While last Sunday’s
church service may show how reconciliation is making inroads in Ulster, today’s
events show how bellicose the sectarian divide still is. This morning the
P.S.N.I launched a major operation in Belfast. They blocked every route that
flows into Royal Avenue, Belfast’s central street, forming what the Belfast
Telegraph described as a “Ring of Steel.” Only a select few were allowed through
the P.S.N.I’s blockade: the Catholics having yet another Easter Rising Commemorative
March, the 150 or so Protestants there to protest the march, the police
officers there to separate the two, and the media.
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| Belfast's "Ring of Steel" |
While I may not fall into any of those
categories, I was determined to find a way in. As I approached the barricade of
Land-Rovers that restricted all movement down Royal Avenue, I ducked into an
alley to the left thinking that there’d be a way around, however I was almost immediately
stopped by three policemen waiting at the corner. I told them that I was
looking to go to the Castlecourt mall, but was told that the mall was closed for
the duration of the Republican parade. Thanking them for the information, I
walked back onto Royal and noticed a handful of protesters, carrying Union
Flags, move off under police escort down another street on the other side of
the road. Trailing them, I snaked through several back alleys before they
slipped out of sight.
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| Barricaded Side Street |
Disappointed and out
of options, I decided that there wasn’t any way through the police line. Fortunately,
lady luck decided to smile on me. A policewoman nearby asked if I was one of
the Protestant protesters, I instinctively blurted out “yes,” and she pointed
to her left, telling me to hurry up or I’d be left behind. I quickly made my
way down the empty side street she’d pointed out, and discovered the protesters
as they were passing through a line of stationary Land-Rovers. One of the
protesters, an older man wearing an eye-catching orange safety vest and a Union
Flag beanie, asked me if “I had a pass.” When I admitted I didn’t have one he
thrust a bright blue sheet of paper into my hands and told me to show it to any
police officer that tried to stop me. With paper in hand I joined the
Protestant crowd and made my way into the “Ring of Steel.” As this little band
of brothers approached the designated area of protest some police officers, armed
with high definition cameras instead of handguns, took photos and videos of us.
The police would record our actions throughout the entire protest. We were let
loose in a little pen that took up about 200 metres of pavement directly
opposite of Castlecourt Mall. In front of us the P.S.N.I had set up a heavy
metal barricade, which was reinforced by a line of police officers. Across
Royal Avenue, they left us a subtle reminder that they were prepared for
anything; their plastic riot shields and black helmets were lined up all along
Castlecourt’s outer wall. Under these watchful eyes the Protestants quickly
went about fortifying their little stretch of land, using cable ties to hang Union
Flags from the lamp posts and steeling themselves for the coming confrontation
with the Catholics.
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| The First Union Flag Raised at the Protest |
The sky turned
from blue to grey, the wind picked up, and the surprisingly dry weather evolved
into the more familiar Belfast drizzle. After about twenty minutes; the P.S.N.I
had driven several convoys of Land-Rovers past us, we’d listened to the
hovering police helicopter drone on above us, and some of the women in the
crowd were beginning to get irritated. A group of about five of them, led by a middle
aged brunette, strutted up to the metal barricade and began to confront the
police officers standing nearby. Demanding to know whether the P.S.N.I used
this type of force “on the Falls [Road]” and insisting that “We pay your wages,”
they began to stir up the other Protestant’s nearby. “I just want to get
through and bash one of them,” one woman yelled, almost certainly referring to the
approaching Catholic marchers. One of the police officers approached the group
and began to talk to them, and after a bit of banter he managed to calm them
down a bit, although when the parade arrived they’d be some of the most
aggressive among the protesters.
We waited for
another forty minutes before we began to hear distant drumbeats. As the sound
of the march echoed down our street, the Protestants let out a rousing battle
cry and rushed to the metal barrier. The parades commission had determined that
the Republicans could only play a single drumbeat as they passed by the protesters,
and the steady sound of the drum created a feeling of impending peril. As soon as
the first of the Republicans appeared they were met by Protestant screams of “murderers”
and “scumbags.” The Catholics weren’t the most diplomatic of crowds either;
they marched with IRA flags and smug faces past the angry group, hurling
similar insults back in reply. The women from earlier now began to lead the Protestants
in the singing of “No Pope of Rome,” a Loyalist sectarian folk song. The air
was quickly filled with the sounds of cursing and jeering, and whistles and air
horns screeched above the voices all mixed in with the steady beat of the drum.
Both Protestant and Catholic had phones out and filmed each other, at the same
time many covered their faces to avoid being filmed.
The parades commission
allowed the marchers to start drumming normally the very second they passed a
designated land-rover, which was so close to the protesters that the drummers leading
the march had passed the Land-Rover while a large portion of the Catholics was
still in front of the Protestants. Their invigorated drumbeats reverberated down
the whole of Royal Avenue, and when this sound reached the Protestants they all
started rushed along the barricades screaming. Masked young men ran behind me
calling out “Up the UVF!” and one even hurled something at the marchers. The Catholics
responded in turn by screaming back, and the whole situation was very tense.
Slowly the last of
the green flags of the Republic fluttered away, and the sounds of the drums
faded into the distance, the Protestants gathered up for one final act of
defiance, singing “God Save the Queen.” It only took about six minutes for the
parade to march past us, but in that time I certainly saw how antagonistic
Northern Ireland’s sectarian divide is. Even if there is only a small group of
people on either side who would be willing to resort to violence, there
certainly still seems to be the potential for this small group to spark
something much larger.
I managed to get
the events of the march on tape, which you can watch below.
Until Next Time!
-Luke van Reede
van Oudtshoorn
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