After all the Training
Moochin Photoman
Rain deters visitors, and Belfast has rain.
Inaccessibility keeps the numbers down, and yes Belfast would mean a flight, (or two) for most visitors. Or if you wanted to take your car you’d have to take a ferry crossing from Cairnryan, and I’m not sure how hard it might be to find Cairnryan. It sounds quite hard to find. places on the West coast of Scotland usually are. Then there’s the rain again. Even if it’s not raining anywhere else in the world, it’s raining on a ferry crossing the Irish Sea.
And there’s history. Some might be put off by such an epic history of violence and protest, a fear that they’d say the wrong thing, that they’d feel too foreign, that Belfast was no place for outsiders.
So there were fewer protesters confronting the representatives from G8 governments. There were police, and guns, doubtlessly there were armoured cars, and bullet proof vests and all that palaver. But along with all that there was John who went and asked this police officer, who had a lovely smile, if he could photograph her; and she let him, although we can’t see her smile for security reasons. The fact that she let him take her picture, and that she gave him a lovely smile, both seem like good reasons to visit Belfast some day when it isn’t cluttered up with politicians, irrespective of rain.
And there were protesters after all, from Ireland, North and South, and doubtlessly an intrepid few who took the ferry from Cairnryan.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, Rachel Irving and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
