These are some of the kids I hung out with from the start in Belfast. They were getting ready for "bonfire night", 11 July, where all over the North people light HUGE fires in celebration of a famous 1690 Protestant victory, the Battle of the Boyne.
When I say "huge", I mean this photo was taken a full 45 or so days before the big night, and the mound of flammables was already pretty impressive. This was the Sandy Row neighborhood, one of the most fiercely Protestant Loyalist 'hoods anywhere. Our fire reached about forty feet of trash before we lighted it! You could get maybe within 100 yards of the flames, though it was not advisable.
When I was in Dublin, I visited the Sinn Fein office on Parnell Square. One guy I met there, I have no idea who he was, bought me a pint down the street after I finished interviewing the Sinn Fein woman. As we sat quaffing our pints, this drunken geezer regaled me with what must have been stories of some imagined adventurous youth. Before I left him, he directed me to a small pub in a remote corner of Dublin. He told me to look up a guy named Cahill, said I could find him at this proudly Republican pub in an obscure quarter of town. Well, as it turned out, this guy was full of it, cause as I found out later in Belfast, Cahill had been on the run from the authorities for quite some time, and the last place I could expect to find him was in any public place. Hey,
this was early in my trip, and my first stint
as a journalist, so gimme a break.
(surreptitious photo, taken while ordering another pint).
The Red Hand of Ulster is a common symbol of Protestant pride. Almost like gang graffiti, you can see Protestant and Catholic graffiti everywhere in the North, but expecially in large towns like Belfast and Derry. The UFF are the Ulster Freedom Fighters. The Red Hand relates to this myth of two potential kings, who had a swimming race across a body of water. The rules: First hand that touched the opposite shore accedes to the throne. One of them apparently got a bit overeager and cut his own hand off and threw it to shore.
(more photos in the future...there are thousands)