Ireland - part five

In the 1970s, on a quiet day for Belfast mayhem, I found the Northern Ireland Tourist office. If I remember rightly, staff had been cut to three with little to do. As killings increased, the sales pitch seemed to be that no visitors had been deliberately targeted. That was true, but visitor numbers had understandably plummeted.

Back then I didn’t take many personal pictures. However, from when I came across a British Army patrol, two show typical Irish stone walls and the pastoral countryside. Lovely, but ideal for terrorist ambushes. 

On this trip, without worrying about crossfire, military or paramilitary roadblocks, I travel unimpeded lanes …

… visit the Antrim coast …

… the Glens of Antrim …

… and moody beauty of the uplands.

I have never been to the World Heritage Giant’s Causeway, so that’s worth a stop. 

But, while I’ve been here, concern has only increased about what Brexit could mean for for the border between north and south. Two countries - one leaving the European Union - are going their separate ways.

So, on my final day in Northern Ireland, on a quiet country road, at the River Erne, I come to one of many unmarked border crossings. 

Here, I’m in the north with the Republic just over the bridge. The odd local and car occasionally pass by.

The only obvious signs you’re crossing a frontier are that traffic signs shift from miles-per-hour to kilometres. At a cafe just around the bend in the Republic, you pay in Euros not pounds. 

In the middle of the bridge, Ireland is on the left and ahead; the house on the right is in Northern Ireland. There is no marking I can find indicating the border. But, as always here, there is tribal memory.

The ruins and derelict farmhouse are in Ireland and someone has run up an Irish flag. From here, a local tells me, the IRA used take potshots into the north. During the Troubles, there were a number of killings here, including British soldiers, a policeman, an IRA member and others. 

I stroll over and climb the little hill, looking from the ruins across the border back into Northern Ireland. It is very peaceful.

I walk back and stand approximately in the middle of the bridge, Northern Ireland to the left, Ireland to the right. In the near future, what will be here and what will it mean for this island?

As for me, I'm now going to indulge in some gentle rural touring in Eire.

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Having reread the previous posts, I must emphasize it’s not my intention to downplay the concerns of Northern Ireland’s mainly Protestant Loyalists. They are now an increasingly slim majority in the North. They will soon in their eyes or, at least, the eyes of many Protestants, be a beleaguered minority. Even more of a minority, should the unknown, distant future take them into what many experts say is inevitable union with the Republic. 

That Protestants discriminated against Catholics through centuries in Ireland, then for much of the 20th Century in Northern Ireland, is not in serious dispute. That - and it is so easy for an outsider to say - logic should triumph over ignorance and prejudice would be the obvious, happy solution. It is clearly not that simple or, if it was, Protestant and Catholic, Loyalist and Republican, would have made incontestable peace long ago.

Brexit has simply highlighted to the rest of us how brittle ‘community’ relations are in Northern Ireland. With other headlines to worry about, we had assumed that, with but occasional blips, violence had largely subsided and progress was being made. The Europa Hotel was no longer being bombed, so that was good. Of course, that was, and is, true. But peace here is not incontestable … would that it was and certainly would that it someday will be.