Why You Should Take A Black Taxi Tour in Belfast, North Ireland

Over six weeks of visiting the UK and Ireland, I visited quite a few places but the one city that caught me completely off-guard was Belfast. I knew sketchy details about its turbulent past but the full scale of the violence that Belfast has undergone over a few decades and ended at the turn of the century. In Belfast, I took a black taxi tour that took me around the most violent-hit places where bombings and murders occurred with regular frequency at the height of the violence-hit period known as The Troubles.

THE TROUBLES

Let’s catch you up with a bit of history first. The Troubles was a conflict between nationalistic ambitions of those who wanted to unite the island of Ireland under a single rule versus those who wanted North Ireland to belong to the United Kingdom. There was also a religious bent to the Troubles with the conflict originally beginning between the Catholic minority and Protestant majority in Belfast with the former demanding an end to discrimination based on their faith.

Eventually, the stalemate led to riots that further led to action by the police from United Kingdom that finally spurred the nationalistic demand. This led to a new round of bombings and gun violence and the creation of the Irish Republican Army and Ulster Volunteer Force and their subsidiaries, some of whom went as far as Libya to secure arms for their fight.

The riots and violence prompted security forces to create no-go areas, put up walls and segregation of both faiths in disputed areas. At the end of The Troubles, over 3500 people had lost their lives, over half of them whom were civilians.

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THE TOUR

The black taxi tour was an impromptu decision after the day tour to Giant’s Causeway included a stop at Belfast. We were asked to choose between the Titanic museum and the black taxi tour. I already had a prepaid ticket to the museum after a couple of days so I was happy to choose the black taxi tour. I imagined it would be a way of seeing a few attractions in Belfast from the comfort of a taxi, knowing fully well I was never voluntarily get into a taxi on my budget trip in the pre-Brexit days.

I was deliriously excited when Alan, our driver and guide, told us what the black taxi tour would actually entail. It was a chance at learning modern history without stepping into a museum. Instead, we were driven right into the heart of the Troubles and told us in excruciating detail about how Catholics and Protestants went from being friends and neighbours to hostile enemies in almost no time.

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Alan showed us some of the streets where bombs had gone off and said that almost every house has lost at least one member to The Troubles. We were taken to the other side of the wall to see how the two faiths live today and it was here that I felt a sudden stab of emotions as I saw Bombay Street on one of the roads we were walking along.

To have come so far from Bombay and hear about riots that also changed my city’s name to Mumbai felt oddly disorienting. I sat in silence and pondered the mistakes we make all the time every time and how we never seem to learn from history.

Alan came and led me outside the wall to a stretch of murals that seemed oddly lifelike. In the aftermath of the peace after the Troubles subsided in 1998, locals began to paint on walls to express themselves. The IRA and the Troubles were shamed into giving up arms only after the terrorist events of 9/11 in 2001 Alan said. Ever since, murals and graffiti have come to distinguish Belfast. While some of these murals depict people and events lost during the Troubles, most of them also take a larger worldview of things. The only things common to the murals is just how beautiful they all are.

Towards the end of the tour, visitors are invited to write their thoughts about what they’ve just learned and participate in adding to the ever-growing graffiti walls of Belfast. This is a great way of looking at reactions from other people around the world and the happiness of seeing so many people just wanting peace in their homeland and beyond. You don’t get just a one-sided view of this story; you get to participate in it by adding your own thoughts.

Don’t take too much time and just write what comes to your mind after learning about The Troubles. I wrote down a couple of lines that I hope others will read and agree with. More than that, I hope to one day return and write that we achieved peace instead of adding to our troubles.

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THE TAKEAWAY

I was a complete noob on the subject of The Troubles, unless you count watching the Harrison Ford – Brad Pitt starrer The Devil’s Own as enough reference. The Troubles told me about Belfast in a way I could never have imagined if I was just passing through the city and looking at the local sights. Knowing about a city, especially its bloodied history, puts more perspective into travel than just ticking off places. I cannot this tour enough simply to understand and learn about a dark period of history that you unfortunately see repeated today in so many other parts of the world.

I was happy to soak in the knowledge and simultaneously sad to see the story repeated time and again in other places. More than anything else, I was enriched by being at the places where history was made and understanding the transformative power of travel. You can sit and read in your house about problems all you want but unless you travel to troubled hotspots, the magnitude of those troubles will never hit you. All of which is to say, travel more and when in Belfast, definitely take the Black Taxi tour.

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