Bewildered Moments

So we ventured forth into the Belfast Museum of History and walked through the halls of Natural history into the bowels of the Troubles. I can say, as I said a year and a half ago, I was brought to tears. The vast rich history of Ireland never ceases to amaze me; the art, music and language born of a very colorful people. But the machines of empires can quickly spoil any appetite for identity.
As I finished reading several placards which detailed timelines and scenes of the Troubles I stepped outside for a smoke.

As I inhaled that calming smoke I noticed a gentleman to my right and jokingly asked if this was the smoking section. He chuckled and said he should quit and then we both shared a slight at the expense of governments and their irresponsibleness of spending the tax on other things than what they had promised; like education and so on. He then asked what we were doing in Belfast and I explained we were doing university projects and then I asked him what he did. He was a British soldier during the Troubles and the look in his eyes said it all.

I won’t say his name, out of respect for the fact he spoke with me about it, but what he told me sent a chill down my spine. It is easy to blame the other side, even easier to place that blame, but to hear the story from one on that side can be far more educational than a book or movie. I can say that he was given conflicting orders and that he did not like what he had to do, so much that after his 25 years of service he left England and moved to Belfast. By the end of the conversation we both had tears in our eyes, and as I said to him that there was nothing he could have done as he was following orders (and anyone in the service will tell you what happens to those who don’t!) and that at least he left the service.

He told us to stay in the city center for venturing outside of that zone could land us in a bad situation, and wished us a fine day. As we walked away I looked back and noted him looking at the ground. I think I felt like he did and wondered why such orders had come down to those who were just soldiers and why the brass upstairs did not have the nuts to do the murderous jobs themselves. Maybe it was because they were landed gentry?

We went back to our hostel and as I laid in bed thinking I wondered back to many of the pages of “Soil and Soul” and what Alastair McIntosh had written. I dreamt of explosions, gun fire and old men weeping into mugs of ale wondering if their wives had given birth as the fought a war that was based on 800 years of repression and internal colonization. I dreamt of my early 20s, of walking the streets late at night watching the horrible things that go on in dark alleys and even darker streets. And when I awoke I was really anxious to be out of Northern Ireland and back into the Republic.