What Walls Say

I was able to visit Northern Ireland this summer for some further probing into The Troubles, pondering how the conflict has shaped me alongside the stark, brooding landscape and slate grey roaring skies.  One powerful morning I spent on the beach as my children sledged the sand dunes and I felt the elements full in my face; blustering, pummelling, crashing around me, with loud emotive wind borne cries - full of equal measures of hope and despair.  It is a powerful place.

It's no wonder then that I've always been drawn to gritty, difficult places; coping with the births of my children by travelling to Afghanistan to make a documentary about the lives of women living there; thriving amongst the detritus of war and corruption.  Living and working in Doha, Qatar, I eschewed the glitzy sanitised shopping malls for the smells and grime of a place I fondly nicknamed 'Little India'; where the many thousands of Indian workers would gather together to set up street corner restaurants, mend shoes and vend elaborate fabrics.

It's been 26 years since I've lived permanently in Northern Ireland and that's given me enough distance to return and investigate the environment with some objectivity.  The trouble with residing in a place is that you can normalise the unacceptable - you no longer see what an outsider would see.  The inherently threatening, intimidating imagery that surrounds during years of conflict can become invisible to weary eyes.  During my visit I wanted to gain an understanding of what we all looked at as we walked the streets; going to school, the shops, church.  The landscape on top of the landscape.

Wild geese living on the Shankill estate

The site of the infamous annual Protestant 11th night bonfire; overlooking the Peace Wall and the Catholic estate

I hired a black taxi driver to take me the length of the famous 5 kilometre long Peace Wall in Belfast; separating staunch Protestant and Catholic areas, providing an uneasy peace in the form of an edifice towering higher than the Berlin Wall and covered with the markings of locals and tourists.  What does this wall say?  Protection?  Defence? 

For me, of course, it says fear.  A haunting quote from a local child is printed on one section, 'We all love the 11th Night.....I like to carry the banner and the flag.'  Another generation growing up to love the oppressive presence of hundreds of flags fluttering lightly on the breeze.