So the first official stop on our tour were the western sectarian neighborhoods in the city of Belfast. This area was home to a heavy amount of conflict in the time period surrounding the Troubles. This is where the majority of the infamous Belfast murals are found. These murals are political statements that were made by both parties: Protestant loyalists and Catholic nationalists, and were painted on the sides of peoples houses as a statement of their stance, or of a major political figure. Its estimated that around the 70s, when the conflict was at its peak, there were close to 2000 political murals. This makes sense when considering one of the biggest civilian casualty single events, the Bloody Sunday Massacre of 1972, would have sparked an enormous amount of political murals. Today, however there are only about 300 that are actual quality murals. There is also a large mural, called the Injustice Wall or International Wall, that is not focused on the specific sects and chooses instead to focus on global problems that reflect a similar theme from the Troubles.
After seeming the various murals we made our way to the Peace Wall. This wall was originally built to separate the protestant and catholic citizens that chose to segregate themselves. While they did segregate themselves, they was also quite a bit of violence remaining, and as such the wall was erected by popular demand. The wall was then added on over the years in order to make it taller, with two or three visible additions to the original wall. These extreme height additions, reaching a total height of 25 feet including the original wall, were a necessity as people would often throw Molotov cocktails at the neighboring sect. The protestant side of the wall that we saw was riddled with graffiti from people all over the world. Even people who are famous flock to sign the wall and make their mark, including Bill Clinton who served major part in the Troubles. As we went on to the Catholic side, we saw more memorials to those who had been killed during police acts of violence in their rallies. The reason that they died were by means of overexposure to CS gas, CR gas, or being fired upon from close range by the rubber "safety bullets". The bullets were roughly three inches long, half and inch in diameter and were fired from basically shotguns at those who were making a ruckus. The were technically not supposed to be fired from within a twenty foot range, but this rule was loosely followed which resulted in the hemorrhaging of internal organs and death of peaceful protesters. Also, the houses nearby the wall had steel cages covering their outside doors and sheet metal on their roofs to protect from the cocktails and grenades. There were visible burn marks on the wall from these exact weapons.
One last detour that we took was to an area that had quie a few poiltical flags up. Initally it didn't look to have an importance past the flags, but it turned out that this area was home to a faction of the Orange Order. Now this is a Protestant fraternity organisation that has incredibly strong unionist ties. This order has an annual march that they do throuhouth the neighborhoods along with the other marches and are restricted as to where they are allowed to march. This does not sit well with them. They see it that N. Ireland it a predominantly protestant area and that there marches should go unrestricted. When we were outside learning about them, they exited their gated area and began to look rather menacingly at us. So we decided to get out of their farely quickly and continue on our way.
A very informative and deep day. Lot of political tension still very obvious in these areas, which is odd to see. More to come tomorrow as we look at the struggles in Dingle. Cheers.
After seeming the various murals we made our way to the Peace Wall. This wall was originally built to separate the protestant and catholic citizens that chose to segregate themselves. While they did segregate themselves, they was also quite a bit of violence remaining, and as such the wall was erected by popular demand. The wall was then added on over the years in order to make it taller, with two or three visible additions to the original wall. These extreme height additions, reaching a total height of 25 feet including the original wall, were a necessity as people would often throw Molotov cocktails at the neighboring sect. The protestant side of the wall that we saw was riddled with graffiti from people all over the world. Even people who are famous flock to sign the wall and make their mark, including Bill Clinton who served major part in the Troubles. As we went on to the Catholic side, we saw more memorials to those who had been killed during police acts of violence in their rallies. The reason that they died were by means of overexposure to CS gas, CR gas, or being fired upon from close range by the rubber "safety bullets". The bullets were roughly three inches long, half and inch in diameter and were fired from basically shotguns at those who were making a ruckus. The were technically not supposed to be fired from within a twenty foot range, but this rule was loosely followed which resulted in the hemorrhaging of internal organs and death of peaceful protesters. Also, the houses nearby the wall had steel cages covering their outside doors and sheet metal on their roofs to protect from the cocktails and grenades. There were visible burn marks on the wall from these exact weapons.
One last detour that we took was to an area that had quie a few poiltical flags up. Initally it didn't look to have an importance past the flags, but it turned out that this area was home to a faction of the Orange Order. Now this is a Protestant fraternity organisation that has incredibly strong unionist ties. This order has an annual march that they do throuhouth the neighborhoods along with the other marches and are restricted as to where they are allowed to march. This does not sit well with them. They see it that N. Ireland it a predominantly protestant area and that there marches should go unrestricted. When we were outside learning about them, they exited their gated area and began to look rather menacingly at us. So we decided to get out of their farely quickly and continue on our way.
A very informative and deep day. Lot of political tension still very obvious in these areas, which is odd to see. More to come tomorrow as we look at the struggles in Dingle. Cheers.