A Political Awakening in Belfast, Northern Ireland

The brief bus tour along Shankill Road in Belfast revealed walls and walls of paintings, murals in memory of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. One such mural had the following inscriptions: ‘COLLUSION was not only an ILLUSION. It was the whole goddamn INSTITUTION’. Beside the picture are abbreviations of UDA, UDR, RUC, BRITS scrawled all over, representing the Ulster Defence Association, Ulster Defence Regiment, Royal Ulster Constabulary, and the British respectively.

Another mural had a portrait of Bobby Sands – IRA’s best known icon – as the first hunger striker to die. Scribbled on that wall were the following words:

Everyone, Republican Or Otherwise, Has Their Own Particular Role To Play…
Our Revenge Will Be The Laughter Of Our Children.

Despite the lectures and readings we had been given, I found myself framed by a reality I could not understand historically, socially, culturally and politically. Out on the streets of Belfast stands these walls, containers of painful memories, and boundaries of disparate communities. This is testimony to the willingness of the many peoples to fight, kill, and die to preserve their national identity and way of life. In the Preface to Northern Ireland: A Very Short Introduction, Marc Mulholland (2002) maintains that ‘Northern Ireland’s tragedy is that its people have not been able to agree upon a common identity. Rather than stand by each other, they compete. Being so alike – in language, appearance and broad culture – they cling tenaciously to that which marks them out.’

Since identity is a process, what we have is ‘a field of discourses, matrices of meanings, narratives of self and others, and the configuration of memories which, once in circulation, provide a basis for identification’ (Atvar Brah, cited in Helen Nicholson's "Applied Drama", p. 65). With the colourful murals invading the concrete spaces between buildings, I believe this form of artistic expression is a way for communal healing through a collective remembrance of past memories and vision for utopia.

As we engage with the past, we re-create a vision for the future.