These posts were written during my trip to Northern Ireland so are published in retrospect.
Day 1 in Northern Ireland. Up bright and early I boarded the plane at Southampton airport to find that Belfast airport was shut due to snow. In a really ironic way, after watching Planes,Trains & Automobiles with Samuel two days ago, and actively wondering whether I would meet a John Candy character on the plane, I bizarrely did just that. After an hour waiting on the runway, by which my new pal in the next seat had familiarized me with the goings on of all his family members, friends, their successive children, his history from childhood and his entire schedule for the trip, we were sent back into the airport to wait for another hour where my friend sought me out again and joined me for coffee. I was beginning to suspect I would never get to Belfast. Ruminating on the films outcome I made an active choice to embrace this man’s chatty company only to discover when we got back on the plane he said ‘Actually there’s a free seat over there, I’d rather be on my own if you don’t mind and get some rest’. I felt cheated.
Anyway, on arrival I met my sister and we set off for the city you daren’t mention, or as the N.Irish now call it ‘Stroke City’. The awareness the N.Irish carry of the significance of language etc, may be undetectable by the rest of the UK but is very real and something I am dangerously out of practise in using. The name Londonderry/Derry has become so charged that people are careful not to be associated with one or the other – hence the ‘stroke’ city (the two names are dropped and only the stroke separating them remains). Even on the phone arranging meetings I made a conscious effort to avoid all mention of it.
Stroke city, a good distance from Belfast, feels wildly remote, and the journey there cuts through some distinctly barren and raw countryside. The city itself carries the marks of it’s history, devisions and attempts at reconciliation everywhere. Unlike Belfast where the centre reveals little of it’s troubled history, Stroke city is embellished throughout with murals, slogans, colours, monuments and artworks, simultaneously calling people to maintain their historic devisions and unite in peace. A fascinating place and one which pulled me in all directions emotionally, as I mentally left behind the quiet Wiltshire existence and reinvoked my feelings of belonging to this raw and troubled country.
The afternoon meant two meetings with gallery directors there with fairly positive results, which now require me to put together a proposal. Back later to my sisters in Belfast, on to my fathers and a treasured evening with our now small family back together again.
