checking in with norn iron
13-09-26
Hello! I’m at my gate at Dublin Airport, waiting for my flight to come in. I just had a lovely week with my partner in Ireland. The itinerary was a little improvised, as seemingly every tourist attraction in the cities we visited was undergoing some kind of maintenance or temporary closure for the duration of our trip. But we visited Carrick-a-Rede, the Giant’s Causeway and some beautiful cathedrals. We saw the sights in Dublin and Belfast and shared a Guinness and blackcurrant while listening to trad musicians, and I visited a lot of rural villages from my childhood that I’ve not seen in years.
Belfast has changed a lot since I left, for good and for ill. There are lots of new infrastructural projects in the city centre (including a veeeery swish ‘Grand Central’ train station) and proudly-displayed public art displays. But lots of recreation centers have shut down, replaced by luxury flats and private student accommodation. Belfast is becoming a bit more like everywhere else.
More troublingly, loyalist communities have gotten much louder. For those who have never been, unionist towns in the North are filled with sectarian political symbols — local paramilitaries, excessively-patriotic graphic design abominations, flags of the US Confederacy (yes, really). Israeli flags have entered the rotation within the last few years, too. Coupled with the pogroms in the Shankill just three months ago, the ever-present tension in the air is thicker than usual.
This is likely due to Sinn Féin’s victory in 2024 (following seven whole years of government shutdown under the stewardship of the DUP, I might add), and the exhausting gains of the far-right in England appealing to the British national identity of unionists. My own politics aside, the poor living conditions and alienation weathered by these communities are only exacerbated by the unionist parties they support; their policies defined on the incredibly shaky political foundation of ‘British identity as a culture war wedge’.
Earlier this year, I fell in love with the rap group Kneecap, who write and perform in Irish as a pointed political statement. Their music is the voice of my generation in my city — the ceasefire babies. Furious drugged-up youth culture, poor and adrift, always a-friend-of-a-friend away from sectarian gangs. Per Smugglers & Scholars: it’s not poetry and clovers, it’s raincoats and police Land Rovers. Belfast has been at war with itself, not simply along the grounds of national identity or religion; but between an uncertain future and the past we can’t seem to ever stop thinking about.
I’m cautiously optimistic about the reunification efforts of Sinn Féin, but it’s a long road to walk just one generation out from the Troubles.
The people are still the same, though. Before we had time to drop our bags off at our first hotel, we’d already been stopped on the street by a stranger for a five minute chat about our holiday plans. Irish people are so pleasant despite it all, in a way I’ve never seen in England, Norway or the US. It makes me really proud.