Belfast Diary
by Fred A. Wilcox
Shortly after I arrive in Belfast [in July 2001], a loyalist
hit squad calling themselves the Red Hand Defenders murder Ciaran
Cummings, a 19-year-old Catholic man. Almost daily (an estimated
170 attacks between January 1 and June 3), petrol and pipe bombs
are exploding  against
the doors and windows of Catholic homes in nationalist neighborhoods.
The annual marching season, when Protestants parade to celebrate
the victory of William of Orange over James II at the Battle of
the Boyne, is in full swing. Before the last of 3,000 parades
pass by or through nationalist neighborhoods, more Catholic homes
will be attacked, more people will be injured, and serious rioting
will break out in the Ardoyne section of Belfast.
Along with 33 international observers from the United States,
France, and Puerto Rico, I am here to monitor parades by the Orange
Order, the most important Protestant organization in the North.
To learn more about the political, economic, and social complexities
of Northern Ireland, we will also meet with politicians, human
rights activists, community action groups, the Royal Ulster Constabulary,
loyalist gunmen released under the Good Friday Agreement, and
many others.
Over tea and cookies, Mark Thompson, spokesperson for Relatives
for Justice, tells us that hundreds of innocent men, women, and
children have been murdered by the British-backed security forces.
We stop to talk with women who are sewing a quilt to commemorate
these victims, attaching photographs and drawings to individual
panels, stitching a victim's favorite song or poem into a panel,
adding a piece of a father's favorite tie, a ribbon from a mother's
wedding dress. We move on to Stormont Castle, where we listen
to First Minister David Trimble's political adviser, David McNarry,
complain that Protestant culture is under attack from nationalists
and their allies in the IRA.
Our visits with politicians in Stormont are bewildering and,
at times, remind us of Alice in Wonderland. The people
with whom we meet seem to have decided that there is no need to
validate their assertions with evidence. Indeed, the most important
thing is to repeat the same story time and again to visiting observers,
to the media, to colleagues and friends. In time, these ideological
mantras will assume a mythological status; the storyteller becomes
his very own story.
 When
we are not attending meetings, we visit neighborhoods like the
Shankill district, a loyalist enclave made infamous by a gang
of killers who tortured Catholics to death. In Shankill, loyalists'
paramilitary and British flags flutter from lampposts, and young
people are stacking crates and tires into a massive four-story
pyre for a celebration of the Battle of the Boyne. On the night
of July 11, great fires will roar, billowing acrid plumes of smoke
while masked men, seeming to have walked straight out of the flames,
fire automatic weapons into the air to the delight of cheering
crowds.
On July 12, the most important day of the marching season, several
observers and I get caught in the worst rioting the North has
seen since 1969. The Royal Ulster Constabulary stand shoulder
to shoulder in full riot gear, while bricks, bottles, pieces of
metal, chunks of concrete bounce off their plastic shields. Cars
burst into flame, and the RUC fires plastic bullets into the crowd.
A piece of concrete strikes the head of a policeman and he falls,
apparently dead, to the pavement. I am not certain we will get
out of this situation alive. The riot lasts hours.
On the last day of our visit to Belfast, we take a cab to the
train station, hoping to relax over a cup of tea and some good
conversation on our way to Dublin. But when we arrive, the train
cannot leave the station because someone has placed a bomb on
the tracks. Stuffed into a bus, we watch the North of Ireland
slide by, relieved when we cross the border into the Republic
and see the police chatting beside the road, unarmed and smiling,
a pleasant sight after all we had seen and heard during the past
two weeks.
Fred A. Wilcox is an associate professor in the Department of
Writing.
Top photo -- Wilcox in front of a loyalist paramilitary
mural in Belfast
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