Belfast City Hall, the Falls Road and the Shankill

The Tara Lodge breakfast was a very hearty, traditional (and filling) way to start the day for us - Rob even had a short drop of Irish whiskey in his porridge to "warm the cockles" of his heart on another cold morning here in Ireland. 

Belfast's city centre, with all its municipal buildings and major stores, is a short walk north of our accommodation, so we started the day with a visit to the city's extremely grand City Hall building. 

Built at considerable effort and expense around the end of the 1800s the City Hall stages an excellent exhibition of Belfast's past and present history in 14 rooms of artefacts, maps, photographs and text that really bring Belfast's colourful history of settlement, industrial supremacy and wealth, civic life, religious and class division, to life. 

Surprisingly there was very little information on the most defining era of Belfast's recent history, The Troubles - apart from a politics/detail free "Room for reflection" including heartfelt and thought provoking quotes like these ...........

We'd arranged to meet up with Maeve at lunchtime. Maeve being a friend of my friend Tania who is a Belfast resident and quite the history buff. She had offered to take us on a guided tour of the Falls Road and Shankill areas of West Belfast and talk to us about some of the complexities of Northern Ireland politics over the last 50 years or so.

After a long chat over lunch and a short bus ride we started our walking tour on Falls Road which borders a predominantly Nationalist and Republican (Catholic) community in Belfast. This area of the city was constantly in the news during the era of "The Troubles" for its bombings, guerrilla warfare and state of all out war between the British government and the forces of the Unionists and Loyalists (Protestants) and the Catholics of Northern Ireland.

There are murals all along Falls Road created by local artists reflecting on Nth Ireland's struggles  over the last half of the twentieth century and commemorating lives lost during the 25 years or so of The Troubles. 

Bobbie Sands and the 9 other hunger strikers in Maze Prison who gave up their lives over a few months in 1981, in protest, are a recurring image/theme in the Falls Road murals.

The black cab in the picture below before the famous Bobbie Sands mural is part of the Black Cab Tours company that offers tours of the area conducted by guides/drivers who were part of the groups fighting/defending freedom and justice on their own terms during The Troubles.

Maeve told us the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) is the much more radical offshoot of the IRA - and still going strong today!

There are memorials all over the Falls Road to fallen heroes.. it has the feel of a sacred place!

And a shop selling Irish souvenirs, Irish republican and revolutionary items!

The Falls Road Garden of Remembrance honours the IRA 'D' Company members killed during the Troubles as well as civilians and deceased ex-prisoners from the area.

Maeve talked to us a lot about the meaning and history behind the community driven murals before leading us to the famous International Peace Murals at the eastern end of Falls Road where it meets Divis street. Since March this year the wall has been devoted to messages of peace and protest about Israel's invasion of Gaza. It's obvious that the residents of the Falls Road area feel enormous empathy for the people of Gaza and their oppression by Israel. There were Palestinian flags flying everywhere along the road today.

Northumberland Street is the "no man's land" between Falls Road and Shankill Road. Every night the gates across the road are closed so there is no right of way between the areas. Tensions between the Nationalists/Rebublicans of the Falls Road area and the Unionists/Loyalists of the Shankill are considered so intense that night time crossings are still prevented.

Maeve guided us carefully through the (open) gates of Belfast's "No Man's Land".

Shankill Road has plenty of murals too - almost to answer the proliferation of community driven mural making in the Catholic zone.

This mural depicts the men of C Company of the Ulster volunteers - come to shoot you and blast you to smithereens ........

A view of the wall dividing the two communities - 6 metres high and around a kilometre long - and still in place despite the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended this so called Civil War.

More murals in the Shankill - celebrating links with Britain and the Empire and support for the state of Israel.........

.....and pride in King William 111 - the original Orangeman who established Protestantism in Ireland in the late 1600s.

The Shankill did not have a good vibe for us today - the public murals seem belligerent in tone to us and the adulation and celebration of the British Empire and militarism in general seem out of step. Maeve put it to us that for the Unionists/Loyalists its about pride in their British identity and culture and an unwillingness for that to be overtaken by Irishness! Such confronting messages given the context of Belfast's recent history!

It was nearing 6.00pm by the time we ended our walk today. We said our goodbyes to the wonderful and knowledgeable Maeve and made a date to talk with her again before we leave Belfast later in the week.