Belfast, Day 2: Walking Tour of Falls Road

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Geo: 54.5973, -5.93019

Belfast Day 2 (March 31)

On this day I took a walking tour of
the Falls Road area lead by Robert, a former member of the IRA who
spent twelve years in prison. This was advertised (and also mentioned
in the Rick Steves book) as a three hour walk but it fact it lasted
four and one-half hours. Robert's past membership in the IRA and his
current work for Sinn Fein has given him lots of street creed: it
seems like every driver of a black taxi and every person over fifty
years gave him the high sign as our group walked along the street.

We met at Divis Tower – a twenty
story apartment building located at the edge of Falls Road (000). The
top two stories of the building has been used by the British army as
an observation post. Because there were ten stories of unsympathetic
people below the observation post it had to be supplied by
helicopter; also, soldiers had to be transported to and from the post
by helicopter.

I viewed many of the murals seen on the
previous day (010, 020, 030, 050). Note that overnight someone has
thrown paint on the mural of the gun smuggling operation (040). We
also stopped at several of the street side memorials (060, 070). More
Peace Wall was observed (075). Our group stopped at the Sinn Fein
bookstore where I purchased those books of wall murals. The nice
saleslady told me that she was held in prison without trail for
eighteen months before being released; this evidently was a common
practice at that time.

What Robert showed us that was not seen
on the taxi tour was a history museum of Irish Republicanism located
on a side street off of Falls Road. It in were uniforms, weapons, and
other historic items include rubber bullets used by anti-riot squads
which were not so non-lethal. (100, 110, 120, 130, 140, 150).

We also stopped at the office of an
outreach organization that services former IRA prisoners. This office
contained a complete cell recovered from the Armagh Womens Prison
where female members of the IRA were incarcerated. (080, 090)

The last stop of the tour was the
Milltown Cemetery. This is Belfast's Catholic cemetery where 200,000
people have been buried. Among those are people who have gone up
against British authorities from as far back as the 1700s. The
cemetery is the final resting place scores of IRA combatants
including Bobby Sands who was one of the dozen or so people who
starved themselves to death while being held at the Maze Prison.
(160, 170, 180, 185, 190, 200)

Across the street from Milltown is the
city's non-secular cemetery where another 250,000 people are buried.
The cemetery has areas set aside for Protestants, Catholics, and
Jews. Though this sounds like something from Mad magazine it is true:
the Protestant and Catholic areas are separated by a wall that goes
down nine feet from the surface of the land:

http://www.discovernorthernireland.com/Belfast-City-Cemetery-Belfast-P25366

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