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About Allen Forrest:
Cartoonist/Illustrator. Born in Canada and bred in the U.S., Allen Forrest has worked in many mediums: computer graphics, theater, digital music, film, video, drawing and painting. You can read more about him in About Us.
Belfast Snaps by Allen Forrest
I had occasion to pass through Belfast in 2004. The ‘Troubles’ were allegedly over, and the worst of the symptoms – the things Byronn surreptitiously photographed during his visit – were fading away. However, the occupation lived on, and the potential for violence was always lurking just beneath the seemingly placid surface of Northern Irish life.
For example, in a small city near the border between the Irish Republic and the occupied counties, we were strolling through the picturesque city square when an army APC raced into the square, and a squad of heavily armed, flak-vested soldiers took up positions all around us. Then an armored car stopped in front of the local bank. No one moved – no one dared breathe loudly – until the armored car guards had done their work and were safely locked back in their vehicle.
Under normal circumstances, here in the States, that five-minute visit would have required no more than two armed guards. However, it was explained to us, the paramilitary organizations fighting the guerilla war in the occupied counties often crossed the border to commit bank robberies – the proceeds going to finance further terrorist activities – and their raiding parties were usually much better equipped than your average Guardai. Hence the soldiers.
A second instance: At that time, vehicles large enough to carry four adults and luggage on a two-week visit were not readily available for rent, so our party traveled in two cars. We couldn’t be arsed with the hassle and expense of getting our cell-phones operational there, so I had the bright idea of getting old-fashioned walkie-talkies to help us keep track of each other as we traveled. However, upon entering the occupied counties we were informed that walkie-talkies are what the various paramilitary organizations use while on operations, and that our using them could well get us arrested as potential terrorists. That is of course assuming some trigger-happy loyalist cop or British soldier didn’t shoot us first!
Finally, there was the tension which years of armed struggle and guerilla war have leeched into the very air of the occupied counties. We noticed it on my very first trip to Ireland, in 2002, when my wife and I unwittingly crossed the border from the Republic into the furthest west occupied counties – a pastoral region of well-tended farms, with nary a border guard or soldier in sight, or even a Union Jack to inform us. All the same, before we even realized what had happened, we each remarked on the ‘edginess’ we were feeling. I tend to paranoia, so it would not have been remarkable if I alone had experienced that unnamed frisson of fear, but when my normally carefree wife gets antsy? Well, you can bet SOMETHING is going on!
However, that was mild compared to the intense sensations of driving into Belfast on our 2004 visit, when road construction dumped us off the ring road into neighborhoods marked with Union Jacks and curbs painted red, white and blue, and other areas decorated with Irish tri-colors and Sinn Féin posters. I was about ready to jump out of my skin, just waiting for some loyalist para to decide I looked a little too much like Gerry Adams!
Suffice to say, the Good Friday Accords had not and have not resolved the ‘Irish question.’ We understood that intellectually, of course, but after a day in Belfast we knew it to the marrow of our Irish bones!