political signage, belfast, northern irelandbobby sands mural, belfast, northern ireland
belfast, northern ireland has a tumultuous recent history. “the troubles” were persistent ethnonationalist violence from the 1960s to the 1990s between the protestants/unionists/loyalists and the catholics/nationalists/republicans over the political status of northern ireland. thankfully the violence has subsided since the good friday agreement in 1998, but a literal wall still divides sections belfast city, and remarkably, automated gates still close at 10pm every evening to divide/protect the communities from each other overnight.
in west belfast along and near shankill road there are many politically inspired murals. most are on the protestant/unionist/loyalist side, though the catholic/nationalist/republican side has some too. there are memorials to various killings and bombings as well. probably the best way to see these is to a take a black cab tour, in which a local drives you around in a classic northern irish black cab and explains the context of the troubles and the murals. due to inadequate planning on my part and a desire to minimize costs, i opted to skip the tour and walk my own black cab tour route, after reading the wikipedia article on the troubles and identifying the route of a typical tour, and i think i got a pretty good sense of things, though it did take essentially all day. for me, this was the highlight of my time on the island of ireland.
