Public Project
Ardoyne, Belfast, N Ireland
Irish photographs were my first work, made in a place called "Ardoyne", a housing estate on a hillside in North Belfast. Kodak Tri-X, a couple of Ilford rolls, shot with a hand held Leica, mostly available light with the exception of one or two photographs. It was a difficult place to take pictures, the people were on-edge, wary, suspicious of a stranger. Street scenes, the friends I made, mostly children, 1971-1972.
- ARDOYNE, BELFAST, IRELAND 1974
- I know an Irishman who lives in the Bronx now
- he says
- that the people of his home county
- now in 1974
- pay
- an English aristocrat
- for the right to fish, to lumber, and mine
- the grounds of their home,
- the Englishman lives in Rome
- he has never been to Ireland.
- Ardoyne is a Catholic parish
- in North Belfast
- eleven English machine guns
- hold lines of fire
- down into its streets.
- A common Belfast image is
- the suffering children of violence
- I found a different image
- I have a different feeling,
- the children are tough
- the city kids of working people
- they fear the soldiers and the Protestants
- but within their Ardoyne
- rarely leaving
- they have a strength of parents and grandparents
- brothers and sisters, cousins and neighbors
- they’ve known since childhood
- and will know until they die.
- Once
- in a sprinkling Ardoyne afternoon
- a small boy came up to me
- "Heh, mister”, he said
- “have you ever noticed how
- whenver somebody dies here
- two more die right after
- and every time somebody dies
- a baby is born,
- that’s how it is in Ardoyne
- every time somebody dies,
- somebody’s born.
- The people of Ardoyne
- call their army the boys
- the boys are volunteers
- they are born to the streets they fight on,
- some of the best men
- in Ardoyne
- belong to this Irish Republican Army.
- I was taken in roughed up
- and told to stop filming by this army
- understand
- secrecy means survival.
- This man
- a retarded man
- befriended me in Ardoyne
- his name is Paddy,
- because Paddy is not IRA
- exactly because he was not given a nail bomb
- he was free to be my friend.
- The English
- held Paddy
- as a weak link in Ardoyne’s chain of community,
- they took him
- to break him.
- There is one witness against him
- an English soldier
- never available to testify,
- every two weeks now
- for a year
- Paddy, his father, and a Catholic lawyer
- have had to leave their work
- travel through Protestant areas
- to appear in court
- only to be put back again
- another two weeks.
- In Ardoyne
- chapel bells ring
- all day long
- I thought to value the act
- of leaving
- or staying in Ireland
- during the last 200 year of her trouble
- my American thought
- that those who left are best
- is gone
- knowing these people
- loving their home and their past
- just
- needing their home and their past.
- Today
- Ardoyne’s men are building barricades
- some of the boys
- some the Citizens Defence Committee
- some the Catholics Ex-Servicemen’s Association
- using rusty iron from the fence around their athletic club
- hot water tanks from burned out homes
- and cheap cement
- building barricades
- sometimes manned
- and sometimes not
- barricades
- the English destroy in minutes
- with their armor plated bulldozer.
- This work
- seemed a farce to me
- like much of the time in Ardoyne
- just ordinary,
- and then
- a Protestant shoots his challenge
- and the ordinary leaves Ardoyne
- for a time.
- This man
- feeling so helpless
- is not a IRA
- he doesn’t even belong to a club
- a rare man for Ardoyone
- a loner.
- Yesterday
- a shot came into Ardoyne
- today
- a bomb goes out in answer,
- a bomb for a shot
- a gun battle for a bomb
- an English soldier dies
- and Ireland
- comes closer to her final war
- to resolve
- this question of conquest
- begun so long ago,
- having little
- to do with Gods
- having more to do
- with Irish blood
- and Irish earth.
- For the people of Ardoyne
- God is real
- he is the Father
- the Son
- and the Holy Ghost
- an IRA son
- shot
- dying in the street
- needs a priest for his soul.
- Some old women
- some little girls
- come here every evening to pray for peace
- to talk
- and some to the women
- take snuff.
- It’s funny
- to talk to these English soldiers
- and have them tell you
- how much
- they enjoyed their training there
- in Colorado
- strange
- as an American
- to hear
- that their cs gas is tested in California
- that their rubber bullets are made in Ohio.
- Deaf Thomas
- reads gun catalogues from America with his brothers.
- Deaf Thomas
- was arrested carrying petrol for his motorcycle.
- Deaf Thomas
- saw these men riot at the jail just outside Ardoyne.
- Thomas
- talks with his hands.
- Thomas
- has an IRA friend whose hand was shot away by an English bullet.
- Thomas had a neighbor tortured and killed by Protestants.
- Thomas
- has had his home ripped apart by English
- soldiers
- so
- many
- times.
- Whistles in Ardoyne
- mean the English are raiding
- coming
- to take
- the men.
- The girls of Ardoyne
- wear the color purple
- and black shoes
- and white stockings
- and take their neighbor’s baby for a turn in the carriage
- on Saturday afternoon.
- Once
- standing outside my home there
- a girl with red hair came pushing a carriage by
- an IRA man on either side
- they were all nervous,
- minutes
- later
- a shot
- fired
- and the three came back
- trying to walk a normal pace
- red faced
- and breathing hard.
- I say
- it’s not as if
- time is
- and will be only
- time
- was
- these Irish men
- and Irish women
- are owed
- a debt.
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