Belfast ‘Peace Line’ over @IrishCentral

This week in 1969, the Belfast ‘peace line’ between the Falls and Shankill began to be changed from barbed wire to a solid visual barrier so the two communities could not even see each other. It has remained that way ever since. Here’s a piece I wrote on it for Irish Central. You can read

Revisiting 1969: #peacewalls50

The peace line formally erected in 1969 is directly associated with the events of 14th and 15th August 1969. With the fiftieth anniversary of those days looming, I’m going to recap some previous posts on the peace line. The course of the Shankill/Falls peaceline closely mirrors the path of the River Farset as it winds

How to replace the peace lines with the River Farset

Imagine we could replace the fifty year old peace line by re-opening the River Farset? That isn’t as fanciful as it sounds. A significant section of the river along the northern side of Cupar Street (much of it open ground today) while the peace line runs on its southern side. So it would certainly be

The start of the peace lines: Belfast, 1969.

Fifty years ago this summer peace lines were erected across parts of Belfast, most famously along a line that roughly follows the course of the River Farset from Divis Street to the Springfield Road. Here, I look at how it was first built in September 1969 and some of its predecessors in Belfast. I also

Sailortown and the violence of 1935

Last weekend, as part of the launch for the Belfast Battalion book, I gave a talk in St Joseph’s Church in Sailortown in Belfast. The talk looked at the experience of residents during the violent, summer of 1935 (rather than at the broader politics of what happened). A couple of themes that emerge from it