July 23-24
This 24 hours was so incredible it’s hard to know where to start…

Northern Ireland and Belfast – as brands – for me are as steeped in past violence and horror as Beirut and Lebanon. I grew up on the other side of the world watching the terror and atrocities on the TV news as the people of these two places tore each other apart.

So coming here now – what did I expect?
I expected a cosmopolitan, prosperous and fun place; and I was cautioned not to talk of the “troubles” of the past. But talking is what I’m doing – it’s the purpose of my trip.
As I sat on the Aer Lingus plane, about to take off, I reflected on what I expected to see and what my preconceptions of the Northern Irish might be. I thought of fun, parties, drinking, jokes, clover, luck, religion, potatoes and a violent past.
We stayed at the magnificent Merchant Hotel in Belfast. It has ornate soaring ceilings and the most splendiferous grand Victorian dining room I think I’ve ever seen. We checked in and headed out; it was Saturday night after all.
We met Barney and his mates out for his birthday. These boys – in their early 20s – represented the modern Northern Ireland I hoped to find. Some were from mixed marriages of Catholic and Protestant parents. Mostly the boys were Protestant, but there were some Catholic mates. There was an acknowledgment of past difficulty – but all very friendly and free-and-easy now.
We found this everywhere we went. There is a great energy and vibe in Belfast on a Saturday night. Cool new bars mix with beautiful traditional pubs. The lads are gym-fit and well-dressed; the girls fit and pretty. Although I did notice false eyelashes are a thing here. Almost every girl had huge thick long eyelashes.
The only thing that was disconcerting was the police vehicles. These were huge heavily-armoured Land Rovers with bulletproof glass and deployable steel-slat windscreen-protectors. I talked with a cop. ‘Wow – tough car!’ I said. ‘Yeah, well, you need a tough car when they throw petrol bombs at ya,’ he replied. ‘What, really? Nowadays? Still?’ ‘Yep.’
We didn’t go into it, but this seemed inconsistent with the easy joy of a Saturday night in the city centre.
So we got into the cab to go to pick up our car on Sunday morning feeling very jolly and “up” on Belfast. Then we started talking to our cab driver.
‘Yeah, we’ve all got regrets; things are better now – but we’ve all got regrets’.
Like from what?
‘From Rarting’
What? Ratting?
‘No Rarting’
Roughing?
‘No Rarting’
Routing?
‘No Rarting’
I’m really, really sorry. I just can’t understand. Can you spell it?
‘R O I T I N G’ (sic)
Royting?
‘Nah RARRRRTING’
Rioting?
‘YEAH, Rarting!’
No joke – this went on for minutes. We felt so stupid and embarrassed. But we just couldn’t get what he was saying.
‘I walked a girlfriend home one night through a Catholic neighbourhood. They came up behind me and hit me across the head with a piece of 4×4. I would have died if I wasn’t rescued by a 68-year-old woman walking her dog’.
Why did they target you?
‘I don’t know. I guess they just didn’t recognise me and I was in their area’.
And so he told us horror-story after horror-story from the ‘rarting’ days. A mate that was in the Paramilitary and was given a pipe bomb to throw; it detonated in his hand and blew him to pieces. Another mate shot and killed while ‘rarting’.
‘Yeah, we’ve all got regrets but it’s getting better now’.
He didn’t want to talk on-camera, but suggested we go to a community centre – as it was Sunday – and talk to people there.
On the way to the community centre we took a wrong turn down a street with a wall and fence with anti-climb paint, barbed wire, spindles of razor wire and spikes. The wall soared at least 10-12 metres into the air; impossibly high.
‘Wow,’ I said, ‘that must be a prison’.
Then we realised they were houses on the other side and it dawned on us it wasn’t a prison. But what was it, we wondered?
We pulled up and walked along this huge imposing wall until we found a bloke with his kids walking their dog – a Schnauzer pup.
He told us about the ‘Interface Wall’ as we stood at its foot. It’s the interface between these Catholic and Protestant communities.
We’re actually shocked. It’s here in the street now; like you see a wall between Palestine and Israel.
He told us of “The Marching Season” of July 12th when people throw paint-bombs, golf-balls, large ball-bearings (and in times past even shot at each other) through and over the wall. It’s been there for about 25 years.
So what was marching season like this year, I asked?
‘Much quieter; not too bad’.
While we were talking to him two lads pointed out a guy filming us, as we talked, from his bathroom window on the other side of the Interface Wall.
‘He’s Scottish. They always film us’.
So we walked to the end of the street, turned right, walked to the next street, turned right again and walked down the other side of the wall. Really – it’s crazy. It’s open at one end and you can just walk around it; but at the other end it’s 12 metres high and the road is blocked with a massive brick wall.
We chatted to a Protestant man of about 60 who was sweeping leaves outside his house. No-one wanted to talk on-camera but they were happy to talk. He was also grateful for a quieter season this year and told us how many of the kids now have friends from the other side and you can even go to each other’s pubs.
It’s just so foreign to me how two flavours of Christianity ended up like this and such a relief that things are so much better than when I was young.
On both sides of the Interface Wall they said they hope the wall can come down some day but they don’t know when this might be possible.
Of course the Brexit vote brings a lot of uncertainty to both sides. Nobody knows how this is going to work. They don’t want to go back to the days of internal checkpoints on the borders with the Republic of Ireland. But if they don’t won’t Europeans be able freely to enter Ireland via the Republic and then freely cross into the UK via Northern Ireland? And then what? Passport control to travel from one part of the UK to another?
There’s clearly a lot to think through to avoid the risk of stirring up a fire that’s been cooling down for almost two decades.
A final thought as we drive thought the countryside to Finn Lough via Omagh.
There were more Union Jacks and Ulster Banner flags (the flag of England with a crown in the centre and below a red hand in a white six point star) garlanded across the streets and hoisted from lamp posts than anywhere you’d find in England itself. In the Catholic areas we visited there were green and gold flags. But in a country – if Northern Ireland is actually a country – that’s part of the UK, where’s there’s a significant proportion of the country that want, or wanted, reunification with the Republic of Ireland, it seems to me that marching season, and all these Union Jacks and Ulster Banners, are rubbing their noses in it a bit.