Journal - Shankill Walking Tour

One could not have picked a more typical Irish winter day than today, nor worse weather for a four-hour walking tour. The sky started spitting as we departed and never stopped, while the persistent wind always seemed to be in our faces. We kept in good spirit most of the way, and were rewarded with cold hands, wet clothes, and good memories.

To give some perspective, the Shankill area of west Belfast is traditionally a Unionist/Protestant area surrounded to the south and north by Nationalist/Catholic neighborhoods. Significant fighting between paramilitary groups during "The Troubles" of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s created a very segregated society. Signs of this segregation include numerous murals to fallen Ulster volunteers or defenders, and an enormous wall between the Shankill and the Falls to the south.

On this wet and windy Sunday, our group of eight (variously from Germany, France, Hungary, Canada, and the United States), snapping pictures left and right, must have looked strange to residents, but we never felt unsafe. In fact, there were very few people about; most stores are closed on Sunday. Following an online walking guide, we started at the Clifton Street Orange Hall, boarded up and enclosed in a wire cage. An old statue of King William III of Orange, savior of Protestant England, sat on the roof oxidizing and watching over the newest highway project in Belfast, the Westlink.

Continuing up the Crumlin Road, we reached the famous Crumlin Road Gaol, designed by Charles Lanyon (who also designed the main building at Queen's University Belfast). Across the street was the Courthouse, ringed by barbed wire and showing strong signs of lengthy disuse. From here, we cut south through a quiet residential area, with many sectarian murals on the gable-sides of rowhouses. Near one was scrawled in large block letters: "Anyone caught defacing Loyalist murals will be severely dealt with." As we neared Shankill Road we even passed a health centre that was hidden behind a fence and barbs.

We headed up Shankill Road, facing into the wind and rain, finding an occasional respite in the shelter of various building facades, many covered with murals commemorating the Battle of the Somme (from which only 10% of men in one Shankill unit returned), the UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force, a Loyalist paramilitary group), and the many fallen as a result of bombs, sometimes as recently as 15 years ago. One memorial mural looks serene, until one sees what the mourners are holding.

I have to admit that this is not the full story. Overall, the Shankill looks like just another working-class neighborhood: stores lined the commercial street, with dense two story houses on the side-streets, and a large new community centre. There were some abandoned buildings and empty lots, but far fewer than in many Pittsburgh neighborhoods. We walked through the Shankill Graveyard with many stones dating to the mid 19th century; it was almost refreshing to see that most of the deceased had reached their late 50s and 60s, compared with 20-and-30-year-olds that are depicted in many murals. According to our guidemap, a bullaun stone uncovered in the graveyard was supposedly used for pagan sacrifices in Druid times, and is said to have the ability to cure warts. But seeing as we had no warts in need of removal, and the penetrating wind and rain had not let up, we turned around and headed back towards the city centre.

Our last landmark on our way back was the large ironically-named "Peace Wall" along Cupar Way, separating the Shankill and Falls districts. The concrete was scrawled with markings, more touristic than threatening, although there were signs of past conflict; we stopped to take a group picture in front of a chipped-and-burned section. Several black taxis, famous for taking tourists around Belfast neighborhoods, stopped to allow their passengers to get out and take pictures of the wall. Our attempt to exit onto Divis Street (a main street through the Catholic area) was halted three times by locked gates, forcing us back to the Shankill Road in order to return to Belfast's downtown area. We certainly were looking forward to hot tea after our 7.5-mile trek.

It is interesting to reflect on some of the segregation between these two neighborhoods, the Falls and the Shankill. In my transportation lecture on Friday, the teacher made connections between the violence and sectarianism in these areas of west Belfast and their impact on transportation. The public transit system in Belfast (buses only) follows strange and geographically-impractical routes that only make sense within a geohistopolitcal context, in which two adjoining neighborhoods demand duplicative service. In the 1960s, he said that buses on the Falls Road had off-peak headways of 3 minutes; today it is about 20-30 minutes. Another statistic was impressive: 30-50 percent of residents in two other neighboring Protestant/Catholic areas never cross the "peace fence," and only about 20% do so weekly.

Despite this segregation, it seems as if there has never been a better "peace" in the last 35 years. Violence in the last decade is nearly non-existent. And in my limited 11-day experience in Belfast, I think (and hope) that physical barriers are no longer necessary. There will certainly be mental geographic barriers, but it seems ridiculous to me that access between the Shankill and Falls areas should be limited to one carefully observed gate on a Sunday.

Maybe next weekend we will explore the other side of the Peace Wall!