01 May 08

Features

Taxi!

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“This peace line runs all the way up to the mountains, and is several miles long. They had to make it taller a couple of times, and you can see the scorch marks from petrol bombs. The gates can still be closed for weeks on end, especially during Protestant marching season (June-August),” Richard says. However, most marches pass without trouble.

We stop next at the Clonard Martyrs Memorial Garden, which commemorates people killed from the neighbourhood, as well as IRA paramilitaries. It is another sobering experience. Richard then surprises me by pulling out a rubber bullet, the allegedly non-lethal ammunition that British soldiers used in Northern Ireland. “It bounced off a wall and just missed me – you can see the powder burn on the bottom of it,” he says.

Passing by political party Sinn Féin’s headquarters – the famous mural of hunger striker Bobby Sands on the side – we pause at the International Wall, with its murals of people and organisations the IRA either supports or condemns. The newest one is a copy of a Picasso painting on the 1936 Spanish Civil War. There are also ones criticising the Iraq war and Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

But the tours – like Belfast itself – are not all about the city’s violent history. We drive to the Titanic Quarter, home of the ship’s builders Harland and Wolff. The port is visible across the city thanks to Samson and Goliath, two iconic yellow cranes that stand astride the shipyard.

“Years back, 20,000 men used to walk into this shipyard every day to work. In 10 years’ time you won’t recognise the place. It won’t be industrial anymore, there’ll be office blocks, apartments and a Titanic Museum,” Richard explains.

Today, the Lagan Boat Company will sail you around the shipyard, showing you the huge docks where many titans of the sea were built. Richard shows me the 23 million-gallon dry docks and pump house (also soon to be a museum), and the Painthall film studio – recently used to shoot Hollywood flick City of Ember, with Bill Murray and Saoirse Ronan. Heading back into town we pass the Odyssey Arena, home of the Belfast Giants ice hockey team, nightclubs and a cinema.

A magnificent sight on the journey is the new Cathedral Quarter, home to the enormous St Ann’s Cathedral, with its Spire of Hope. There’s the five-star Merchant Hotel, as well as arts and music venues, restaurants, bars and clubs. However, in the middle of the newness you can still find Hill Street, the oldest cobbled road in the city. Near the end of the tour, Richard drives me up the Golden Mile – the nickname for the Dublin Road/University Road stretch that is packed with revellers every weekend – before dropping me at Queen’s University. This beautiful Victorian building is right next to the exquisite Botanic Gardens, and its exotic plant- and flower-filled glass Palm House. It’s a historic and colourful end to an eye-opening urban road trip.

“They did a survey recently, asking people each side of the Peace Wall whether they wanted it to come down,” Richard tells me, as I get out of the taxi. “The overwhelming answer was no. But then a couple of weeks back, there were some mustard (crazy) extreme sports fellas bungee jumping off Samson and Goliath so anything can happen. I tell you, Belfast’s really changing.”
FOR MORE DETAILS ON THE TAXI TOURS, CALL +44 (0)28 9064 2264 AND SPEAK TO BIG NORMAN, OR VISIT WWW.BELFASTTOURS.COM. TOURS CAN BE TAILORED TO SUIT, AND COST FROM £25 FOR ONE–THREE PEOPLE, OR £8 PER PERSON FOR THREE–SEVEN PASSENGERS.