'Things Have Improved a Wee Bit'

Unconventional Tour Leader Shows Off His Belfast
By Mike Gerrard
Special to The Irish American Post

It's not your conventional tour. But then Belfast is not your conventional city. Nor is Michael Johnston a conventional tour leader. Johnston was a taxi driver at the height of The Troubles, which forced him out of his own city.
"I'd lived here all my life, but the Troubles were too much for me. Fifteen innocent taxi drivers were shot dead, so I decided to leave. I've lived in New Zealand, Canada, Dublin, the USA - but I missed Belfast so much that I had to come back, and I returned to driving the black cab when things seemed to have improved a wee bit."

Johnston got so many requests from visitors to take them round the Falls Road and Shankhill Road areas that he decided to offer organized tours as well as doing his regular cab work. "'Most people do want to see the areas they've seen on the television, and they want to know more about what's gone on, you know? You can ask anything you want to ask. Most people are a wee bit shy, but they want to know, so just ask. And feel safe. It's perfectly safe, and feel free to take photos if youse have cameras. People don't mind, they actually want you to see the murals."

As we drive out of the compact city center, Johnston pointed out two huge yellow cranes over in the docks. "They are Samson and Goliath and they helped build the Titanic in 1911. In those days there were 25,000 to 30,000 people working in the shipyards. Though they're still busy, these days there's only 5,000 people working there, thanks to computerization and mechanization."

We moved on but within a minute or so we stopped again and hear the first name that brought a chilling reminder of some of the things that have happened in Belfast. "On the left," said Michael, "is the Crumlin Road Courthouse where they used to try the terrorists. There's a tunnel under the road so that when they were sent down, they went straight into the Crumlin Road Jail you see on the other side. It's no longer in use, but these are both listed buildings. Next year they are opening the jail as a public records office where people can trace their family history."

Nationalist political leader Martin McGuinness spent several months in that jail in 1976 after being charged with membership in the IRA, though the charges against him were eventually dropped.

However, everyone in Belfast seemed optimistic about the future, expecting the peace process to succeed. And, as the taxi took us into the Shankhill Road and later the Falls Road, you began to see what a monumental task the politicians have faced, and still face.

"In the Shankhill Road," said Johnston, "you'll see everything is red, white and blue. Here we're only maybe 400 yards from the city center. People don't realize how close it all is. The Shankhill Road and the Falls Road both run out of the center parallel to one another, a few hundred yards apart. But people on both sides are now trying to educate the children out of this trap. They're building parks and playgrounds and football pitches, to give the youngsters something else to do." 

We drove along the Shankhill, looking like any other shopping street in any working class area of any British city on a pre-Christmas Saturday. Plastic Santas stare out of shop windows, mums push prams, dads follow along pretending to show an interest in doing the Christmas shopping. Then you see some graffiti: "All Drug Dealers Will Be Shot."

"You get that on both sides," Michael pointed out.

You also get the bold and colorful wall murals by the dozen -- far more than I'd expected -- and decorating the sides of shops on the main street as well as in the housing estates. A Japanese tourist is photographing a painting showing the Ulster Volunteer Force as heroes, and next to it the Ulster Freedom Fighters who are "Simple The Best." "You can see where Catholics have come into the area and thrown paint bombs at it," Johnston pointed out.

But we know it was more than paint bombs that were thrown, as Johnston drove us down Lanark Way -- known as Murder Mile where tit-for-tat killings once took place. At the end, we reach the sadly named Peace Wall, built to separate the two sides in an attempt to reduce the violence. It's a depressing sight in any city, a concrete and steel block topped by barbed wire, burnt by petrol bombs, the houses on either side with blackened window frames, like some Hollywood nightmare of a futuristic society blighted by violence.

The hope here is that the Peace Wall becomes a symbolic name, the wall itself torn down like the Berlin Wall by the people on either side of it. Today, it is covered by messages added by visitors from all over the world: "Peace for All in Northern Ireland, "Violence Defeats the Cause," "One God, One People" and "Nicoloa, USA."

We drove through the Peace Gates which used to be locked at 6 p.m. to keep the two sides apart. On the far side is the Falls Road, the Catholic area, which is a mirror image of the Shankhill Road except that the colors here are green, white and gold instead of red, white and blue. In windows, you'll see posters of the Pope instead of Ian Paisley. But everyone here was Christmas shopping, too.

On this side we pass the Royal Victoria Hospital. "They're good at fixing elbows and knee-caps," Michael said ruefully, "and they've a very good burns unit. People come from all over the world now to be treated here."
The murals and slogans were here too, painted with just as much color and conviction, one a tribute to Bobby Sands and the other hunger strikers. We visited Milltown Cemetery where loyalist Michael Stone opened fire and threw hand grenades at the funeral of the nationalist Gibraltar Three, sending three more people to an early death. Giuseppe Conlon, whose innocent death in prison is depicted movingly in the film, "In the Name of the Father," is also buried here.

If the tour sounded depressing and voyeuristic then that was only a small part of it. It was a fascinating and deeper look into something only familiar from the news stories. It was finding out for yourself what Belfast was like instead of imagining it, and discovering it was full of good food, good drink, music, beautiful buildings, museums and, ironically, the friendliest people you'll find anywhere.

"Belfast sits in a magnificent valley," Johnston told me, "and I'll take you out now and you're going to get a magnificent view in a couple of minutes."'
And we did. Despite it being a dull day, we can see across the city, across the Catholic and Protestant areas, over the city center with its cathedrals and towers and Listed Buildings, with the yellow figures of Samson and Goliath guarding the dockyards. And on the furthest side from where we were, some 12 to 15 miles distant on the side of a sloping green hill, Johnston pointed out an old building that looked like a country mansion and was hit by a patch of sunlight shining through the clouds and painting it golden. It was, he said, Stormont.
 
 
 

Award-winning travel writer Mike Gerrard traveled to Belfast as a guest of the Northern Ireland Tourist Board, St Anne's Court, 59 North St., Belfast BT1 1NB. Tel: 01232 231221; Fax: 01232 310933; Website: www.ni-tourism.com  The author stayed at the McCausland Hotel, 34-38 Victoria St., Belfast BT1 3GH. Tel: 028 9022 0200. A double room in this Grade A listed building close to the Laganside waterfront development costs £150 per night, £120 single occupancy. Michael Johnston's Black Taxi Tours last about 90 minutes and cost £7 per person for a minimum of three people. They leave Belfast City Center daily at 10 a.m., noon, 2 p.m., 4 p.m. and 6 p.m., and also at 8 p.m. in the summer. Tel: 01232 289227 or 0860 127207 (mobile); email: michael@belfasttours.com; website: www.belfasttour.com.