Tag Archives: Londonderry

There’s a wall?

Posted on by

7

Welcome to West Belfast

A Canadian couple we met on this trip heard we would be traveling to Belfast and highly recommended the Black Taxi tour of the city. “It will give you a good perspective of the Troubles.” I was especially interested in taking in Belfast’s experience after learning a bit about Derry’s. I expected murals and other artifacts of the riots and violence that rocked Belfast in the late 20th century. What I didn’t expect was a wall.

This building was gutted by petrol bombs in the 1970s. Now they have a wall to protect them.

A three-mile “peace” wall, no less. 45 feet high in some places and topped by razor wire and other sharp objects. Heavy iron gates, manned by video surveillance, are opened during the day. But at night, when there is a greater propensity for violence, they are locked tight as a prison cell. Over the years they have reduced the number of gates from 20-something to two. Tighter security or tighter control? 

Access through this gate is no longer an option.

The wall cuts through the heart of West Belfast. Nationalists live on the south side. Unionists on the north. (I’ve stopped calling them Catholics and Protestants because, as our Black Taxi guide told us, this issue has nothing to do with religion.)

  • Nationalists identify with civil rights causes around the world.
  • Unfortunately, civil unrest here led to violence.
  • Memories of happier days in West Belfast.
  • Nationalists sympathize with other states’ struggles for independence.
  • Bobby Sands, an icon for Nationalist Ireland.
  • King Billy, an icon for Unionists.

The wall was first built in 1969 after the outbreak of violence during civil rights protests. It was only meant to stand for six months. Okay, I get that. But because the wall was effective in reducing the number of conflicts at the time, they built it longer, taller, and more permanent. That I don’t get. And since the Good Friday peace agreement in 1998, which I thought was working of its own accord—albeit tenuously—the wall has been fortified further. There is talk from the Northern Ireland Executive of taking the wall down by 2023, but the locals are not optimistic. It continues to grow in length as West Belfast expands toward the mountains.

I can’t believe there’s a wall! In all my reading, nothing was said about it. No one has mentioned it. I was shocked. I barely noticed the murals. I couldn’t focus on what our guide was telling us. I couldn’t think of what questions to ask. 

Peace wall—a political oxymoron. In Derry, a peace bridge celebrates a peace agreement with art that bridges—geographically, if not yet ideologically—two parts of the city. It’s open, it’s accessible, it’s optimistic. A wall, no matter what word you tack in front of it, promotes nothing but segregation and alienation. 

We talked to a guy here in Belfast who told us that when he was growing up in the 70s, all the schools were either Catholic or Protestant. You didn’t get to know kids from the other side of the wall in the intimacy of a classroom. You certainly didn’t attend church with them. And you didn’t play with them on the streets or sports fields. The lesson learned was: They’re different; stay away from them. The first step toward peace, he said, is to start living with them side by side, get to know them, and come to accept them. Only then can the wall come down. 

It will take generations to accept the differences and forget the hate. Peace won’t come from politicians on a certain date; it can only come from within in its own time.

The Troubles

Posted on by

0

Free Derry, a Catholic-proclaimed no-go area for the British Army

I typed in the title to this blog and then stared at the empty screen. How can I explain to you what I’ve seen in Derry?

If you’re over 30, you’ve likely heard the words IRA, Belfast, and violence in the same sentence. But have you been following what’s happening in Northern Ireland over the years? I wasn’t. It was something I was going to look into one day, but never did—until now.

Before this trip, I couldn’t find a source on Northern Ireland’s Troubles that was intelligible to the uninitiated. They were heavy, scholarly works, and I couldn’t follow the morphing of paramilitary groups on both sides of the conflict as they split, tweaked agendas, and modified methods.

I knew Belfast wasn’t the only city in Northern Ireland to have troubles, but I didn’t realize how bad it was in Derry. On our first day in the city, we walked to the grocery store—right through the Bogside, the heart of the historic unrest. The murals were everywhere. I didn’t understand them, but the pain was obvious.

During our week, this is what I learned. It’s not comprehensive, but it’s a start.

  • In the 17th century, Scots were planted in Ulster to establish an English/Protestant base in an Irish/Catholic country. Protestants were given the political upper hand and managed to keep it, although greatly outnumbered by Catholics, through four centuries.
  • In the 20th century, the Catholics were still stuck in the bogland because the Protestant government thwarted every effort they made to improve their lives. 
    • Unemployment was as high as 20%, yet new factories were built elsewhere. 
    • The Protestant-controlled housing authority made it almost impossible for Catholics to obtain new housing because voting laws granted only one vote per residence. Multiple generations under one roof had only one vote. Business owners and owners of multiple properties (Protestants, for the most part) were awarded one vote per residence or business. 
    • Gerrymandering was rampant to prevent Catholics from diluting Protestant voting precincts.

Essentially, Protestants controlled Northern Ireland’s parliament and government agencies and were attempting to frustrate Catholics to the point of emigration—either to the Republic or abroad. By the 1960s, Catholics were still here and still fed up. They began to organize non-violent demonstrations patterned after Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. To the shock of the world, their peaceful protests were met with bullets.

In 1972 the atrocities in the Bogside reached a peak on Bloody Sunday. Fourteen unarmed protesters were shot and killed—and many more wounded—while fleeing from British soldiers or helping the wounded. Official reports claimed they were armed. Early investigations found the deaths justified. 

In 2010 a twelve-year investigation found that none of the victims was armed, and none of the deaths was justified. David Cameron, UK Prime Minister at the time, apologized to the families of the deceased on behalf of the British government. There are many more investigations in the works, and many more wounds to heal.

As difficult as it is, it’s time to own up, forgive, extend a hand, and move forward in peace. Northern Ireland has suffered long enough.

Derry-Londonderry

Posted on by

7

Derry-Londonderry from the walled city

Derry or Londonderry? Irish or British? Nationalist or Unionist? Catholic or Protestant? It’s complicated.

Ferryquay Gate

There is so much extraordinary history here, part of which is my own personal history. About 20 years ago my sister, the family genealogist, discovered that our paternal grandmother’s parents emigrated to New York from Londonderry in the late 1800s. Until that time, we had no idea we had Irish blood. My great-grandparents’ surnames were Fife and Gilmour. You won’t find either of those on keychains in Irish souvenir shops. So how did they get to Ireland?

the city walls are one mile in circumference and 12 to 35 feet thick

First, let’s get this Derry-Londonderry thing straight. Which is it? The name of the original Irish settlement was Doire (DUR-a), meaning oak grove. The English, after they arrived in the 12th century, called it Derry. And in 1613, when King James I granted a charter for the development of a British city here, he tacked on the London part to acknowledge the London guilds who were financing the project. Today it’s called Derry-Londonderry, or Derry, or Londonderry, whichever satisfies your political outlook. I call it Derry because it’s less of a mouthful and easier to type.

Apprentice Boys Memorial Hall

So why would a British king want to build a new city in Ireland? As the Protestant king of a country that just a century before had been Catholic, and was still immersed in an often bloody religious reformation, his territory of Ireland was a bit too Catholic, uncivilized, and hostile for his taste. How better to tame them than by planting some proper, loyal, Presbyterian Scots amongst them? James started in Ulster in the north, the most resistant of the Irish provinces, with what became known as the Ulster Plantation (for the planting of settlers, not crops). We call them Scots-Irish in the US. In Ireland they’re the Ulster Scots.

St. Augustine’s Church, within the walls

In a remarkable feat of early urban planning, the London-backed The Honorable The Irish Society (that’s not a typo) built a beautiful walled city for the Scots in just five years, the only completely walled city remaining in Ireland today. Why was it walled? To keep out the unruly, and justifiably angry, native Irish whose lands had been confiscated to build the city. The British took the best, high ground on the River Foyle, relocating the Irish clans to the surrounding bogland.

St. Columba’s Cathedral

So how did James expect to assimilate the staid Scots with the wild Irish with a 12-to-35-foot thick stone wall between them? Well, in my humble opinion, that was just the beginning of the Troubles between Protestants and Catholics in Derry that surfaced again and again for 350 years, at times most violently. But that’s a story for another day.

the Guildhall

I believe my great-grandparents are descendants of the Ulster Scots. Based on a tip from a local genealogist, my sister has found the Irish parishes they were from and will continue to trace their branches of the family tree as far as she can. 

Ebrington Square, former army barracks on the east side of the River Foyle

So am I Scots or Irish? I’m sure in the 250 years, from the time the Scots settled in Ireland until my great-grandparents’ emigrated to America, there was a little assimilation going on. Don’t you think? I would say I’m both, but then again it’s complicated.

Derry Girls, a mural tribute to a hugely popular Brit-com