Quote Originally Posted by Taunton Blue Genie View Post
I booked flights to see Belfast on an independent day trip to see the murals before the so-called Peace Process kicked in.
It just seemed such an alien concept and fascinating in a macabre way.
One thing I remember was when the bus went from one side of the wall to the other, the football shirts being worn by the inhabitants being a major marker i.e. Celtic shirts and Rangers shirts respectively.
Many of the town and village names en route to the city from the airport seemed like a catalogue of locations associated with the troubles.
Very alien indeed.
Went there on a few ships quite a while back, some little things I remember. We used to drink in the Harland & Wolff Welders club, one of our lads wore a St Christopher in there one night, and was told in no uncertain terms to remove it. A member of a band who played there one evening told me they played Catholic and Protestant places, just had to remember to play the right anthem at the end. Some local drunkenly showed me one of the murals one night, said they wanted the soldiers out so they could murder every last Catholic b*stard; and there's me a Catholic. Leaving East Belfast in a taxi heading for the City Centre, we asked where the safest place was for us to go, he said East Belfast, though I found the centre to be a bit of a neutral place, like Glasgow. Near the Shankhill Road I was assured that I wouldn't get beat up for being a Brit, but could easily get beat up being a stranger in a rough area, which was a great comfort. It was an eye opener in those days.
Last time I went there was to renew my US Visa, got chatting to a young man waiting at the embassy, turned out to be Fernandinho of Man City.