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Published: August 7th 2007
Due to Travelblog's system failure, this article had to be re-published. Apologies, apologies... and Hi from London Blind History Ireland’s warm apple pie with a dollop of fresh cream was Belfast. I went into the city ignorant. I couldn’t recall any knowledge, any history or awareness except snippets of conflict and violence. Nothing in my textbook days could inform me of the current issues within the region. I remember the stress on American history… and American history. I remember creating colorful cornucopias around meals with friendly, newly arrived Europeans and hospitable natives dressed in tan loin clothe. I remember the civil war between the north and south and the abolition of slavery. I remember the World Wars, the Cold War, the presidencies within and between, and the Vietnam War (called “The American War” by Vietnamese in Vietnam). I remember pledging allegiance at the start of class and the hours of memorizing the “Star Spangled Banner”.
Ah yes, America and its education system, and unfortunately as President Bush receives a blank check from our Congressmen to continue the occupation of Iraq, none of us can say with any conviction that the education system will be improving shortly.
What
I
could remember of Belfast was a distinction between something too often misunderstood. It was just another religious conflict. Catholics and Protestants, right? Or maybe Christians and Muslims?
(Nope, not this one, Sir). Yes, another situation where religions attacked one another because their definition of God did not include enough fear, judgment or righteousness. This was my Belfast, and from many angles, it was all wrong. Up until now, I had not taken it upon myself, as my responsibility, to educate myself. This was about to change.
Walking the Falls Here I was: Belfast. Another city. But what of Falls Road and Sandy Row? The Republicans and Loyalists? Nationalists and Unionists? Paisley, Adams, Sands and Nugent? What was Bono of the rock band
U2 referring to when he wrote “Sunday Bloody Sunday”? And the New Lodge Six? That sounds like the new Motel 6 of the British Isles. To be honest, I couldn’t even put an assured finger on the acronym IRA. Stamp me and label me “IGNORANT”.
To start, the city is the capitol of Northern Ireland (the North of Ireland to the Nationalists), and it was back a few days prior between Dundalk and
Newry when we passed the official border dividing the land in two: To the south lay the free Republic of Ireland. To the north encompasses the Queen’s province—an occupied Northern Ireland. A mere discrepancy in the motorway’s materials marked the imaginary line, and without Roggie it would have gone by unnoticed. Soon, we found ourselves in the heart of Belfast along Divis Street beneath the infamous tower.
Up until 2005, the Divis Tower—a twenty-story housing structure—was considered a spy base of the British Army. They occupied the top two floors from where they could be the eye-in-the-sky over West Belfast; the stronghold of the Irish Republican Army within the Nationalist neighborhoods. It was here that nine year-old Patrick Rooney and twenty year-old Hugh McCabe were shot and killed by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) as they sprayed the building with machine guns. This marked a beginning of a new era—the date August 15th, 1969—the day The Troubles began.
In our world of duality, there are two sides to all conflict—and Northern Ireland is not to be excluded. To be brief, The Troubles was a war of native Irish fighting for the north of Ireland’s independence from Britain. Back
in 1921, the Anglo-Irish Treaty partitioned the Ireland of the south from the Crown. This created the Republic of Ireland, and left Northern Ireland in the rule of others. Ireland and the Irish were divided, and it wasn’t until August 15th when the full-fledged struggle escalated for an all-Ireland freedom.
In favor of independence are the Nationalists, or the Republicans. These Irish are the original settlers of the land, who were all Catholics. They lived, inhabited, cultivated and maintained Ireland for generations. On the opposing end are the Loyalists, or Unionists. They claim their dependency to the Queen, most emigrating to the north of Ireland from England and bringing their Protestant religion with them. They vow that Northern Ireland is their Britain.
We peered up at the summit, still garlanded with thick wires and satellite antennas. Beyond, a flat layer of gray clouds rested upon us, and a mist as fine as a feather dusted the city. A cold breeze blew, and our guide Sean greeted us with his enlightened talk of history from the Republican’s perspective. As the introductions dwindled, the group of peace-walkers moved north up Falls Road, leaving the Divis Tower behind and its small
plaque that memorializes two young civilians who unjustly found themselves within a pool of their own blood.
Bring Up The Wall Amidst the sharp red brick, colors of paint stood out against a low light. Each mural brought a shine to the puddles on the street and the rows of concentric buildings, but this one was unique. It was the message of the Irish people, not necessarily in terms of value, but of all humanity:
Everyone Republican or otherwise, has their own particular role to play. Our revenge will be the laughter of our children. His features were feminine. I first mistook the image to be a woman, yet it was him, the name I had been hearing, repeated as though idolized in the face of justice. With long brown hair, wavy in a frozen breeze, and with gentle eyes that squinted above his smile, Bobby Sands was immortalized.
Born in 1954, Bobby never missed a Christmas in prison after the age of seventeen. He grew up around Abbots Cross, and slowly, as the segregation between Loyalists and Nationalists grew, as Protestants became more hostile towards Catholics, Sands witnessed the separation among his friends. Fewer
Protestants showed up at his team’s football matches, and more and more friends began denying their welcome into their homes. Unionist parents provoked a discriminatory lifestyle, and their children responded. Being a witness to the increasing conflict, Bobby took action and soon signed on as a member of the Irish Republican Army. He was eighteen years of age and was quickly arrested in 1972. To his unfortunate fate, and to that of the British Army, it was not until six years later that Bobby Sands received his fair trail.
Once released in ‘76, heated by the injustice of his jail term, Bobby’s youthful determinacy was solidified within the Republican’s movement for a free Ireland. He established himself back into the IRA and developed into a frontline activist. He also became a political associate with Sinn Fein—the country’s oldest political movement, which strives for “the establishment of a new Ireland based on sustainable social and economic development; genuine democracy, participation, equality and justice at all levels of the economy and society; and a lasting and meaningful peace with unity of purpose and action”.
As The Troubles intensified, as the bombings and shoot-outs spread throughout Northern Ireland between the British
Army-backed Loyalists and Sinn Fein-supported Nationalists, Bobby was taken back into custody the same year of his release and sentenced to a fourteen-year term. The charge: possession of firearms, in which his three other counterparts were indicted as well (even though only one handgun was found among them).
At the start of Bobby’s second term, a whole new revolution was beginning. Called the “Blanket Protest”, it was first launched when Nationalist Kieran Nugent was informed he would have to wear the new-convicts uniform. When he asked for his own clothing as a prisoner of war and was subsequently refused, Kieran denied the status of an ordinary criminal and thus remained naked except for his provided blanket.
This new requirement among the political prisoners was a result of the newly elected Secretary of State, Merlyn Rees, who considered all prisoners to be common criminals. This meant Kieran, Bobby and all other arrested Nationalists, Republicans and Catholics fighting for a free Ireland lost their right to wear their own clothing; be exempted from prison work; freely associate with others, organize educational and recreational facilities; and receive one visit, one letter and one parcel per week. And since prisoners were not
allowed out of their cells unless properly dressed, this new statement confined all POWs “on the blanket” to their cells twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. None of the inmates in the H-block of Long Kesh took this lightly, especially Bobby Sands.
A Hunger For Justice We all hunger for justice. We all starve for our beliefs to be lived, often not only by us, but by others. We yearn for acceptance and a chance to be heard, respected, and appreciated. With continued confinement, Bobby wrote the following on strips of toilet paper:
The days were long and lonely. The sudden and total deprivation of such basic human necessities as exercise and fresh air, association with other people, my own clothes and things like newspapers, radio, cigarettes, books and a host of other things, made my life very hard. Without the feeling of being listened to, Bobby, along with his other inmates, took action. With a chamber pot placed in each cell, it was the prisoner’s duty to empty it once full. However, since they were not allowed the privilege to leave until fully clothed, they started dumping their waste out the windows. The
guards took notice and quickly boarded their portals to the outside world with the hope of forcing the prisoners to end their blanket protest. By improvising their methods of relaying messages to one another in their individual cells, the blanketmen devised another plan of engagement. Since they lost their sunlight and fresh air from the obstructed windows, they figured to affect the guards as much as themselves by smearing their cell walls with feces. Cream walls turned brown, and the H-block became infused with the repulsive smells of human waste.
Without a budge from Long Kesh’s authorities, the “Dirty Protest” went on until October 27th, 1980. On this day, seven inmates refused their lunchtime meals, demanding political status as their basic human right. This resulted in the first of two hunger strikes. The second would result in the total death of ten political prisoners, including Bobby Sands, but not until his political recognition.
Continuance & War Falls Road was explored. We wandered through the barren streets of brick and mortar, passed the murals and paintings depicting a cry for freedom, for love and joy in the hearts of man, woman and child. Each mural was portrayed with
writings and prose urging for a release of suffering. They paid homage to the dead, both young and old, and the face of Bobby Sands outside the Sinn Fein headquarters of West Belfast was the epicenter of the ongoing struggle.
On April 10th, 1981, the people of the north of Ireland granted Bobby his recognition as a leader. From his prison cell, while continuing the second hunger strike for status as a political prisoner, Bobby Sands was elected Member of the United Kingdom Parliament. Less than a month later, on May 5th, he died of starvation at the age of 27 within the H-block of Long Kesh as British authorities continued to deny the prisoners of war their basic rights. It was his 66th day on the hunger strike. In the words of Margaret Thatcher, “A crime is a crime is a crime. It is not political, it is a crime.”
On one of our days, we walked to Stormont. Along the five-mile route, we crossed from West Belfast to East Belfast, from the Nationalist neighborhoods into the Loyalist’s. The change was drastic. There was an economical divide. New homes and clean bricks. Parks were being erected for
children. And traffic seemed quieter. Most noticeable were the murals. Instead of a depiction of peace and justice, paintings showed militants in black hoods carrying semi-automatic rifles. They posed with snipers and wove the English flag. Words claimed their right to fight and their loyalty to the Crown. It was their Britain, and it shall remain indefinitely.
Along Falls Road, passed the Unionist’s Sandy Row. We heard the history and became aware of the newly signed peace agreement between Northern Ireland’s First Minister Ian Paisley and Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams—a process of bringing representation of both parties (Loyalists and Republicans, Unionists and Nationalists, Protestants and Catholics) to the government. I put a face and full chronology to the name Bobby Sands and interwove Kieran Nugent’s role in the Republican struggle. Also, I connected the cities and towns of Northern Ireland outside Belfast and learnt of their involvement. I’ll listen to
U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” with a deeper understanding, and think of the men, women and children of Derry.
On our last night, three of us drove through the north of Belfast on an errand and came across the neighborhood called by Nationalists, “New Lodge Six”. It was here, on February 3rd, 1973 that six young Catholic men were shot with machine guns and snipers by the British Army. The soldiers recently received new gear; a device strapped onto the head with attached goggles that gave them the ability to see in the dark. It was new technology than, old for today, but the heat-sensing infrared turned these innocent men into target practice, which resulted in their deaths.
Belfast. We left on the ferry for Scotland. Our walk a continuance for peace—in our hearts, within our own minds—connecting the divides of this world’s duality.
To be continued... Additional Resources:
O’Hearn, Dennis.
Bobby Sands: Nothing But An Unfinished Song. Pluto Press. London, 2006. 385 pages.
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Dennis P.
non-member comment
Deep Sigh....
Namaste Cam. Much of what is shared in this blog is new information. Thanks for the care, love and perspective. In an effort to soften 'ego' (while allowing due space), imagine conversations without the words, I, me, you, us, them, they, ours, mine, yours, etc. Imagine. If everything one perceives is a perception / reflection of oneself / ones spirit, then one realizes one's isolation / aloneness. This, of course is balanced by one's sense/cellular knowledge that all 'things' are connected. Both these models are completely true and simultaneously true. Hugs. From one alien to another.