'Bout Ye, Belfast?

Belfast had changed so much since I had been a child growing up on this little street. This little street that was so familiar, with its small red-bricked terraced houses and the front doors that went straight out onto the street. When I had been small Belfast had felt like the whole world, but now I was older, and I had seen so many other places, it seemed like the tiny city it really was.

I walked slowly down the street, my hands burrowed deep into the pockets of my coat as the icy wind bit what skin I had exposed. My breath clouded in front of my face and the air was so bitter than I expected snow any time soon. Snow always came to Belfast around this time of year, even though our winters usually consisted of rain, and more rain. My street was always beautiful in the snow. The red of the bricks stood out against the glittery white of the snow and it had always transfixed me as a child. The real magic for me was opening the front door. As our doors went directly onto the streets, the carpet would be broken by a tiny metal slip where the doorstep was and then there would be the snow. It was like a gateway to another world when you were that small. It was magic when I was younger. A few inches to the adults was like an avalanche to me. Ma and Da would have to chase me and my siblings to get us inside to simply eat.

Cities were, of course, dangerous places for children. Any city was, really, and our parents were strictly aware of that. As I walked slowly down the street towards the main road leading to the city centre, I remembered that, many a time, I had been dragged up here by my ear, my furious mother asking what I had thought I was playing at running into the road like that. Belfast, however, had more dangers that the average city, and one was constantly reminded of this when reaching the end of the street.

A huge mural covered the gable wall of the end house. It depicted several men wearing large coats and black boots, clutches high-powered automatic rifles, ski masks covering their features. The writing underneath the painting declared, "VICTORY TO THE I.R.A". Everyone in Belfast had heard of the Irish Republican Army. I knew that many people across the world over had heard of them, and sometimes it made me feel strange to think that the city everyone associated with such violence and terror, was the city I had grown up in. Of course, I remembered the bad days. I remembered the days where the house would shake from the attic to its foundations as car bombs exploded around the city. I remembered my mother's terrified face as she hurried us children into a back room as riots rocked the street outside. I remembered my father being accused of being a terrorist and being taken away by police and soldiers, returning always slightly different to when he left. I remembered what they said about us on the news; people from Belfast were all savages and needed to be put up against the wall and shot.

No one knew Belfast like we did. They only saw what the news wanted them to see, but as I looked around my street, I knew different. The house nearest to me on this side of the road? The kindest old couple you could ever have the fortune of meeting lived there. Mr. and Mrs. Maguire had known me since I was a tiny newborn baby, and as I grew up and they grew older they always had time for any child on the street. Mr. Maguire would forever be tinkering with his car and letting the neighbourhood boys pretend they were driving it, while his smiling wife would forever be baking cakes and other treats. Many happy summer days had been spent at the Maguire's house. Of course, the violence took its toll upon everyone living in the city. There were days were you would walk down the high street and everyone would have their heads down as they hurried to get the shopping done, terrified that there would be a bomb threat and more death and more violence and more grief and more funerals. There were too many funerals.

I had to forget those old times, though. I couldn't dwell in the past every time I came home. I couldn't forever concentrate on the funeral of my uncle, shot dead because the police thought he was an armed terrorist. I couldn't dwell on the funeral of two classmates, killed at ages seven and eight because a speeding car driving by two I.R.A men crashed and hit them. I couldn't keep thinking of all of the bad times, because Belfast was my home, and I couldn't chose where I was born. I loved Belfast, of course I did. I loved it come the good or the bad.

There were many things to love about Belfast, and I reminded myself of these as I walked down the main street, the Falls Road, towards the city centre. I loved the way the buildings were all old, Victorian buildings with so much history. I loved the way the Lagan River slowly wound its way along next to the city centre. I loved the way that, if you looked up at night, you could see hundred of beautiful white owls darting from building to building, floating through the air like large, graceful snowflakes.

I knew that I would always end up back in Belfast, no matter where my life took me. Every so often, I just liked to take some time out from my hectic new world. I liked to return home, to the softly-spoken people I had grown up with and to the red-bricked terraced streets and the gently floating owls and the Lagan River lit up in blue at night.

When I had been younger, I had been excited to leave Belfast. It was that boring hometown that you spent your life hating and then your life missing. But now I was older, I knew I would always have to return, if only every so often. Because Belfast, cradled with the mountains behind it and the sea in front of it, would always be my personal place of peace.