As the bus pulled out of Belfast’s Europa Bus Terminal just before noon, I looked west to the Falls Road and Shankill Road areas and cried.
Get a hold of yourself, I told myself. I didn’t want the two women sitting nearby see me crying so I quickly fished a tissue out of my bag, dabbed my eyes and cheeks and composed myself.
The tears that came as I left Northern Ireland’s capital surprised me. My visit was enjoyable, in fact better than expected, however the highly anticipated destination of my three-week journey was visiting the Ulster American Folk Park in Omagh, County Tyrone. Clearly, something important had happened during my visit to Belfast, something that hadn’t surfaced until I was on the bus to Omagh.
The only reason I went to Belfast in the first place was because it was the most convenient and inexpensive way to get to Northern Ireland from Ayrshire, Scotland, by train and ferry. My desire to see the land where my Protestant Scots-Irish ancestors had lived and trace their migration from Scotland to Northern Ireland had brought me to the British Isles.
The unusual oppressive heat that July made traveling difficult, slowing my pace significantly. After riding the rails through the Scottish highlands, mesmerized by its haunting moors, I had nearly scrapped visiting Northern Ireland entirely my final week to explore more of bonnie northern Scotland where it would be cooler. But my desire to see Ayrshire in southwest Scotland, where many Scots-Irish had lived before sailing across the North Channel to Northern Ireland, was very strong. In addition, knowing that I may never have the time or money again to travel there, I continued with my original itinerary, riding the train to the end of the line in Stranaer, where I boarded the ferry to Belfast.
Before I ever set foot in Belfast it intimidated me for it was ground zero during the Troubles. As a teenager I often saw on the evening news bombed out cars and buildings, tanks, soldiers carrying guns, wounded lying in the streets, and angry, crying people. It wasn’t until I read a book on the history of the Scots Irish that I full understood the reasons for the conflict between the Catholics and Protestants. Even though the violence between the two sides diminished with the Good Friday agreement and they were working on a peace accord, those images of the civil war in Northern Ireland still haunted me. I had hoped to pass through Belfast on that trip and not stay there at all. But by the time the ferry docked, I was too exhausted by the long journey from Edinburgh and the sweltering heat to continue any further.
The friendly, efficient Belfast Welcome Centre staff found me an affordable bed and breakfast on Crocus Street in the Falls Road area. I was so weary from the heat and the voyage, I completely forgot that many confrontations took place in that part of Belfast, the IRA base. I didn’t even notice the Sinn Fein headquarters from the bus. I also missed my stop, but fortunately a nurse I asked for directions, Ms. Gillespie, graciously escorted me to Springfield Road, the road that would take me to Crocus Street. We wound up talking on Falls Road for half an hour.
Paddy, the bed and breakfast host, instantly made me feel at home, giving me free reign of the living and dining rooms and leaving a bowl of chocolate out so I could indulge while watching CNN. I learned from him that I was staying in Catholic Belfast. How ironic, I thought, that I wound up staying in a place I wanted to avoid. But I was too tired to go elsewhere, and the kindness and hospitality I experienced those first hours in Belfast mystically began to melt away all apprehensions. The sound of children playing in the adjacent backyard below my room seemed to be a good sign too, warming my spirits. As I drifted off to sleep, I knew I would be fine. Belfast and I had become fast friends.
The next morning as I sipped tea and the sun streamed through the large living room windows, Paddy sang in the kitchen while cooking my breakfast. Feeling revived, comfortable and no longer afraid of Belfast, I decided to explore the city by taking the red double-decker tour bus.
I saw a tranquil Belfast that day, in fact, a vibrant and interesting place. I stayed on the bus to go around the city again, and as I approached Shankill Road, the heart of Protestant Belfast, confidence spurred me to take a closer look so I hopped off. I wandered around, viewing murals painted on the sides of buildings memorializing those who had died during the Troubles. One depicted five men, members of the Ulster Volunteer Force, their black, gray and white portraits painted on sky blue, their names below in red.
Later I hopped off the tour bus at Falls Road to visit the memorial garden. In the back past the flowerbeds was a large, black granite monument. On the left side, carved in white, was a woman, her eyes closed, holding a dead man in her arms. Celtic animals and designs in gold interwove, crowning them. In the center, also elegantly inscribed in gold, were the names of the Irish Republican Army and Sinn Fein members who died.
The following morning during breakfast I asked Paddy if he had known any of the people whose names were inscribed in the memorial garden on Falls Road. His face became somber. It turned out that he had known one of them as a child, and that a British soldier had shot and killed him across the street. Hearing that a man died just outside the front door of the bed and breakfast where I was eating my eggs and toast stunned and silenced me. But I didn’t have time to thoroughly digest the tale for I had to pack my bags and catch the bus to Omagh. I quickly filed Paddy’s story away.
What stirred something within me and triggered those tears as I rode the bus out of Belfast later that morning was the sight of her once war torn neighborhoods and Paddy’s story about the boy he once knew who died across the street. At that moment, my mind had processed all I had experienced in Belfast. A wave of grief rolled over me. I felt Belfast’s sorrow, all of Northern Ireland’s pain. Those tears I wept were for the Catholics and Protestants whose names I had seen on the walls and monuments who perished during the Troubles, men and women of my generation. They were tears I should have cried all those years ago when I watched the news but didn’t. Tears that should have appeared the day before when I saw the memorial murals on Shankill Road and the memorial garden on Falls Road, Belfast’s scars, but didn’t.
For the first time in my world travels, I had walked on the battlefield of a war which took place in my lifetime, fought by distant kin in neighborhoods that in small ways looked similar to my own. Paddy’s story and the memorials to the fallen connected me to the depth and magnitude of Northern Ireland’s civil war in a way no news report, book or film could ever have done.
All those I met in Belfast those two days—Paddy, Ms. Gillespie, the tour guide, pharmacy clerk, taxi and bus drivers, fish and chips lady, and tourist staff—they were the survivors of that horrific conflict. What incredible strength they have within to carry on.
Additionally, until I visited Belfast I never knew the gratitude of its people to my country for assisting in the peace process. Paddy told me, “If it weren’t for your President Clinton, there’d be no peace in Northern Ireland.” The tour guide said that the suite at the Hilton Hotel where the former president stayed while he helped the two enemies negotiate peace was named “The Clinton Suite”. Hearing that my country helped stop the bloodshed in Northern Ireland fills me with pride, as I rarely hear anything positive about my country’s actions these days.
No longer are Northern Ireland’s Troubles an event that occurred thousands of miles away or black and white images flickering on a small screen. Now when I meet people from Northern Ireland, I feel more compassion. I also eagerly follow the news regarding the Irish and British governments as they work to implement the St. Andrews agreement, encouraging them to find ways for all in Northern Ireland to live together in peace. The only fear I have now is what role my ancestors might have played in Northern Ireland’s turbulent history.
There is no doubt in my mind now as I look back on my visit that it was my destiny to spend time in Belfast and stay on Crocus Street. At the beginning of the street stands Jimmy's TV Repair Shop, and around the corner on Springfield Road a few steps away stands Collins Family Butcher Shop. I smiled when I first saw them as Collins is my father’s name and Jimmy my uncle’s. Their ancestors were Scots-Irish, settling in North Carolina, Mississippi,Tennessee and Kentucky. As I said my goodbyes to Paddy, I pointed out to the shops and said, “My father and uncle must have brought me to Crocus Street.”
Not only did the King brothers steer my path to that Falls Road street in Belfast, they guided and watched over me throughout my stay there so that I'd feel the gravity of the violence that took place in those streets, just as those living there were shaken to their core. And that I, the first in the my branch to return to Ireland, would grieve for all the lives that were extinguished during that horrific civil war that slammed Northern Ireland, our homeland.
