Back to the Isle of Man … and Beyond

It has been four very long years, but BTR made it back to the Isle of Man for the Tourist Trophy races. This time we made a short visit to Belfast, Ireland before we headed over for the action.
The best part about traveling is learning new things about history and meeting interesting people. We met up with Gerard, our driver of the infamous Black Taxi cabs of Belfast. He drove us around to some amazing places and informed us of the political disputes and ‘The Troubles’ that started in the ’60s and how things are in Belfast today. Did you know that there are over 99 “peace” walls still separating the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods and that the gates are locked at night and guarded? We visited the longest wall which is over 2 miles long and at least 20 feet high, covered in graffiti. We thought we were looking at the Berlin wall all over again. Another thing that stood out was the photographs and murals on walls everywhere, reminding you of the people who died for the cause or were murdered. Our driver showed us a wall that contained 12 photographs of people just from his neighborhood. As of now, there is peace in the city and hopefully the walls will eventually come down.

 

Stay tuned for the complete story in Born To Ride Issue 159, in the meantime enjoy some of the photos!