Northern Ireland: Dabbling In The Troubles (cont.)

My first view of The Bogside is from the walls.  It is unmistakable, not only for the many tricolors and the orange and green and white painted curbs, but also for the murals --several of which can be seen from the walls-- and a large wall-sized sign proclaiming, “You are now entering free Derry.”       

The Bogside is where the Bloody Sunday massacre took place back in 1972.  While only a fool would argue that the seeds of sectarian violence had not already been sown to some degree, it is true that Bloody Sunday militarized a movement that until then had looked more to civil disobedience, than it did to armed insurrection. 

To a relatively young populace it seemed clear that a British government that would allow its soldiers to shoot and kill 13 unarmed citizens engaged in a civil rights march, without ever taking any disciplinary action against those involved, could only be dealt with through force.  Thus, The Bogside is the nominal birthplace of The IRA.

I have seen the Paul Greengrass movie “Bloody Sunday” and of course have heard the U2 song upon numerous occasions; but I find that though the faceless gray concrete high-rise apartment buildings have long been bulldozed and built over, and though there are no longer “broken bottles under children’s feet,” nor “bodies strewn across the dead end street,” Bloody Sunday is very much a thing of living history in The Bogside and in Derry in general. 

I think for a while as I stand on the walls and look out over The Bogside.  Sheets of rain come in off the North Atlantic, and across the river the loyalist neighborhoods fade from a brownish white of painted masonry and street level commerce to the faded green of the hills behind, and then only the washed out gray of the Irish sky weeping over us all. 

Later I find a hostel and some agreeable company.  Derry shuts down at about 6PM.  Steel shutters roll down over all of the street-facing shops, and everyone goes home.  I take this to be a depressing reminder of the conflict, as are the thousands and ever-present closed-circuit TV cameras that adorn all architecture in Derry, many of which are raised on great steel towers behind the old walls overlooking The Bogside.  There is a great deal of fear and caution here.

But I am also pleasantly surprised.  The proprietor of my hostel is a friendly fellow who has contrived to be drunk at seven in the evening and who assures me that though life in Derry seems to close down early, in fact, it is only resting, and that at about 10:30 or 11pm, things will suddenly pick up, and any number of local pubs will feature live music and the raucously good-natured crowds that one normally associates with this island. 

He is right.  I go to one in particular, just below the northern walls, and a roaring good time is had by all, almost, I feel, in defiance of the local weight of history.  It is true that this pub deliberately caters to an international clientele from the local hostels, but it is also true that it attracts many locals and that the music is as good as anything one might hope to hear in Dublin or Belfast or even Galway City.

A few days later I am back in Belfast with my locally grown friends.  We go out to drink and hear live music; and toward the end of the evening, during a slight lull in the music, Pat McKee leans over and says to me, “See all these people here?  See half of ‘em or more are probably Prods [Protestants], but no one gives a shite, and you know why?  Because no one gives a shite!  Everything’s changed here man.  Everything!”

Pat’s right.  Prosperity, or whatever, has begun to transform Northern Ireland.  There’s a cautious sense of optimism here that never existed before.  The British army is gone and there’s a feeling that the young no longer care for the old divisions inherited from their parents.  There’s a feeling that sure, there’re still some rogue bastards on both sides; but they are the selfish criminal elements, not the mainstream opinion.  The hard edge is still there in the pubs and villages; but it’s not so personal anymore, it’s simply the Irish way: to drink hard and to not take guff from anyone at all.  

As another Irish friend once said to me, “I’ll happily welcome my Protestant brothers any time they wish to join the rest of the Irish nation.”

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