Our car was serviced on the Boucher Road in Belfast yesterday.
I took the opportunity of strolling around The Village area. This of course is the area in which a young Catholic youth was beaten up about six weeks ago. I will not pretend that I felt comfortable. I certainly would not wander around The Village after dark.
Early morning (8.30am) seemed safe. The area was generally known to me in the 1960s. I used to walk a neighbours dog on the Grosvenor Road, across Roden Street “down” Donegall Road and across Sandy Row back to the Grosvenor Road. Although the 1960s was considered “safe” and The Troubles of the 1920s and 1930s ancient history, the area was of course considered “Protestant”.
Ironically perhaps the upper part of the Donegall Road was considered “better” than the older Lower Donegall Road around the totemic Sandy Row area. Due to re-development, the houses in the lower end of the road are much more “new” than the Village..and within the Village many houses are blocked up.
The expansion of Belfast City Hospital on to the lower part of the road has meant that many migrant workers from (often) Phillipines have had difficulty to make homes in the area. It is not entirely a “Catholic” thing. Frankly brought up on a legacy of colonialism and imperialism and signed up to right wing causes, loyalists are simply more racist in outlook than their Catholic/nationalist counterparts.
Certainly walking down the Donegal Road, I felt “safer” when I got past Donegall Avenue and got to the area around the “back” of the City Hospital. A railway stop neutralises the area as does the old Belfast Library Donegall Road branch…..still a fine building but now shamefully used as offices by (among others) Stratagem, the lobbying firm. Andrew Carnegie is probably spinning in his grave.
While Sandy Row retains an iconic status in loyalist geography, it is neutralised by a some appartment buildings and indeed open spaces used for car parking for office workers in Great Victoria Street.
The actual junction of Donegall Road and Sandy Row is marked by the Royal Bar, effectively a homage to Alex Higgins (died 2010) the snooker player and (Glasgow)Rangers Supporters Club.
Interesting morning.
Keeping An Eye On the Czar of Russia 
Hi there, I actually live in the village area of Belfast and while I agree there are dangerous elements to some areas in Belfast, I would disagree that a visitor to the area should be warned that they should feel unsafe when they come here. It’s the wrong image of Belfast which is being portrayed around the world, and putting tourists off coming here. There is a lot of infighting in certain communities, but guess what? This happens everywhere! I can honestly say that all the neighbours I’ve met in my street just get on with their lives and don’t bother anyone. Yes I am sure there are still sectarian sentiments here and in other parts of the city, we can’t deny that, but every day, hundreds of thousands of people just walk around through these streets without a bit of bother. Belfast is no more or less dangerous than London. Like anywhere you go in life, there’s good and bad, and you can get yourself into trouble anywhere you go in the world for all kinds of reasons. Anyone planning on coming to stay in the village area of Belfast I would say to you, do not be put off by these scare stories.
A legitimate point and well made.
I am however cognisant of a friends father who was tortured to death there.
And a friend of a friend (I never met her) who was tortured to death in a band hall across the road from the village. Kitchener Street I think.
So I retain those memories.
Its not the kinda place I would go wearing my Celtic top or Antrim GAA top.
Conversely, one wouldn’t,enter a bar on the Falls Road wearing a Rangers or Linfield scarf. !!
Indeed.
But there is a dangerous assumption favoured by LetsGetAlongerists that in terms of sectarian killings particuarly savage sectarian killings that “one side was as bad as the other”.
Thats simply not the case.
The IRA would certainly (and hypocritically) claim that they “shot the uniform, not the man” but of course in the case of the killings of UDR or RUC people these were defacto sectarian murders and seen as such by the Protestant community.
The Shankill Butchers and their fellow murderers were nakedly sectarian as the phrase “Any Taig Will Do” indicates.
Are you having a laugh here the Ira didn’t kill innocent people 😂😂😂
It’s easy to see here that your a bigot yourself
Fitzjameshorse’s comments said the IRA were guilty of de facto sectarian murders. That is hardly an endorsement of their actions or support for bigotry.