Derry after 25 years
G, P and I took the bus up to Derry, arriving Friday afternoon.
I'd barely recognise the city. I remember barbed-wire entanglements blocking the Diamond, poor-quality dirty grey houses and flats, smoke and the stench of CS gas.
Now things are very different, on the surface at least.
The Diamond belongs to everyone, filled with standard multinational shops, like every other town in the West.
The Bogside looks clean, prosperous and confident. New houses, buildings, coffee shops and boutiques, street signs in Irish, murals and monuments are everywhere.
We walked around the city walls and looked down on the Fountain, the last loyalist area west of the Foyle. The flags and murals change but it looks reasonably similar.
Then a group of teenagers below see us on the wall and, immediately, start throwing stones at us. They miss by a mile of course but we move on. Loyalism is not particularly subtle, how did they know we were not a visiting delegation from the UK Conservative party?
Further on is the fence seperating the Republican and Loyalist areas. The ground is littered with half bricks and splattered with the remains of paintbombs. It appears the old Derry still lives, it's just the people at the bottom who have been changed.
Life is so much better for the vast majority of people in Derry now that it's unbelievable. However I miss the old city. For me it will always have that indescribable tang of youth and life and love and danger.
Go well, Derry.
I'd barely recognise the city. I remember barbed-wire entanglements blocking the Diamond, poor-quality dirty grey houses and flats, smoke and the stench of CS gas.
Now things are very different, on the surface at least.
The Diamond belongs to everyone, filled with standard multinational shops, like every other town in the West.
The Bogside looks clean, prosperous and confident. New houses, buildings, coffee shops and boutiques, street signs in Irish, murals and monuments are everywhere.
We walked around the city walls and looked down on the Fountain, the last loyalist area west of the Foyle. The flags and murals change but it looks reasonably similar.
Then a group of teenagers below see us on the wall and, immediately, start throwing stones at us. They miss by a mile of course but we move on. Loyalism is not particularly subtle, how did they know we were not a visiting delegation from the UK Conservative party?
Further on is the fence seperating the Republican and Loyalist areas. The ground is littered with half bricks and splattered with the remains of paintbombs. It appears the old Derry still lives, it's just the people at the bottom who have been changed.
Life is so much better for the vast majority of people in Derry now that it's unbelievable. However I miss the old city. For me it will always have that indescribable tang of youth and life and love and danger.
Go well, Derry.