One thing that struck me on visiting Belfast was the gates and the peace walls that still stand.
I initially thought they maintained them as historical artifacts. My black cab tour guide for the morning quickly made it clear: The gates aren’t just historical artifacts; they’re still in use.
Belfast remains a divided city, nearly 30 years after the Good Friday Agreement.
I hate to use the analogy of a city being like an onion, but if ever there’s a city that it applies to, it’s Belfast. The more you peel, the more you realize there are layers hidden deep beneath, and incredible stories of what is today a remarkably vibrant city.
But the path to vibrancy for Belfast wasn’t an easy one. It didn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t happen without bloodshed.
And the scars of that path to where we are today are still very much visible, certainly, in the gates and walls that are a physical scar across the urban landscape, but also in the people themselves.
The Troubles remain ever present in the city, not because there’s armed conflict still raging in the streets, but because so many parts of town and the people in the town still remember the conflict that, while decades in the past, isn’t far removed from the public conscience.
Whether it’s a tour of the gorgeous Belfast City Hall or a visit to one of the sites that played a role in The Troubles or helped end the conflict, there are stories about how the city reached this point. Even a drink at the hotel bar is an opportunity to reflect on the past, especially when that hotel bar is inside the Hotel Europa.
As several people were keen to tell me, it was the most bombed hotel in all of Europe. That means it’s not just a place to walk past and take a picture of; it’s absolutely a place to grab a drink and ponder.
The best way to understand, or at least start to understand, the conflict is through a black cab tour.
There are a lot of tour operators in the city. We opted to check with the local tourism board for their recommendation and went with Taxitrax.
By my way of thinking, what you want is a tour guide who’s going to point out the sites and give you the history, but not lead you to any particular conclusion.
I am by no means an expert on The Troubles or the city of Belfast, but what I learned on a visit is that it’s hard to pin down the city’s trajectory so far based on a single trip or a single simple takeaway.
As I’ve said so many times before, the point of history is not to conclude what happened and close the book on that chapter of the past. It’s to understand what happened, how it brought us to where we are today, and what we might learn from that episode as we proceed to tomorrow.
While I think often about the gates and the walls in Belfast, and my black cab tour, I know that was just an appetizer, so to speak, in understanding the city. It was a great appetizer, to be sure, but I can’t wait to dine on the main course.
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