Blurred lines of violence, loyalty, and love
The trouble with the Troubles in Northern Ireland and what it's got to do with Game of Thrones.
Memory politics
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
—Yeats, Easter, 1916
Perhaps, like me, you didn’t know: Belfast still has peace walls, more than two decades after the Troubles ended.
On one side: Shankill Road, home to Protestant unionists and loyalists who want to remain in the United Kingdom. On the other: Falls Road, home to Catholic nationalists and republicans who want a united Ireland. (If you’re confused about the terminology: loyalists and republicans are seen to be more willing to bear arms in pursuit of their political aims.)
That metal cage covering a house’s backyard? It’s meant to ward off the occasional Molotov cocktail.