Belfast: a city divided

 Things went a little bit too well with this travel day today. I’m scared.

Anyway, here we are in Belfast in a working class Protestant area. A little shabby looking but it will do. The air bnb is decent. 

Didn’t see central Belfast except to transfer buses to here. Will our adventures tomorrow.

Before I came here, I knew some of the history of Belfast with the troubles. I remember hearing about all of it when I was a young adult. I knew they had come to a peace. I didn’t realize it is still such a divided city. 

It is segregated on the basis of religion. There are even barriers between neighborhoods called “peace walls”. They were supposed to be taken down but few have been. 

I saw an article in the last couple of weeks of a Catholic  family being forced to move out of a Protestant neighborhood. Maybe there was more to the story.

There has been some trouble with brexit here which Northern Ireland voted against. It’s made crossing to the other Ireland difficult. There had

been free movement before.

There is still lots of bad feelings about those killed during the troubles. Boris Johnson proposed immunity for all involved if they cooperate with investigations. There is rejection of this because it is viewed as injustice and gives cover to police and British troops involved.

Then there is the Northern Ireland protocol post brexit. It aims to insure there isn’t a hard border between the two Irelands. It continues the free trade between Northern Ireland and the EU and assures their inclusion in any UK free trade agreement. The EU is objecting to some of it.

What a mess.