Visit to
Northern Ireland

4–8 November 1986


As we set off on that Tuesday evening doubts as to the necessity for this trip crept into my thoughts. The fare for a period return to Belfast from Birmingham was £44 and the state of our finances were far from healthy. I was a mature student at Oxford Polytechnic doing a BA in publishing and the trip was to fuel a book I intended to publish based on the coment, ‘there is no solution to the northern Ireland problem. Northern Ireland is the problem’ made by Eamonn McCann. Paul, an unemployed comrade from the SWP, who was already providing me with the bulk of the text, was accompanying me to seek inspiration. So with this doubt always lurking somewhere I decided to obtain as much from this brief encounter with Ireland as I could.

I had borrowed another camera from the Polytechnic, the plan was to use the Poly Minolta with colour film, 200ASA, to shoot the murals which I had been led to believe were everywhere in Northern Ireland. With my old Pentax and 135mm lens I was going to get some atmosphere shots in black/white, 400ASA, – this was the plan.

The coach journey and ferry from Stranraer to Larne were done under cover of darkness. time was spent talking to Paul, listening to tapes on the Walkman, or dozing.

At Larne we were all given a good looking over by armed harbour police as we disembarked. A local Ulsterbus took us into Belfast past enclaves of loyalism, flags fluttered from gateposts and our first mural was spotted from this bus. It consisted of a St George flag crossed with the St Andrew flag – signifying the link with Scotland.

Belfast, on first impressions, was like any northern city, run down and grey, it could have been Manchester, Liverpool or Glasgow. however the tension that hung in the air was immediately noticeable as one of our first views as we stepped down from the bus was the Ulster Unionist Party Office building with workmen replacing broken windows above a large sign saying ‘KEEPING ULSTER BRITISH’ and the ever present Union Jack fluttering on top of it all.

Our first priority on that Wednesday morning was to find the Tourist Information Office. Paul had a booklet which explained we could get accomodation through them.

We wandered the streets for about an hour just looking – astounded by armoured cars topped with rifle-toting soldiers touring the apparently normal streets. The police manned road-blocks and streets were fenced off with gates for pedestrians and booms for traffic. The police swaggered around, revolvers at the hip, flak jackets, and their caps pulled down so that their eyes were in shadow – a far cry from the bobbies on mainland Britain.

A large banner hung across the City Hall proclaiming ‘BELFAST SAYS NO’ refering to the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Made me wonder what the Loyalists are loyal to?

We found the Information Office and were fixed up with a bed and breakfast for £10 a single room.
We planned to spend the afternoon walking up the Falls Road, across to the Shankill Road and back into the centre. The intention was to find murals and capture on film some of Belfast’s sectarian divide.

I took both cameras in a shoulder bag and naively we set off. Being ignorant of the dangers that could beset strangers entering these territorially defended areas I was emboldened to just snap away whenever we came upon something interesting – in true tourist fashion. Our obvious ‘wandering without purpose’ appearance and our eager searching out of these murals must have made us stand out like sore thumbs. Upon reflection I feel we were lucky to have only encountered suspicious looks.

The Falls Road is, well, without the murals it could have been any working class northern town, but with the murals and the grafitti its a grey area with bright flashes of hope. The murals were brilliant splashes of colour capable of bringing out that rare flush of... pride... that feeling you get when someone you know does something you strongly agree with – they are pure emotion. The effect of rounding a corner on a drudge street and finding the end of a house covered in slogans or huge images of Internationalism and Hope is something I’m having difficulty conveying.
Our spirits were raised, for even though the murals in the Falls Road seemed to suffer from paint-bombings, their positive message was undimmed.

The Shankill Road was a disappointment as far as murals were concerned and our wide-eyed appearance caused even more hostile-ish and suspicious looks. Most of the images in the Shankill were of flags – depressing Nationalism.

Strange that the ‘catholics’ are called Nationalists and yet their murals and rhetoric is full of Internationalist content, whereas the ‘protestants’, who display Nationalism like a second skin and who are not loyal to the elected British Government are called Loyalists. I wasn’t surprised to see National Front graffitti on the Shankill Road.

After a meal we turned in, it had been a long day.

Thursday and we took the train to Derry, £10.35 return. The train’s route was through names on the News and it took just over 2 hours.

We walked across the bridge over the Foyle which divided Derry. We sought out the Information Office and arranged our accomodation. On the way to the bed and breakfast we passed one of the RUC/Army forts, soldiers were outside stopping the traffic. To lift the camera on accassions like this seemed almost impossible to me.

The afternoon was spent wandering around the walled city and on the outskirts of the Bogside past the memorial to those killed by the Paratroup Regiment in 1972, but we could see some youths on top of the ‘Bogside Inn’ throwing stones at passing traffic, so we did not go into the Bogside – which was a shame.

That evening we took in a play at the Magee University – there was some sort of festival on whilst we were there.

It certainly was disturbing to meet 4 soldiers in black face, about 18 years old and carrying deadly weapons after a pleasant cultural evening. We found the small resturant on the Strand Road where we had heard there was to be live music – the musicians were crowded into the front window; a flautist and guitarist. We expected lyrical Irish accompanyment to the clatter of knives and forks on china, but we were amazed by ‘Bridge over Troubled Waters’ – how apt I remarked.

Deserted dark streets and to bed with Walkman playing Billy Bragg.

Friday we set out to visit an Industrial estate and take in yet another RUC post. We were soon lost, our sketchy ‘tourist’ map didn’t have any of the street names we were coming across.

A republican estate, distinguishable by the murals for the INLA. Camera out, the drizzle that had come on strengthened to light rain. We considered visiting the Sinn Fein Advice Centre but it looked closed.

Soldiers, in the distance, coming up the road – very open area, deserted, no time to turn back so we just walked on towards them reassuring each other that we were not doing anything wrong. As the soldiers got closer, about 50 yards away, one looked at us through his sights – Paul and I froze, looked down and tried to walk on as if nothing was amiss – we didn’t even know where we were walking.

A soldier looked gingerly through my bag of cameras. I asked if I could photograph them as they walked up the road. The leader shook his head; the same one whose gun was pointing at us just a few minutes ago – finger on the trigger... We were unable, due to some stupid pride or something, to ask where the hell we were.

We walked on, I looked back once to see them as they passed from view. A housing estate and its cache of murals told us we were in INLA territory. The rain, or maybe something else that we as interlopers had not sussed, meant the roads were deserted. An Army helicopter hovered overhead, we had noticed it earlier but had thought it paranoid to think it was following us. Now it was much lower, just clear of the red-bricked houses, its crew visable and it remained at that height until we left the estate.

We walked in one direction for about 100 yards alongside the main road we’d come onto as we left the estate, and then, based on nothing but a hunch, decided it was the other way we needed to go. It turned out to be the right thing to do and signposts soon directed us back to the Strand Road and Derry. Along the way Paul, ignoring my advice, befriended a black puppy which followed us and was only discouraged when he reluctantly chased it back up the road.

As we joined the Strand Road, just outside an RUC post a lorry lost its load of drums of vegetable oil. Once again Paul’s judgement of our location and predicament seemed suspect as he dashed across the road to help the driver move the drums onto the pavement. Admirable in mainland Britain but, in hindsight, rather foolish in wartorn Ireland – it could so easily have been an ambush for the RUC who eventually came out, bristling with guns, to help to clear the road – maybe I’m paranoid?

I took some photographs, moved one or two drums and generally must have looked suspicious. An army patrol atop an armoured vehicle laughed as they passed – the misfortune of some ‘thick paddies’ seemed to amuse them greatly – the driver looked quite hurt by this, so was I.

We walked on through Derry to ‘The Fountain’ area, on the other side of the walled city to the Bogside. The Fountain’s murals were untouched, clean cut affairs, unattractively belching patriotism.

We crossed the Foyle and walked around a bit as we had time before our train left. Another RUC post with police stopping traffic at a barrier. I decided to use the camera and was about to photograph the post when stopped by a frighteningly authoritarian shout – I felt my stomach drop. We were hustled inside and questioned by stern faces and harsh Northern Irish accents, ‘Identification?’ ‘Why are you taking photographs?’ ‘What are you doing in Ireland?’

My Student Union card seemed to impress them, but Paul didn’t have any identification on him and I felt – this is it! But maybe it was our accents which helped us, for as soon as we spoke their attitude changed. They confided in us that, in general, the taking of photographs was OK, but their concern was whether their faces could be identified – quite a reasonable concern I suppose when you consider they could then become targets for gunmen when off-duty. As we left they told me it was fine to take a photograph of the post, to see the street again was enough for me, I clicked off a shot of the outside of the post and we briskly walked away.

The train to Belfast was uneventful. We visited the Arts Council Bookshop in Belfast, where I bought a copy of Conrad Atkinson’s Picturing the System and some magazines.

Bus, ferry, coach, train and we were back home.

© Text and photographs: Alan Rutherford, 1987

Version to appear in Writing Some Wrongs, to be published in 2006.