retrospective on belfast

I’m not blind: I know we were fed a bunch of propaganda on our Belfast black cab tour. Like, I have no doubt everything Eamonn said was true. We saw a Protestant neighborhood honoring a militia commander and glorifying Oliver Cromwell’s slaughter of Catholics. We also saw a Catholic neighborhood where they have protective cages over their back yards and a shrine to remember children murdered by loyalist death squads. All that is fact. But carefully cherry-picked fact. Let’s not pretend the IRA were shrinking violets or whatever. They instigated. They gave as good as they got.

At the Catholic neighborhood shrine, there were photos of slain IRA members from the neighborhood, including one babyfaced kid who looked maybe 11 years old. Probably/hopefully he was older than he looked. Still a tragedy that a kid got killed. Still a tragedy that he was recruited by a terrorist organization in the first place.

Interestingly, the black cab tour came “highly recommended” by the tour group. Every other optional activity is just optional, but this one was recommended. Did the tour group want us to get this viewpoint specifically? If so, I dig it. Get yo politics in. I do hope the North of Ireland gets free of British rule someday. One brother to another, you know?

Last night, a history book popped up on my goodreads feed: Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe. I don’t usually do nonfiction, but I may have to check this one out.