A land divided
Some thoughts on Ireland after brief visits to two cities in Ireland during a recent “Wesley Heritage Tour” that included a cruise around the British Isles:
We did “walking tours” of Belfast and Cork. One thing we saw in Cork was a statue of Michael Collins standing next to his bicycle. The statue was not on a pinnacle or platform. It was a life-size bronze likeness in the middle of a busy public square, identified only by a smallish plaque. From a distance, you might not even know that it was a statue.
Why the bicycle? Collins was known for cycling everywhere. Why the recognition? He was an Irish revolutionary who was one of the architects of the 1921 treaty that created the Republic of Ireland – alas, separate from Northern Ireland. A civil war followed, and Collins was assassinated in a roadside ambush.
The tour of Belfast was more in depth, and most depressing. Our guide said he was Catholic but his father was Protestant, and when his father died some years ago he did not feel safe going to the funeral on the Protestant side of town.
He said his family has come up with a plan for future funerals. They’ll be held at a crematorium because those are generally run by atheists, so families from both sides of the divide can attend because it’s neutral turf.
He showed us the “peace wall” that divides Belfast. At some places it is 25 to 30 feet tall, built in three stages over the years, ever higher.
One long street was lined with murals (on the other side of the wide street, alas, and hard to see because of the traffic). The murals, maybe 8 to 10 feet tall, took various stands on the Troubles and other issues.
One interesting thing is the parallels the murals drew with the plight of Palestinians, with whom many Belfast Irish feel great sympathy – as they have for many years sympathized with any oppressed minority.
Most compelling was the famous wall-size mural (shown here) celebrating Bobby Sands and other hunger strike martyrs.
Our guide said the “peace wall” that separates Belfast is not made of brick or wire; rather it’s a mental wall that he thinks will not come down in his lifetime or the lifetimes of his children, or maybe even in the lifetimes of his grandchildren. He was not sure what might bring the people of Northern Ireland together, perhaps just the passage of time and the deaths of those who remember the Troubles too well.
The Troubles are not really over yet, he said, only moved out of sight but not yet out of mind.
Wanting to learn more, I read Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe. It doesn’t even try to tell the whole story but focuses on the murder of Jean McConville and the role played by the Price sisters, Brendan Huges and Gerry Adams. It’s well written and I think well reported but, as compelling as it is, it’s not an easy read.
As our Belfast guide said, it’s hard to see how any good can come from this, even when the memories fade, however long that takes. Ireland is a beautiful land, and the people we met there were beautiful, too. But how much longer will their souls be wracked by such division and hatred?