Sectarian violence, the
sinking of The Titanic,
and the annual parades
to King Charles of Orange,
seem to throb in the minds
and hearts of the Ulster
people at their dead-end
city of Belfast. The 30-year
conflict here in Northern
Ireland - called "The
Troubles" - between
Protestants and Catholics had
soon evolved into a political
and ideological confrontation
and not a religious one that the
world news media insisted was
the real problem at Ulster.
***
The Troubles have faded some-
what thesedays compared to
the mayhem and murder between
the various political fractions
like the Irish Republican Army (IRA)
and the Ulster Defense Force (UDF)
of the past years. What has emerged
now is a new sense of societal in-
security among many folks of Belfast
since the paramilitary groups have
given way to the regular legal and
civil authorities to handle matters
by disarming themselves in the name
of the brokered Good Friday Ageement
at Stormont, where the North Ireland
national assembly sends its elected
representatives. I hope to visit Stor-
mont before I return from Ulster.
***
With the decline of the para-
militiaries and its law and order
presence on the streets of Bel-
fast and elsewhere, there has
been a noticeable increase in
public disorder, criminal activity,
illicit drug selling and use, and
a fast breakdown of community val-
ues, so I am told by those I have
spent the past two days here in Bel-
fast informally talking to and of
several differing voices both in
the Protestant and Catholic en-
claves or "religious" ghettoes of
Belfast. All strangers here are
seen as an initial threat and
need to be watched very carefully
by an otherwise "friendly" people.
***
I've now spent some time at
Donegall Pass, the Protestant
stronghold of the city. There every-
thing about English Protestantism is
almost revered beyond words and the
flags of Northern Ireland and Great
Britain are fesstooned for all to
see. While at Falls Road at where
Catholicism and Republicism are
strongly stated and demanded. There
the language spoken is oftentimes
more in Irish Gealic than English
and to where the Union Jack finds
no safe haven or welcome salutes.
The flag of the Republic of Ireland
or Eire is what you otherwise see
and the headquarters of Sinn Fein
stands firmly on Falls Road, too.
***
No matter what, my feelings here
vibrated with a deadening sense of
Belfast being a dead-end place,
despite the recent political
and social atomsphere having
become alot calmer of late along
with a normalcy common to most
other UK communities. But when
I see the police stations barr-
icaded, and police vehicles
designed like armoured mini-
tanks still carreening down
the city streets, then such a
city to me is little more than
a dead-end one.
***
The Titanic was designed and
built at Belfast. And like
The Troubles many years
later, the sinking of The
Titantic was a human dis-
aster of which thousands
lost their lives due to the
perils of the sea and then
due later to the perils
of religious and political
conflict among the people
of Northern Ireland.
***
As for King Charles of Orange and
The Battle of the Boyne, I think
perhaps, and as a Englsh Protestant
myself, it is truly time to put
him and the ancient battle away
and back into the history books of
Ulster, instead of all those annual
Order of Orange parades that incite
more religious and political hate
for the sake of hatred. "Give peace
a chance," above all else ...
***
Belfast may look cheap, but it isn't.
Internet Cafes charge £3.00 to £5.00
per hour for web use while in London
it costs as little as 50p to a quid an
hour. At the Ten Square Luxury Hotel
they want $265.00 per night for the use
of their Bradley Suite. Or you can take
their "No Boy Package" available from
£350.00 for 2 rooms: "If you are in the
mood for some girlie indulgence,"
states the hotel's brochure, "can we
recommend you book yourself into Ten
Square, and take two Superior Guest-
rooms, choose two movies, champagne,
popcorn, chocolate truffles, and beauty
packs and revel in it." Otherwise, you
can stay there for around $110.00 in
their "cheap" bedrooms. A pint of milk
costs 39p in London but at Spur's in
Belfast they charge 59p for the same
thing. And, for a cuppa of tea £1.85.
A little pack of six scones would
usually sell for less than 99p in
London, but here at Ulster they
price the same at £1.59. So Belfast
isn't cheap. Unlike London, it has
very few blacks or so-called Afro-
Europeans flooding the pavements
here. Cellphone users are thankfully
pretty thin, too. Although Eastern
Europeans from Romania and Poland have
appeared recently on the streets, I
am told. In fact, I photographed Monika
from Romania selling the street magazine
called "Ireland's Issues" that comes out
every 3 weeks and is published at Eire's
Dublin for street people to sell. They
sell it for 3 Euro in Southern Ireland and
2 quid in Northern Ireland. Many of the
items in "Issues" are regurgitated stories
from other street publications outside of
Eire and NI. A good example of that was the
story on Dame Anita Roddick's sudden death.
On the front cover of the issue 67, Vol 5,
that I bought from the vendor - a Romanian
gypsy girl called Monika aged 21 - it stated:
"A Hand Up, Not A Hand Out." At the bottom of
the cover it further stated: "50% of Cover
Price Goes Directly To The Seller. Thank
You. To Prevent Fraud: Please Buy From
Badged Sellers Only. Please Do Not Hand
Over Any Money Until The Magazine is in
your Possession." You'd think a crime
syndicate was behind the vendors from
such palaver on the front cover ...
And, I also saw no Big Issue sellers
no matter how hard I looked while
staying at Belfast ...
***
I stayed, by the way, at the comfy
Victorian guest house called The Botanic
Lodge at the heart of the student community
of Belfast Queen's University. And, lovely
Cathy Malone was my nice lodge host. Break-
fast at her's was an Irish treat and none of
that breakfast rubbish called "Continental"
did I see. Oh, and Greater Belfast now has
a population of almost 580.000 residents.
***
Travelling from Scotland's port of
Stranraer via the Stena Line ferry to
the grim Port of Belfast, I was con-
fronted with gale force winds that
almost knocked me overboard with it
being so strong and windy along with
it still being pitch dark and raining
like catz and dogz upon my first arri-
val in Northern Ireland of what will
be my almost 1,000 mile round trip
from and to London. It was a grim
start to this rather grim and dead-
end city of which now completes my
goal of visiting all the four capi-
tal cities of the United Kingdom
- London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and
now, fnally, Belfast.
***
I have taken an indepth set
of photographs of Belfast while
here and I will share those once
I can upload them next week for
you all to see ... Hopefully, I'll
present a true and not a negative
image per se of Belfast via my
photos, even though I still
think of it for now as a
dead-end city ...
Greetings to you from Northern Ireland,
Uncle Monty. +19th Day of Lent, 2oo8.
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