Day 9 The Orange and the Green

Today there were byes for the Australian team and so Michael and Colene went off to take a fascinating tour of Belfast.
Called the black cab tour, it involves being driven, in a black cab, around Belfast's notorious catholic and protestant areas and being shown the aftermath and horrific tales of the fight between the orange and the green. Orange being the Protestants and the green being the Catholics.
There are lots of memorial  sites where long lists of names are engraved of all the people who have died on both sides.
Certainly not a pretty site.
The areas are very close together and in places are separated by enormous walls, they are so high so as to stop bricks, stones and even Molotov cocktails being thrown over from 1 side to the other. The murals are everywhere and the stories that go with them are so sad.
They actually lock the gates between one side of housing estates and the other. It stops any fighting from occurring

 Bobby Sands starved himself to death because he wanted to be treated as a political prisoner and not a common prisoner.

 These gates are locked every night at 6pm to keep the Catholics and Protestants separated.

 These mural is about the struggle of all minority groups around the world

 These are rubber bullets. The black one is the one that won't kill but the brown one kills.

The height of this wall stops one side throwing objects over onto the other side.
Note how high the wall is.







There has been a nervous peace for many years and the sculpture " The Ring of Peace" which hopefully can unite the country.