Belfast – War & Peace in Northern Ireland

June 2, 2023June 2, 2023

Life and Death in Divis Flats: The Enduring Symbolism of a 1960s Belfast Housing Project

The Troubles in Northern Ireland have an enduring iconography, even twenty-five years on from the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. This is partially to do with the long tradition of attaching social, political, and historical narratives to place that has been well-observed in the island of Ireland. Especially in the working-class areas of Belfast and (London)derry, one cannot go anywhere without coming across an area of significance to the Troubles (Feldman 436-437). As a result, specific neighborhoods and buildings have acquired a certain status in the public consciousness of the Troubles. One of the most notorious of these is Divis Flats, designed and built on the lower Falls Road in Belfast between 1966 and 1972 (Page 3). The flats would eventually consist of 12 interconnected eight story deck access blocks as well as one twenty-story tower, and had about 2,400 residents in 850 flats (Roy 1).

From the beginning, the flats were controversial, as part of a slum clearance project by the Northern Ireland government. The Pound Loney, the neighborhood torn down to make way for the flats, was known as a safe and close-knit community, with family and friends living close to each other, and many small pubs and shops. However, the Victorian-era housing often lacked amenities such as central heating or running water (Roy 19). Thus, when the Divis Flats housing project was announced, the reaction amongst the residents of the Pound Loney was decidedly mixed, with many choosing to accept a move to Divis in order to stay close to family and friends, despite their reservations about the buildings. This attitude can be seen in a quote from a man who had lived in the Pound Loney before moving to Divis Flats– “the Pound Loney is where I was born and where I will die even if the Brits change the name to Divis Flats; for Christ sake, they might as well have called it Long Kesh” (Dowler 102). The flats themselves were described as “Europe’s youngest slum” even before construction had been completed (Page 3).

The flats quickly gained a reputation for violence, with a British Army base built on the roof of Divis Tower in 1972. This observation post was used for surveillance of the flats themselves, as well as the greater Lower Falls Road (Page 13-14). Soldiers lived on the top two floors of Divis Tower, and supplies were transported by helicopter (Alfaro & Roulston 28). The military made use of the design of the flats to carry out regular searches of the inhabitants (Roy 33). Resistance among the population, and the high rates of membership of first, the IRA and PIRA, and later, the INLA, meant that it became colloquially known as the “planet of the Irps,” a slang term for the INLA’s associated political party, the IRSP (Roy 8-9). Death and injury due to paramilitary or military activity were relatively commonplace, including among children as young as nine or ten (Alfaro & Roulston 28; Roy 9).

In addition, there were several issues with the facilities of the flats, such as damp, mold, lack of laundry facilities, broken elevators, dirty stairwells, broken lights, overflowing rubbish chutes, the inability to supervise children, not enough play areas for the over-a-thousand children, broken railings, inability to stay warm, and more (Alfaro & Roulston 28-29; Roy 30-31, 33). Anger over living conditions led the residents to campaign for the demolition of the flats, which finally occurred in the summer of 1993, with only the tower (and the army base on top) remaining (Dowler 103; Roy 13-14). The army base itself stayed until 2005 (Page 21). Despite the fact that the flats are long-gone, they have endured as a symbol of the Troubles in the public consciousness, and still regularly feature in UK and Northern Ireland press relating to disappearances and murders from the time period.

Citations:

Dowler, Lorraine. “Preserving the Peace and Maintaining Order: Deconstructing the Legal Landscape of Public Housing in West Belfast, Northern Ireland.” Urban Geography, vol. 22, no. 2, 2001, pp. 100–105, https://doi.org/10.2747/0272-3638.22.2.100.

Feldman, Allen. “Violence and Vision: The Prosthetics and Aesthetics of Terror.” States of Violence, edited by Fernando Coronil and Julie Skurski, The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 2006, pp. 425–459.

Gómez Alfaro, Garikoitz, and Fearghus Roulston. “Nostalgia for ‘HMP Divis’ and ‘HMP Rossville’: Memories of the Everyday in Northern Ireland’s High-Rise Flats.” Journal of War & Culture Studies, vol. 14, no. 1, 2021, pp. 25–44, https://doi.org/10.1080/17526272.2021.1873532.

Page, Adam (2017) Appropriating architecture: violence, surveillance and anxiety in Belfast’s Divis Flats. Candide – Journal for Architectural Knowledge (10). pp. 90-112. ISSN 1869-6465

Roy, Megan Deirdre. “Divis Flats: The Social and Political Implications of a Modern Housing Project in Belfast, Northern Ireland, 1968-1998.” The Iowa Historical Review, vol. 1, no. 1, 2007, pp. 1–44, https://doi.org/10.17077/2373-1842.1001.

Object 1: “High Life” part 1 BBC One documentary, 2010

The story of Divis Flats continues to attract attention today. This is a TV documentary from BBC One Northern Ireland first aired in 2010. As well as providing a general history and overview of the flats, it also contains several interviews of various players in the story of the flats. One of those interviewed is the architect, Frank Robertson. Interestingly, he shies away from really acknowledging issues with the design itself, instead blaming the residents of Divis Flats for issues with the facilities.

However, one of the most interesting aspects of this documentary is what it doesn’t acknowledge, namely the bias present in the planning of the flats. Similarly to the Bronx in New York City, the Pound Loney community was razed so that a highway could be built– in this case, the M1 motorway (Roy 4). In addition, by concentrating the Catholic community in high-rises, unionist politicians were able to ensure that Protestants would continue living in the nearby areas of the Shankill Road and Sandy Row, instead of moving further out and leaving room for Catholics to dominate the constituencies in the inner city (Roy 39). This process of ghettoization “implemented imperial and colonial agendas” by reducing social contact between opposing sides (Feldman 433-434). The British Army also had a hand in planning public housing in Belfast, which can clearly be seen in the design of the flats, where every door pointed towards the army post (Roy 24).

This documentary makes no reference to any of the above, perhaps unsurprisingly, as the BBC is the national broadcaster of the UK, and is thus predisposed to slant its news coverage towards the British state. Divis Flats is instead presented almost paternalistically, blaming the poor conditions on the residents just not knowing how to live in a modern high rise.

Object 2: The British Army base on Divis Tower in the early 2000s

“A man does not have a chance in these streets in the sky. At least in the old Pound Loney if you saw them coming to lift you, you had a chance to make a break for it down the street.”
–a resident of Divis Flats, as quoted in Dowler 102

Many of the residents of Divis Flats described it as a prison, with it even earning the nickname “HM Divis” (Alfaro & Roulston 28). This was not least due to the presence of the British Army base on top of Divis Tower, and the constant surveillance, humiliation, and harassment that entailed. Although the majority of people in Divis were initially not opposed to the British Army, this quickly changed due to a series of riots in which the military shot several people, including small children (Roy 26). The resulting widespread hostility amongst the residents led the army, in turn, to regard all residents of the flats as potential IRA members, which made them even more hostile, in a vicious cycle of violence.

The British Army took to conducting house searches, which the residents referred to as raids (Page 10). They blocked off entrances and exits by positioning soldiers on the stairs and lifts, and detained the people they rounded up in the laundry tower (Page 10-11). They also changed the flats to fit their needs, breaking and blacking out lights so that they would be harder to see, and cutting the cables on all of the lifts after the murder of two soldiers by an IRA bomb hidden in the lift shaft (Alfaro & Roulston 33-34; Roy 33).

The army frequently pasted photos of residents taken from the surveillance post onto the windows of flats below, heightening the paranoia of the residents (Page 14). This also served as a tool of humiliation, with one man interviewed telling a story of a friend of his who adjusted his zipper after he realized it was undone, and was featured on posters the next day with the caption “Do you want your children around this man?” (Dowler 100).

Object 3: “Ulster’s Lost Generation” New York Times article by John Conroy, 2 August 1981

Divis Flats attracted attention from outside of Northern Ireland due to its status as a symbol of the Troubles and a republican stronghold. This is a New York Times article from 1981, about three months after the death of Bobby Sands. It discusses the high crime rate in Divis Flats, its perception among the community, and the everyday violence, as well as the role of the IRA in policing Divis Flats. Among the people interviewed are a Divis resident in his twenties who is not part of the IRA, the press officer for Sinn Fein, and a representative of the RUC.

One of the main focuses of the article is the prominence of kneecapping as a form of punishment used by the IRA in their policing of their community. One man interviewed in the article, who was accused of car theft, was offered the choice of either cleaning the walkways of Divis Flats or being kneecapped by the IRA, and chose the kneecapping, because he felt that cleaning walkways would be too humiliating.

Another aspect of Divis Flats touched on by the article is its perception in the wider community of Belfast. Although the Divis resident interviewed looked for a job as an auto mechanic, as soon as he said that he was from the flats, he was turned down. This was not unusual; when applying for jobs, residents of the flats would often list the address of a friend or relative because of Divis’s notoriety (Roy 25). Partially because of this, the unemployment rate in the Falls area tended around 68 percent, and 51 percent of Divis residents depended solely on welfare (Roy 2).

Object 4: Photo of children playing outside Divis Flats by Chris Steele-Perkins, 1978

This picture shows children playing outside of Divis Flats, with the remnants of the former Pound Loney community behind them. Children in the flats were usually unsupervised, as the design of the flats did not allow parents to easily observe their children (Roy 40). This meant that they were targets, both as potential recruits for paramilitaries, and for being injured by the paramilitaries or the army. The first child killed in the Troubles was nine-year-old Patrick Rooney, who was killed in Divis Tower in August of 1969 when the RUC fired a machine gun into the flats (Alfaro & Roulston 28). In a study comparing the children from Divis Flats to those from a nearby terraced Catholic housing estate, children from Divis Flats “were shown to have significantly higher rates of emotional distress.” (Roy 20)

The poor conditions of the flats themselves also created danger for children. In a 1987 health and housing survey, 36 percent of the children in the flats had frequent coughs and 10 percent had asthma symptoms caused by the ever-present damp and mold, and in the mid-1980s, a child died by falling through a broken railing on the stairway (Roy 33-34). However, there were still moments of fun for the children, with one former resident recalling:

“I remember one of the things we used to do if we were bored was to walk round the balconies looking for black bows on the doors and go in to see the corpse. It didn’t matter if you knew them or not […] God love some of those poor people, we must of had them tortured, cos if it was a good corpse we’d go back a couple of times.”
– Veronica, quoted in Alfaro & Roulston 38

Object 5: “Riots in the Divis Flats” by Peter Marlow, 1981

Given the status of Divis Flats as a republican stronghold, riots and protests were not uncommon. This photo depicts rioters after the death of Bobby Sands, the first of the hunger strikers in the Maze prison to die. During the hunger strikes, young people living in the flats “hijacked and burned over 100 cars, buses, and trucks around the complex, barricaded all of the entrances, and turned Divis into a “no go” area,” sheets were draped over balconies to block surveillance from the tower, and armed IRA and INLA members patrolled openly (Roy 29). The security forces were not able to get into the flats for six weeks.

This is only one of many examples of resistance against the security forces. When soldiers tried to carry out raids, women would rattle pot lids off of the balconies to alert the surrounding area, and children would throw trash (Alfaro & Roulston 35). In 1983, over 50 percent of residents actively supported either the IRA or the INLA (Roy 38). These paramilitaries set booby traps in the flats for the soldiers, including a pipe bomb in a stairwell in February of 1974 that injured eleven residents, but not the patrol unit it was intended for, and fired on soldiers in Divis Tower (Roy 8, 11).

There were also more peaceful forms of protest, such as a 1971 rent strike in protest of internment that saw 100 percent participation from the residents of the flats (Dowler 103). In addition, many Divis residents attended rallies of the Women’s Peace Movement, a peaceful protest group, in 1976 (Roy 10).

Object 6: “Belfast’s Divis Flats to be demolished” Guardian article by Bob Rodwell, 9 July 1986

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Although residents had been calling for Divis Flats to be demolished since 1973, only a year after its completion, the Housing Executive did not accede to their demands until 1986 (Alfaro & Roulston 29). This article from the Guardian announcing the upcoming demolition cites vandalism and safety concerns for the military and police as reasons for razing the flats. This may have been the government’s stated reasoning, but for the residents, this was the culmination of over a decade of sustained protest, both through raising public awareness and forcibly rendering apartments uninhabitable.

The Divis Residents’ Association was formed in the late 1970s or early 1980s, and aimed to “raise public awareness through publications and studies” (Roy 12). They listed violence, social problems, and structural defects as reasons for demolition, but their biggest one was the “feeling of hopelessness, of being trapped in Divis” (Page 18). The Divis Demolition Committee, meanwhile, formed in 1979, decided to take matters into their own hands. They would make recently vacated flats uninhabitable by taking windows and doors out of the frames, breaking the frames, knocking through walls, pulling out electrical fittings, and closing the flats up with cinder blocks (Page 19-20; Roy 12). They also released rats in the office of the Housing Executive to show what daily life was like in Divis (Page 19). Sean Stitt, a member of the Committee at the time, explained their actions by saying “We can say to the Housing Executive, that if they don’t demolish Divis, the people of Divis Flats will certainly demolish it” (qtd. Page 20).

Ultimately, though all of the reasons given above may have played a role in Divis’s demolition, the major one was the same reason the Pound Loney had been torn down thirty years before: to make way for the M1 motorway (Roy 12-13).

Object 7: Photo of mural calling for demilitarization of Divis Tower by Peter Moloney, 19 February 2003

The flats themselves were completely demolished by the summer of 1993, but the tower remains to this day. The military base on the tower continued to keep watch over the lower Falls Road area until 2005, meaning that the residents there continued to feel a sense of paranoia from being observed almost twenty years after the announcement of the demolition of Divis Flats (Roy 2). This photograph, taken in 2003, shows a mural asking for the removal of the Divis Tower army base with the tower itself looming in the background. The mural was located on the International Wall on Divis Street, and was one of the first things a visitor to West Belfast coming in from the city center would see. Although the rest of Belfast is shown as a group of much shorter buildings silhouetted against the sky in the background, Divis Tower is large and bright, showing that it doesn’t belong.

Symbolically, the military base on Divis Tower was a remnant from the violent past for those living near it. It “became metonymic with the conflict itself, especially in its urban manifestation” (Alfaro & Roulston 35). While the blocks of flats became part of the fabric of a sort of mythos of republicanism during the Troubles, the Tower itself is not gone and is thus harder in some ways to reconcile with the violence that occurred there. Today, the Tower houses older people who need public housing, and is considered desirable enough that there is a long waiting list to live there.

Object 8: Photo of Jean McConville with three of her ten children, Associated Press

Though Divis Flats has (other than the tower) physically faded into the past, it is very much still alive in the public memory. This is a photo of Jean McConville, who was “disappeared” and murdered by the IRA on suspicion of being an informant in 1972, shown here with three of her ten children. She lived in Divis Flats when she vanished, and remains one of an extensive list of crimes from the Troubles that endure in public memory. She is particularly notable because of Gerry Adams’s alleged association with her disappearance and murder (Alfaro & Roulston 28). This particular case threatens the political status quo in Northern Ireland, making it clear that the violent past lurks just below the surface.

The flats’ symbolic status is furthered by the fact that their existence maps pretty closely onto the timeline of the Troubles. The first block was opened in May of 1968, four years before Bloody Sunday, and the final block was demolished in 1993, five years before the Good Friday Agreement was signed (Alfaro & Roulston 27). High and low points in the intensity of the conflict were directly echoed in Divis Flats. For this reason, it is often perceived and portrayed as a microcosm of the Troubles– the conflict centered in one area. This can be seen in movies about the Troubles. For example, the 2014 film ‘71 features Divis Flats as a nightmarish symbol for Northern Ireland as a whole (Alfaro & Roulston 36). Ultimately, perhaps a single area that experiences so much concentrated death and violence can never truly be erased from the public memory, even long after the physical structures are gone.

Bibliography:

British Army. “Soldiers Work at the Top of the 19-Storey Divis Tower.” BBC News UK, BBC, Belfast, Northern Ireland, 2005.

Conroy, John. “Ulster’s Lost Generation.” New York Times, 2 Aug. 1981, pp. 17–21.

Cunningham, Gemma, and Paul McGuigan. High Life Part 1. BBC One– High Life, Episode One, BBC One Northern Ireland, 2010, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00v9kl0. Accessed 2023.

“Jean McConville with Three of Her Children.” RTÉ Ireland, RTÉ Ireland, Belfast, 2015.

Marlow, Peter. Riots in the Divis Flats. New York City, 1981, https://library.artstor.org/#/asset/AMAGNUMIG_10311502840. Accessed 2023.

Moloney, Peter. “Demilitarise Divis Tower.” Peter Moloney Collection, Extramural Activity, Belfast, 2013, https://petermoloneycollection.com/2003/02/19/demilitarise-divis-tower/. Accessed 2023.

Morrison, Brian. “Divis Flats.” Troubles Archive, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, 2014, http://www.troublesarchive.com/index.php/artforms/architecture/piece/divis-flats. Accessed 2023.

Page, Adam (2017) Appropriating architecture: violence, surveillance and anxiety in Belfast’s Divis Flats. Candide – Journal for Architectural Knowledge (10). pp. 90-112. ISSN 1869-6465

Rodwell, Bob. “Belfast’s Divis Flats to Be Demolished.” The Guardian, 9 July 1986. Nexis Uni, https://advance.lexis.com/document/?pdmfid=1516831&crid=f8a0684a-051b-4614-acf1-3ac5de0a39ff&pddocfullpath=%2fshared%2fdocument%2fnews%2furn%3acontentItem%3a40GH-JC70-00VY-82XJ-00000-00&pdcontentcomponentid=138620&pdteaserkey=sr0&pditab=allpods&ecomp=-znyk&earg=sr0&prid=7527a2a9-3358-433b-bed8-1cbdd8a2e23e&aci=la&cbc=0&lnsi=62415cbb-4e27-48e7-928d-8af07d9e3e43&rmflag=0&sit=null. Accessed 2023.

Steele-Perkins, Chris. Outside Divis Flats. New York City, 1978, https://library.artstor.org/#/asset/AMAGNUMIG_10311511498. Accessed 2023.

June 1, 2023June 1, 2023

The Belfast Peace Walls: Safety, Secuirty, and Division

A Brief Overview of the Peace Walls in Belfast

Peace Walls in Belfast, Northern Ireland have been part of the architectural landscape of the city since the beginning of the Troubles. The first was put up in 1969 and over the next 30 years, nearly 30 miles of walls could be erected through the city. During this time existing walls would also be added with a variety of materials. These walls were designed to be a temporary structure that would come down in a manner of months or a few years (Leonard and McKnight 2011). They were not. In the time since their erection, the peace walls have gone on to become major cultural markers in Northern Ireland, both for the region as a whole and for the communities they divide. They act as monuments to and reminders of the sectarian division within Belfast and Northern Ireland more broadly (Ravenscroft 2009). In doing so, rather than keeping the peace, they have provoked fear by limiting contact between the two major communities and by increasing the securitization of the political problems in Belfast.

Their role in the fabric of Belfast’s culture and political discourse cannot be understated. During the Troubles, around 70% of those killed in Belfast were killed within half a kilometer of a peace wall (Leonard and McKnight 2011). After the signing of the Good Friday agreement in 1998 the walls have come to represent the lack of progress within the region and the continued need for changes within the structures of government (Gormley-Heenan and Byrne 2012). The peace walls act as sites for artistic expression, urban decay, political protest, and in some limited cases reconciliation. Their centrality to the politics of Northern Ireland is a result of where they sit geographically. They act as the interface between majority Catholic communities and majority protestant communities and were primarily designed to limit cross-community interaction.

Contact theory hypothesizes that limited interaction between various ethnic and political groups is one potential reason for outgroup animosity. Therefore, increasing levels of contact between these varying groups through both intentional and passive contact might reduce such tensions in a divided society. The Peace Walls have done the opposite (Dixon et al. 2020). Rather than foster connections between communities, they have reinforced physically located tribes. In doing so, the walls have shaped public opinion about the other community and limited the ability to create a fully integrated society.

The peace walls have also contributed to the securitization of political issues in Northern Ireland. In many ways, they become part of the story of “the chicken and the egg.” The walls were installed to protect citizens from violence. However, in their installation, they also promoted specific ways of behaving by merely existing. In this sense, the walls are both a product of the division within the city as well as a self-reinforcing mechanism that continues the sectarian divide.

Developing a plan to remove the peace walls has been a long-standing goal of the Northern Irish Executive. Their targeted date to remove them all was 2023. It seems this plan will not come to fruition as currently, there are more peace walls active in Belfast than there were 25 years ago (Alcaraz 2023). This is the result of mixed public sentiments about the peace walls and where Northern Irish society as a whole will be going in the next few years.

In Belfast, the peace walls represent both an interesting and strange study of several aspects of peace and conflict. They have acted simultaneously as a physical barrier to violence but also as an abstract barrier to peace; promoting the separation rather than integration of the communities that surround them.

What they Look Like. What they Represent.

The image above provides a view of what a peace wall looks like. It is neither pretty nor is it inviting. In fact, it is meant to have the exact opposite effect. Designed to separate each other, they became more and more brutish as the years went on. When deemed not to have their job well enough, the government would add more walls on top of what already existed, generally becoming closer and closer to bare fencing.

In some instances, like this one, the walls extend upwards of 30 feet (Leonard and McKnight 2011). These walls would extend through backyards, streets, and parks all the while looking like something from a prison, dividing the inside from the outside. In addition to creating a clear and ominous divide between the two communities, they were also spaces that created intra-community solidarity (Ravenscroft 2009). One way this was accomplished was by utilizing them as sites for prominent murals. The Murals one would see on a daily basis would be dependent on which side of the wall they lived on. All of them in support of their own community. In the most concrete sense they say “On this side of the wall, we are family. On that side of the wall, they are the enemy. With this, the peace walls represent both a stark physical barrier between the two communities in Belfast as well as a strong rhetorical argument in favor of communal tribalism.

The Stories Told.

ReflectedLives-Publication-for-web_25april2018 Download

Reflected Lives is an interview-based Oral History done to collect attitudes and stories about the communities that the Peace Walls surround. Specifically, community members from Short Strand and Inner East were interviewed. In several chapters, the report documents how walls and the Troubles more broadly changed society and oftentimes made life difficult. Interviews occurred with those who both experienced life in Belfast before the walls were put up and young adults who were only a few years old when the Good Friday Agreement was signed.

What becomes clear in reading through the report is that the walls were not just physical. Prior to many of the peace walls going up in the 70s, rapid changes in the community dynamic occurred. What were once mixed streets soon had families selling their homes and moving towards more homogeneous neighborhoods Due to the start of the troubles, the walls were first psychological, and then physical.

Once the walls went up that division solidified. It changed the daily lives of those living in the community. The walls normalized the division of “us from them” and therefore also normalized the violence that came along with them. It was now expected that people would riot at the walls, and even try to launch things over the top of them. Both communities now had a target for their violence and their anger.

Because many who now live in these communities have not lived a life without the walls, and those that did were still children, much uncertainty exists about their removal. Some express the opinion that they want them gone, but worry that the community will descend into even more violence without them. Others are more pessimistic and want to see the walls heightened even further.

Economic Suffering Around the Peace Walls.

These two maps show an overview of where the peace walls exist in the context of Belfast as a city. The map on the left shows the specific geographical locations of the walls and the breakdown of the religious affiliation of the neighborhoods in Belfast. The map on the right details socio-economic deprivation based on seven different factors, with darker red marking a more deprived area compared to the rest of Northern Ireland.

In combination, these two maps highlight how not only do peace walls exist at the interface between communities with large majorities of their own faith but they also mainly exist in the top half of the most deprived communities within Northern Ireland (NIMDM17- Results 2017). Lower socio-economic status can lead to feelings of being left behind. This can materialize in an increased likelihood to join more militant or extremist groups (Smith 2018). Therefore, the lack of socio-economic opportunities for people within the communities that the peace walls divide might in part explain why they have been flashpoints of violence.

The presence of the peace walls can further contribute to this economic deprivation. They limit trade and commerce between neighboring communities. They can also limit external investment due to negative perceptions of the communities around the walls being “unsafe.” These negative perceptions only exacerbate social inequality seen around the walls.

The Economic Incentives the Walls Provide.

Post troubles Northern Ireland has been punctuated by a period of increased economic activity, especially tourism. The above image is a screenshot of different private tours that a tourist can go on throughout Belfast. While not explicitly just about the Peace Walls most of these tours have some focus on the Peace Walls during the trip.

The commodification of the peace walls can create perverse incentives for citizens and communities they border, and of the city more broadly, to support their removal. Because they encourage economic activity and growth, the walls provide an avenue to bring money to the communities they surround. As these communities are historically and currently underserved this revenue may be vital sources of income for some community members. Deconstructing the walls would limit this source of income and thus leave some in the communities worse off.

So while it might be to the benefit of the broader Northern Irish community to take down the walls, the walls themselves have created an economic landscape that leads some to push for their continued existence (Brunn et al. 2010). Likewise, these tours can force the past into the present, leading those involved in economic activity surrounding the walls to relive the troubles. Again, making sectarian identities and history more salient than in a world without walls.

Youth, History, and Nothing to Do.

This clip discusses the role of the peace walls in the way young adults behave and act. Interviews with community leaders trying to reintegrate the areas around the walls discuss trends that they see in the younger generations who live near the walls. They Discuss how rioting and protesting have been ingrained in community culture for decades. As such when young adults are bored and do not have anything to keep them occupied, such as during the summer, they turn to throwing things over the walls or making petrol bombs.

While not explicitly addressed in the clip, there is also an economic component to this behavior when idle. As noted above, the communities surrounding the walls are of lower socio-economic status. Therefore, parents are likely to be less engaged in their child’s life. Families simply don’t have the money to send their children to day camps, sports camps, or be home when they are to keep them occupied.

In an interview with one young adult, identifies family life as one of the main causes of out-group animosity, “it’s just the way I’ve been brought up.” This is why even for younger generations the divisions the peace walls create are so hard to shake. As a child in one community, you hear stories about the violence and the wrongs that have been done to your brothers and sisters and because of the walls, you probably have never had more than a passing conversation with someone from the other community. Therefore there are no counterpoints to the stories and stereotypes you grow up listening to. The peace walls and the insular communities they create necessitate the transfer of biased intergenerational knowledge.

The Interface: a Poem about the Walls.

peace wall-poem Download

The Peace Walls in Belfast have split public sentiment on what they represent and how to best solve continued conflict in the city. Through writings, poems, art, and conversation citizens have taken to artistic forms of expression to explain their points of view. Taking a markedly negative view of the peace walls, this Piece entitled “The Interface: Peace Walls, Belfast, Northern Ireland” by James O’Leary centralizes one of many opinions surrounding them. It should be noted that general popular sentiment is much more mixed, with many believing that the peace walls are still necessary to this day (Gormley-Heenan and Byrne 2012).

The piece discusses the emotion, the oddity, and the fear that the peace walls elicit. It highlights how intrusive and controlling they are. Even more, this poem discusses how much of a cultural staple the peace walls are. It describes the murals that adorn them and how they have been institutionalized in law and regulation. Referring to the peace walls as interfaces, the piece alludes to the walls being a primary point of contact, or lack of contact, between the Catholic and Protestant communities. The use of the word “interface” also elicits a sense of friction between the two communities. The walls, therefore, become a point of tension, heat, and anxiety within Northern Irish society.

While generally negative, there are glimmers of hope within the author’s views. He presents a picture of the peace walls being “ a discussion regarding the optimal conditions for contact” (O’Leary 2017, 143). Because for as much harm as they have done to the material and cultural landscape of Belfast, changing the scope of the walls, or their removal entirely, is one potential avenue that contact can easily be increased and society can continue its healing.

Contemporary Security Issues at the Walls.

This news clip produced by BBC interviews several different families who live next to, or very close to the peace walls in 2021. In the video, they discuss their thoughts and opinions about the peace walls and generally express anxiety about the security situation surrounding the walls.

The clip was produced in response to major protests that occurred along the walls, which highlights how the walls are still major sites for protests and marches to this day. Overall, opinions about the peace walls are mixed. On the one hand, their support for them has declined over time, and on the other, those closest to them still believe they are important in keeping the peace (Dixon et al. 2020). They have become so ingrained in the history and culture of communities that nearly 25 years on from the Good Friday Agreement that most of the walls throughout Belfast are still up.

With rising tensions in Northern Ireland surrounding Brexit and the lack of a functioning regional government, protests may become more frequent. If this is the case, then peace walls will act as a primary point of tension in the city as they have in the past.

Because the walls act as physical demarcations of sectarian identity, protesting around them brings salience to a conflict that is now in its fifth decade. The walls have therefore acted as another point of gathering for protest in addition to the traditional city centers that usually draw large crowds of protesters. Thus contributing to the lack of normalized of politics in Northern Ireland.

Removing Barriers and Healing the Divide.

The Belfast Interface Project is a civil society group within Belfast aiming to build cross-community understanding and facilitate dialogue in the communities around the peace walls. They operate in a constellation of other similar organizations throughout Northern Ireland aiming to increase contact between the Catholic community and the Protestant community.

Their work aims to bridge the divide between communities that the peace walls divide. Creating a shared narrative of why the walls went up, what they have done to community, and what a possible future without the walls all are important aspects of this process. One of the projects they undertook to help do so was the Reflected Lives Oral History seen above. This along with other creative projects might be one main avenue to healing the divisions the peace walls enforce.

The Interface Project makes clear that the continued presence of the walls is a symptom of broader and more systemic community distrust. Likewise, the mere existence of their organization represents how sticky the attitudes and issues are around the peace walls. Work needs to continuously be done to build bridges between interface communities. Through concerted efforts of those both in and outside of the community, progress can be made.

Works Consulted.

O’Leary, James. 2017. “The Interface: Peace Walls, Belfast, Northern Ireland.” Footprint Delft Architecture Theory Journal (19): 137–44.

Alcaraz, Teresa García. 2023. “Belfast Has More Peace Walls Now than 25 Years Ago – Removing Them Will Be a Complex Challenge.” The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/belfast-has-more-peace-walls-now-than-25-years-ago-removing-them-will-be-a-complex-challenge-203975 (May 29, 2023).

BBC News NI. 2021. “Cages around Houses: Life at Belfast’s Peace Wall.” YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcD4mG7YO_8 (May 31, 2023).

Belfast Interface Project. 2018. “Reflected Lives Intergenerational Oral Histories of Belfast’s Peace Wall Communities.” https://www.belfastinterfaceproject.org/sites/default/files/publications/ReflectedLives-Publication-for-web_25april2018.pdf (May 30, 2023).

Brunn, Stanley D., Sarah Byrne, Louise McNamara, and Annette Egan. 2010. “Belfast Landscapes: From Religious Schism to Conflict Tourism.” Focus on Geography 53(3): 81–91.

Dixon, John et al. 2020. “‘When the Walls Come Tumbling down’: The Role of Intergroup Proximity, Threat, and Contact in Shaping Attitudes towards the Removal of Northern Ireland’s Peace Walls.” British Journal of Social Psychology 59(4): 922–44.

Gormley-Heenan, Cathy, and Jonny Byrne. 2012. “The Problem with Northern Ireland’s Peace Walls.” Political Insight 3(3): 4–7.

Leonard, Madeleine, and Martina McKnight. 2011. “Bringing down the Walls: Young People’s Perspectives on Peace‐walls in Belfast.” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 31(9/10): 569–82.

“NIMDM17- Results.” 2017. Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. https://www.nisra.gov.uk/publications/nimdm17-results (May 30, 2023).

NorthumberlandPoster. 2021. “Belfast: Ward-Level Deprivation.” Reddit. https://external-preview.redd.it/4OGWq8MeQkqjtGqt3cLlBoGbddi17zVe1rO5Ru7khQM.png?auto=webp&v=enabled&s=fc61ead2e49f5995a55bbb0bf5570cf71925c465 (May 29, 2023).

“Peace Walls, Belfast – Book Tickets & Tours.” GetYourGuide. https://www.getyourguide.com/peace-walls-l11441/?cq_src=google_ads&cq_cmp=6654173973&cq_con=76427540862&cq_term=&cq_med=&cq_plac=&cq_net=g&cq_pos=&cq_plt=gp&campaign_id=6654173973&adgroup_id=76427540862&target_id=dsa-84666501466&loc_physical_ms=9019509&match_type=&ad_id=616359129300&keyword=&ad_position=&feed_item_id=&placement=&device=c&partner_id=CD951&gclid=Cj0KCQjw98ujBhCgARIsAD7QeAh8EHhqKF63ecBFNyibLXKpdKEtkRXFrMeLNM2jkoqn52oEHezrQt0aAjgCEALw_wcB (May 29, 2023).

“Peaceline Wall.” Troubles Archive. http://www.troublesarchive.com/artforms/architecture/piece/peaceline-wall (May 29, 2023).

Pulitzer Center. 2009. “In Focus Northern Ireland: In the Shadow of the Walls.” YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkjqS-GtiT4 (May 31, 2023).

Ravenscroft, Emily. 2009. “The Meaning of the Peacelines of Belfast.” Peace Review 21(2): 213–21.

Smith, Allison. 2018. “Risk Factors and Indicators Associated With Radicalization to Terrorism in the United States: What Research Sponsored by the National Institute of Justice Tells Us Whitepaper.” U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice.“Vision, Mission, Aims & Values.” Belfast Interface Project. https://www.belfastinterfaceproject.org/vision-mission-aims-values (May 31, 2023).

June 1, 2023June 1, 2023

Shooting the Troubles: Visualizing Propaganda and Sense of Place through Conflict-era Photography

The signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 marked an end to the conflict and a sense of peace for many. However, almost 25 years after the signing of the Agreement, a standing narrative on the conflict remains in large part ‘all my side were heroes, all your side were terrorists.’ The futility of an agreed perspective feels rather prescient when considering the way in which the world learned to view the conflict; the way in which the conflict was documented for the world to see.

In the early 1970s the genre of war photography was budding as a form of international activism. A collective of photographers made their living traveling between the conflict hot spots, such as Vietnam, Guatemala, and, eventually, found Northern Ireland to be the next newsworthy war¹. These photojournalists from international media began imposing what had become the broadly accepted representation of violence onto the conflict in Northern Ireland².

Views from the United Kingdom of Northern Ireland as a politically backwards and socially archaic nation contributed to the simplification of these images to what the world saw³. The coverage of the conflict was largely influenced by the events of Bloody Sunday and the Widgery Reports. The Widgery Reports were set up following Bloody Sunday to understand the civilian deaths on this day and relied largely on photographic evidence⁴. Despite the creation of many of the photos meant to record the violence of the British, the outcome of the Reports saw more consideration, controversially, given to the British soldiers than to the victims and their families, instead putting the blame on the march organizers¹. In the international, and particularly British, perspective of focusing on the acts of violence, the pain felt in those photos for the communities affected has been somewhat divorced from the events themselves as the media focus has been put on the narrative of violence not sadness or loss.

Small boys at a demonstration in support of H-Block hunger strikers with coffins painted on the pavement. Belfast, Northern Ireland. 1981 — Boys at H-Block hunger strike demonstration. Belfast, Northern Ireland. 1981 (Ian Berry)

The latest development in shields is one made of Plexiglas. Unfortunately, it affords a dimmed visibility after repeated blows. 1973 (Philip Jones Grifith) — Boys at H-Block hunger strike demonstration. Belfast, Northern Ireland. 1981 (Ian Berry)

This narrative can be followed into the works created in this period. In comparing the photography and the approach to photographing of British and International photojournalists to that of their Northern Irish counterparts, there is a distinct disconnect between their processes, their images, and their concerns. Patterns of urban conflict and rural idyll dominate many of the internationally recognized photos⁴ in a design to respect neutrality and objectivity, while Northern photographers are able to capture the violence as it unfolds, allowing the viewer linked to the conflict to decode what is happening given the constructed narrative².

Exploring the documentation coming out of the nation at this time is that living in and experiencing the trauma produced vastly different visual responses. For these international photojournalists they could fly out to Belfast or Derry for a few days or a few weeks and return to their real lives. For the photographers of Northern Ireland, they went from photographing weddings, awards ceremonies, and sporting events to shooting funerals and soldiers walking down your own streets, many of the perpetrators or victims of the photos being neighbors or friends.

The international perspective on violence in general and specifically towards Northern Ireland created a narrative to be understood throughout the media as one of violence, hatred, and bigotry. In some cases the vision of international photojournalists matched this. The backgrounds and understandings of the conflict played an influential role in the experiences and images created by international photographers and the ones truly living through the Troubles.

Content Warning: Some of the material in the following exhibit may be distressing to some individuals due to the violent nature of select images.

Kids spraying soldiers. Belfast, 1972. (Philip Jones Griffiths) — Kids spraying soldiers. Belfast, *1972.* (*Philip Jones Griffiths*)

A SOLDIER WARNS CRISPIN ABOUT UNEXPLODED BOMB BLASTS AND LIVE GUNFIRE DURING RIOTING, THE 10TH OF SEPTEMBER, 2005 — Kids spraying soldiers. Belfast, *1972.* (*Philip Jones Griffiths*)

Footnotes

The Conversation, 2022
Hutchinson, 2018
Baker, 2017
Hanna, 2015

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