, its military wing, the Ulster Freedom Fighters work on behalf of the Loyalists, and Sinn Fein and the IRA are known for their tactics against Britain interests.

The Troubles were a period of 30-35 years of escalating, violent conflict, brought to a halt (sort of) by the Good Friday Peace Agreement in 1998.

I apologize to historians for this reductionist version of a complex and charged situation, but the background helps to frame the lives and experiences of the people in the county.

There are walls and fences. Screened-in porches are reinforced cages. Community gates close each night to protect residents against acts of violence. There are moving memorials for the dead and militant murals for the living.

Paddy said that many tourists ask why people choose to stay and live in these conditions and under such constraints. He worked hard to help us understand, saying that “this is our home, our land…we can’t leave…”

But I was struck and humbled by the notion that these people live willing to die.

More soon…