There’s a scar in Ireland. It’s short, tiny, but very deep, and barely healing. The people use it to segregate themselves. British supporting “Unionists” on one side, Ireland Republic supporting “Nationalists” on the other. In all honesty, there are hundreds of these scars; they cut in and out of neighborhoods. Some have nothing but tall metal, concrete and barbed wire. But others have beautiful paintings covering them. They are murals, memories, enshrined as long as the scar itself lasts. The Northern Ireland government has stated that these scars will go away by 2023. But scars never do. And though they may come down, I think, the memory will always be there. The Irish are passionate, lovely, and strong. In this city, the fear and pain simmers just under the skin. For now there is peace, but it is fragile, as all beautiful things are. The peace came at a high price, thousands dead, more thousands maimed and wounded.
The Troubles were a climatic end to a three hundred year old conflict. The Troubles began in 1969. By the mid-nineties both sides had enough of death, and in ‘98 a treaty was signed. During the Troubles London, Dublin, and mainland Europe were all victims of the violence. But most of it was confined to the beautiful streets of Belfast. An old Republican shows us the worst of the Troubles, he gives us a crash course on the history of the place. I ask if he’s afraid they’ll start again. He tells me that there might be some problems, “but everyone remembers, and none of us want it again.”
He tells me things. “I lived down in this neighborhood. They burned my house down. In a night, I had nothing but anger and fear in my heart.” “There were so many innocent killed. Hundreds. This wall chronicles about four hundred innocent women and children and men killed. Some groups have posted their political messages here, but they shouldn’t have. This wall is for the innocents.” “Clinton came here. He had a pint with the leader of the IRA, after they signed the treaty in 1998. Couldn’t believe he did that.”
He shows us an elementary school. Very few children go to the school anymore. It’s a school for Catholic children in a Protestant neighborhood. The threat of harm was so bad that the school became more of a fortress than a place of learning. The school hasn’t changed. It has metal shutters that close over the vulnerable windows in the black of the night. It is guarded by a tall fence that has barbed wire as a macabre icing.
The main peace wall is a staggering five miles long. It squirms and stabs through the north and east side of the city. It has murals of hope, future. It has messages of peace that are so stubborn. They are stubborn as only the Irish can be. I write my own love letter to this city on the beginning of the wall. It is short and lost among the thousands of others that are inked over the murals. I hope that maybe someone can read it some day and maybe it’ll change one mind. Maybe they’ll see it and decide, like most have in Belfast, that sometimes the reasons why people die aren’t enough. That sometimes the fact that so many have died is enough, and it should only be thus. But my message is lost in everyone else’s. I know they that wrote them all have the same wish.
The old Republican man is lovely. He is patient with me as I ask to stay and walk a while. We don’t take many pictures here. This history is meant to be felt. One must stand on the street with the ghosts of the dead innocents in order to understand, however little, the desperation, the violence, and the anger.
There are memorial gardens. They are in both the Protestant Unionist and Catholic Republican sides. Names etched in walls. Always remember, they say. Never forget, they say. And I feel the horror. I feel the depression in my gut. It silences me. Some say that segregation isn’t the way. Sometimes it isn’t. But this time it is. It allows the inhabitants of Belfast to live and let live. It allows them peace. No more killing, the walls say. Always remember, they say. Never forget, they say. The walls are punctuated by an armed police force. It is employed evenly by Republicans and Unionists. They are ready at the drop of a hat to come in force to protect the innocent. Mostly, they haven’t been needed.
While we are in Belfast we stay with a lovely woman, Mary. She speaks a million words a minute, and each one is a golden treasure. We discuss politics in the morning while I drink coffee. She is fierce in her beliefs. She believes Trump is an American clown and I agree. We discuss, lightly, Irish politics. She is what she is through and through, but not at the cost of another’s life. And she is a voice of reason. I suspect this voice is now the majority of Belfast. I think of what she says as I read a Mural that references an old poem. It reads:
“Life to be sure, is nothing much to lose. But young think it is, and we were young.”
There are gates on these walls as well. Two gates, always. The Republicans shut theirs, and the Unionists close theirs. They are always shut at six in the evening. And I wonder if the men who close the gates dream, as I do, that one day the gates will not need to be shut. That Catholic and Protestant alike will travel without fear throughout the city.
There is already hope that this will come to pass. The Republican who shows us the sites of the troubles tells us that his children see the hate his generation has for each other, but they do not understand it. His eyes light up as he speaks of his offspring, as all parent’s eyes do. He wants the best for them, and he knows that in time, integration is the best. Empathy is learned through interaction with others.
But his scars and this city’s scars are too fresh to heal completely just yet. So he waits. He takes people on tours of this sad saga, he watches through wary eyes as they ignorantly take smiling “Selfie” pictures of themselves in front of memorials of women and men who died. He waits. And he guards with fierce tenacity the memories of the Troubles. He guards this scar called peace.
Storied By Josh 