The Troubles And The Wall

It is really ironic that we just happen to be visiting Berlin today while Joseph Biden is visiting Northern Ireland to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the peace agreement.

I notice something that I have never seen written about the period in Northern Ireland known as "The Troubles". It is yet another example of how history repeats itself. It is important to understand history because we tend to reenact it, often without realizing it.

There is a direct relationship between "The Troubles" and the Berlin Wall, even though the wall was 1300 km from Belfast.

The Berlin Wall began in 1961. "The Troubles", the period of conflict in Northern Ireland between Catholics favoring union with Ireland and Protestants favoring union with Britain, is generally considered to have begun 8 years later, in 1969.

Germany was reunified in 1990, after the Berlin Wall came down. "The Troubles" ended 8 years later, with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

So "The Troubles" lasted for the same length of time as the Berlin Wall, but with an 8 year delay. This is similar to what we saw in the posting on this blog, "Why We Should Understand The Mongols", the Soviet Union actually lasted the same length of time as the Mongol Empire.

There was an obvious relationship between "The Troubles" and "The Wall" in that walls were built in cities to separate Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods, in an effort to keep the peace.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_lines#/media/File:Peace_Line,_Belfast_-_geograph_-_1254138.jpg

But both "The Wall" and "The Troubles" prominently involved painting and murals. On the western side of the Berlin Wall, there was scarcely a spot that had not been covered by a painting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall#/media/File:Berlinermauer.jpg

Relatively few people got involved in actual violence in Northern Ireland, and the violence was generally denounced by people on both sides. As in Berlin, it was much more widely a quiet conflict of paintings on walls.

Here are some Catholic murals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murals_in_Northern_Ireland#/media/File:Belfast_mural_15.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murals_in_Northern_Ireland#/media/File:Ballymurphy.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murals_in_Northern_Ireland#/media/File:Muralbelfast2.jpg

Protestants were just as artistic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murals_in_Northern_Ireland#/media/File:Thorndyke_Street.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murals_in_Northern_Ireland#/media/File:Cluan_Place.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murals_in_Northern_Ireland#/media/File:UVF_mural_in_Shankill_Road,_Belfast.jpg

The official name of the second-largest city, after Belfast, in Northern Ireland was Londonderrry, and that was what Protestants called it. Catholics dropped the "London" and just called it "Derry". Catholics then made an art out of taking the "London" out of "Londonderry".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derry/Londonderry_name_dispute#/media/File:Signpostinstrabane.JPG