Queens University stands out in trip to Belfast

Belfast is a city I’ve always wanted to visit. Yet, somehow, in my various trips to Ireland I never made it. It was too dangerous the first time I came to Ireland, in the early nineties. Then on subsequent trips there was just no time. Re-reading and teaching Ciaran Carson’s book of poetry, Belfast Confetti, last year only furthered my interest.

Now that I’m living in Ireland I had no excuse not to go. Though writing this sounds like I’ve idealized Belfast in some way. Strangely, I’ve somehow avoided over thinking the place. In the chaos of last week and the scramble to get to the bus station, I didn’t really have time to think about what it would be like when we got there.

So when we arrived, I was completely astounded by the beauty of the city, all decked out in holiday lights, nearly glowing with excitement. That’s not to say that the energy level rivals a city like New York, but Belfast has a certain newness, a shine that almost glosses over her troubled past.

But then of course there are the obvious reminders like the Europa hotel, devastated by an IRA bomb explosion in 1991. Though it now looks quite polished, the name resonated in my mind as something I remembered from a book or article about the Troubles.

On a tour bus that went to various landmarks like the shipyards where the Titanic was built, the driver had to stop the bus at the gate to Stormont. There a man got on to examine the bus for bombs. It seemed a little absurd at the time but then I started thinking about why it seemed so ridiculous. It was just a safety precaution that, considering the recent media hype over the shootings and teenage riots in the city was entirely justified. At the same time it was a bit incongruous with the rest of the city that seems in both outward appearance and atmosphere to have moved so far beyond the Troubles.

Walking along the Shankhill road, examining the murals, echoes from Ciaran Carson’s poems kept running through my head; “At times it seems that every inch of Belfast has been written-on, erased, and written-on again: messages, curses, political imperatives…. these snakes and ladders canceling each other out in their bid to be remembered. Remember 1690. Remember 1916. Most of all, Remember me. I was here.”

Despite all its progress, Belfast is a city built on memory, on remembering. That is part of what makes it so fascinating. Every New Yorker has his or her favorite restaurant or corner, or block of the city. Even a dingy park or a dive of a bar is made important because of the memory of a personal event that occurred there.

In Belfast these public spaces, endowed with private significance are visually marked with a mural, flowers, statue or memorial of some kind. At times, parts of the city can feel like walking through a cemetery.

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Nster.com