‘As if we didn’t have enough to argue about!’ exclaimed the gentleman in front. We were standing just off a busy road adjacent to a looming wall. The road wasn’t any road, and the wall wasn’t any wall. It was Shankill Road, and this was one of Belfast’s infamous peace walls.
The man wasn’t picking a fight. He was referring to West Belfast’s increasingly prevalent references to the war in Gaza. Peace walls have adorned murals of Northern Irish paramilitaries for decades. Now, there are a growing number of references to fighting in the Middle East, with Belfast’s Protestant and Catholic communities divided on the issue with sad predictability. Falls Road is rich in Palestinian flags; the Star of David flies high along Shankill Road.
Back in England, most people are not aware these walls still exist. Eyebrows are raised further still when I mentioned Belfast’s ‘Checkpoint Charlie’, the peace gates that close each evening to prevent travel between predominantly Protestant and Catholic areas.
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