‘I promise you it won’t be difficult or dangerous, really Fran.’ A simple request of deep friendship from my friend, Sinead.
Belfast, 1973, a city besieged, with search checkpoints located strategically at turnstiles at the entrances to the CBD. Skeletal remains of buildings partially blown away, walls plastered with graffiti, evidence of a city at war. People, heads downcast to avoid eye contact, disinclined to speak. Buses, spilling passengers out into wet wintry drizzle amid frantic, afternoon traffic. People alighting with haunted gazes, intent upon reaching their destinations. Queues piling up at the turnstiles, blocking entry to the CBD, until all bags are searched, and all pockets emptied. This was the city that confronted me on my weekend forays across the Irish Sea to visit with my Irish girlfriends on ‘the Falls Road.’
‘The Falls Road’ was a typical neighbourhood in the heart of Catholic territory. Living in Belfast was living in a war zone. After dark the danger was palpable. Lying in bed, we could hear the footfall of English militia or Irish paramilitaries trawling the streets outside. This would go on for hours. Explosions interspersed with muffled cries from the dark, and on some nights the air was pungent with the smell of gunpowder, finding its way through open windows and poorly sealed doors. Those Belfast girls could readily identify the ordinance being used: rifles, machine guns and rocket launchers. A plethora of destruction!
‘That’s an AK 47,’ whispered Bernadette to me. ‘I haven’t heard one of them for a while,’ she added, her creased brows ageing a young and vital face.
These Belfast adventures were omitted from my cassette-tape letters home to Oz.
Burnside Writers Group 