Northern Ireland--Belfast Divided

After our afternoon in downtown Belfast, we met Heather who drove us around other areas of Belfast, namely to the murals in Protestant and Catholic areas. (Before I go on, I want to assure everyone that we were completely safe, and Sophie stayed in the car at all times. We were in these areas in daylight, and Heather knew where we were and where we were going at all times.) So anyhoo, it started out benignly enough with international political protest murals (many against the United States and Bush policies).





But as we moved deeper into the neighborhoods, the murals became much more national and violent, referring to specific people and events in Northern Ireland. (Sorry for the quality of some of the pictures...I took some from the car as we were passing them.) If you don't know about The Troubles in Northern Ireland, I'll let you read for yourself here.





To help in preventing sectarian violence in Belfast, a "Peace Wall" separating Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods was built starting in the 1970s. The gates are closed at night. Here's a picture of one of the gates:

And in the Protestant area, which is British loyalist, everything is painted in the red, white, and blue of the British flag, even the curbs:

And a view of the Europa Hotel, a four star hotel in Belfast, whose claim to fame is "the most bombed hotel in Europe." Apparently, it was damaged 33 times between 1972 (it opened in 1971) and 1994.



Thanks to Heather for taking on this fascinating tour of the other parts of Belfast! It was really amazing to see the difference between the downtown and university areas and the sectarian areas.