MY Borderlands

Childhood in Northern Ireland meant the idea of the border was ever present, the line that described my homeland’s fringes. My mum and dad would listen to radio Ulster and watch the evening news, and there would often be reports on “the troubles” which included smuggling of cattle or arms across the border, and of the murder of people who lived in these peripheral lands. Killed by other local people, who because of their perceived unbridgeable differences, had decided they where the enemy. Such reports to a child like myself growing up near Belfast, on the east coast of N.Ireland confirmed to me that the border was an area more distant and frightening than my daily life experiences. Though in reality the nearest point was only 30 miles away, such is the scale of N.Ireland. Because of this, the borderlands became a place to be extremely wary of, a line to cross quickly on the way to Dublin or Donegal, a place not to linger. As I grew older and more independent I started to travel with my friends at Easter and the summer for holidays on the west coast of Ireland, in what was referred to as the south, although it was actually west and slightly further North. This meant crossing through border check points, which at that time where heavily armed by British soldiers and very threatening, often made worse by young soldiers making smart ass comments, experimenting with their own ability to abuse power. I always wanted to have a good look at these crossing points, but with security cameras, watch towers and troops with sub machine guns, this was not an option. During the 1990’s various steps towards a more peaceful future where taken by the Irish and British governments, the most promising being the Good Friday agreement of April 1998. This lead to the level of visible security on the streets being dramatically reduced, and nearly all of the border checkpoints where decommissioned. Suddenly for the first time in my life, when I visited home (I had lived in Scotland since 1990) I was able to pass unhindered from the North of Ireland to the south of Ireland. The frontier was now just the continuation of fields. It was almost impossible to detect where the border fortresses had been, there was only the change of road surface, different interpretations of tarmac by the respective governments. Over the last few years I have developed a desire to navigate these foreboding lands of my youth, to put aside all the skewed opinions I had previously been subject to and allow the landscape to wash over me and be absorbed.