The Blindboy Podcast - Jockeys Porridge

Episode Date: February 13, 2018

Live, from Duncairn arts centre Belfast. Blindboy interviews Donzo from DC walking tours about the troubles in Northern Ireland and more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pat yourself on your weary backs, you jolly fontal rise, for we are 17 weeks at number one in the podcast charts. Brian Adams is but a dot in our rear view mirror. view mirror we've taken Brian Adams to the vet and with a choke in our

mouth and red eyes he has been put out of his misery thank you very much for subscribing to

the podcast and leaving pleasurable reviews and recommending this podcast to your cunting friends you are the wind beneath my greasy wings And leaving pleasurable reviews. And recommending this podcast to your cunting friends.

You are the wind beneath my greasy wings. I am an albatross. I'm a podcast albatross with greasy wings. Because someone has put talcum powder on them. This week's podcast. Is going to be a live recording last weekend I was up in Belfast in the north of Ireland for the first ever live

blind buy podcast gig and oh it was lovely it was very successful it was lovely It was very successful It was good crack Unbelievable fucking crack in fact I had a most magnificent guest By the name of Donzo

And Donzo Is part of a duo Called Dead Centre Tours You can get them at Deadcentretours.com And Donzo Is a local historian of Belfast, and he does award-winning tours on the history of terrorism in Belfast City.

And he takes people on tours from the Loyalist areas and the Republican areas and presents a non-sectarian view he presents a tour that is fact-based and does not contain an agenda or ideology and it's for this reason that it is award-winning and danzo was recommended to me because he is a gas cunt the podcast took place in duncairn on the north side of belfast city which is a gas cunt. The podcast took place in Duncarn on the north side of Belfast City, which is a Republican area very close to the loyalist Shankill Road. And it's fair to say that the majority of the audience would have been nationalist, Republican, Catholic.

And Donzo himself is a Protestant, but he certainly isn't sectarian. He would describe himself as more socialist than anything. He's not interested in sectarian politics. But nonetheless, there was a slight tension in the room during the recording because you've got an audience full of tig my guest is a praddy so that led to a really wonderful discussion a nice a nice discussion with a nice bit of uh tension and laughter and crack for me in particular i found it very exciting because i am not from the north of ireland i'm from the south of ireland and my experience of the troubles from the north of Ireland, I'm from the south of Ireland and my experience of the Troubles in the north,

firstly they're from my childhood, secondly they were delivered to me through the lens of the media which is not something to be fully trusted and my opinions of the north are quite ignorant. My opinions of the North are quite ignorant. I have no empathic frame of reference for the culture of the North of Ireland or what it is like to have grown up there. For our listeners who are not from the island of Ireland, the North of Ireland is the territory of the British Empire.

of Ireland is the territory of the British Empire and up until the mid-90s a very violent long-running sectarian conflict took place and a lot of the members of the audience remember this Donzo lived through it so this was eye-opening for me and I got to be an ignorant southern taig and I got to ask some dumb questions and I got some very articulate and interesting answers and it was a pleasure to be in this audience it was a pleasure to share in that alongside me I had my accomplice DJ Willie or DJ who was recording the podcast so when you hear some high-pitched squeaking noises throughout this podcast that is merely Willie vocalizing his opinions. Willie nearly managed to fuck up the entire podcast because we had a bit of a road trip. I said to Willie right Willie we're going to we're said to willie right willie we're going to

we're going to belfast man how are we going to get up there i don't have a car willie doesn't have a car so i said willie look you book a car rent one out i'll pay you later so willie did so on the morning of saturday we were due to go to Belfast Willie went to book the car but he didn't have enough money on his credit card so they weren't going to give him the car and then I said can I pay for the car on my credit card they said no and I said why

because you don't have a driving licence so we almost didn't get to Belfast because we couldn't rent the car I gave Willy 100 euro, we transferred it into his account and then we had a beautiful car and we had a most magnificent

road trip all the way to Belfast where we listened to nothing but the finest of 90's west coast G-funk I'm very determined to maintain the podcast hug on this podcast, as you know, which is the calming, relaxing feeling that a lot of people tune in for. However, as you know, I have explained several times before that in my life I've experienced social anxiety, you know. Now, I'm alright with that now, but still, I'm not great in crowds of people.

I will become more animated and more excited because crowds of people, it's not necessarily my comfort zone. crowds of people it's not necessarily my comfort zone i can be comfortable within that crowd of people but i it's it's difficult for me to be fully relaxed so one thing you will notice throughout this recording is i'm a lot more animated than you would be used to hearing me and i hope that this does not interfere with your podcast hug I suggest putting on a new set of ears when you listen to this live podcast there'll be a number of live podcasts

coming up, I'm going back to Belfast in May on May 4th, the fucking Limelight Theatre and I'm in Wexford. I'm in Enniscarty in Wexford as well in a couple of weeks. Go on to our Twitter if you want the details for that.

Before we get to the interview, I would like to thank everybody who contributes to the Patreon account. I would like to thank everybody who contributes to the Patreon account. This podcast does not have a sponsor and it is driven by the generosity of everybody who likes to contribute to the Patreon. So that Patreon is patreon.com forward slash theblindboypodcast. And if you can contribute to that, please do. You know, a euro or whatever you want. you know your or whatever you want the Patreon is probably one of the greatest things in my life at the moment because

I'm getting paid for making this podcast which I love doing which is just a fucking amazing wonderful feeling and in 17 years of doing shit online this is the first time I'm getting paid for online content it's incredible so thank you so much

but, if you don't have the money you don't have to contribute, it's no problem you're still gonna get the podcast for free you can't no problem before we move on to the interview please give me feedback after you hear the podcast, give me feedback

and let me know if the live setting worked for you, let me know if, you know, I'd hate to have you disappointed because this is a live podcast this week, I don't want to have you feeling left out, so give me a shout shout let me know what you think about it and if you felt your podcast hug diminished by the live recording or if you found your podcast hug developed into some type of podcast jumping jack some type of exuberant exhilarant podcast experience. I don't know. Okay, here is the interview with the beautiful people of Duncarn in Belfast. And Danza, yeah.

I wasn't sure about fucking, you know, what am I going to do for a guest, you know? I was thinking, so I asked Twitter, I went on Twitter, I said, I'm doing a gig up in Belfast. Who would you recommend? And several people recommended a man by the name of Danzo. And Danzo does tours of...

What do you call them? The areas of the Troubles. Troubled areas. Yeah. You know, you're from Belfast, like. But he's got award-winning tours, and apparently he's a bit of a gas cunt as well and he can do a bit of talking and for me the other part is i was going shit i'm going off

to belfast talking to an audience from fucking belfast and then bringing on a belfast historian to tell them about history they already know about because they're from belfast but then i started thinking i'm from limerick and I know nothing about Limerick until it was forced on me. So it could be educational as well. So we'll bring on Danzo. Danzo! You look like a professional darts player. Thank you. So, um...

What do you do, Danza? What's the crack? What's the crack? I, uh... Hold on, have we got this? Can we hear... Does he need to be closer, Danzo? What's the crack? What the crack? Hold on, have we got this? Is that on? Can we hear? Does he need to be closer, Willie? You manipulate Danzo's mic there like a good man. Thank you very much.

See, that's very intimidating for poor old Danzo. What do I do? Yeah, tell us what the crack is. Bearing in mind as well, we've got a live audience, but as well, this podcast goes out to 200,000 people. It fucking does. Some of them Yanks, some of them Southerners. I've got one person in Sierra Leone.

Okay. And 50 people in Hong Kong so like all over the world so if we can yeah explain what you do pretend I'm from Sierra Leone talk to me like I'm from Sierra Leone okay

got an award winning tour going round state centre tours the history of terror it examines the history of the conflict really between 1969 and up to 1994 we do it at the city centre or we do it out in the interface neighbourhoods of West Belfast the Falls and the conflict, really between 1969 and up to 1994. We do it at the city centre or we do

it out in the interface neighbourhoods of West Belfast, the Falls and the Shackle, etc. It's a walking tour, it's a visual tour, it's an exploration of history. It also seeks to be as non-partisan as you can be in a very partisan society. It presents the perspectives of Republicans,

of Loyalists, Unionists, Nationalists and others, because there's different narratives out there. You're on others. I'm many things to many people. So the first question, what I did with the questions is, I wanted to ask the internet what questions to ask in order to democratise the conversation. Mainly because if I asked my own questions, I'd be called

a Marxist cook who's funded by George Soros. So the best way to do it is this democratic thing called the internet exists. So I said, here's the crack, I've got Don Zawan, this is what he does, you give me the questions. So all the questions tonight are going to be from the internet. So the the questions tonight are going to be from the internet. So the first question... What?

Don't... I say it to Danza. Don't ask me. Is Gerry Adams in the IRA? I don't know I'm actually going to say no he stood down today but thanks for that Willie

I met Gerry Adams once in real life and here's the thing I met Gerry Adams once in real life. And here's the thing. I met the... I've only met him once. I don't think I'm going to meet him again. But when I met him, I happened to be dressed as a black and tan.

We were... We did a documentary for RTE on the 1916 rising, right? And one of the things in this documentary that I was trying to do is... Outside the fucking... the GPO, right? You've got a statue of Jim Larkin, who is a socialist communist. Well, he'd be a socialist. I wouldn't call him a communist. He was on a narco-syndicalist. I don't know.

He was a... He was a scouser. Pretty much. He was a lefty, right? So you've got the GPO, Jim Larkin outside with his big brown hands. But then, we were asked to do this documentary

in 1916 and 2016. But on looking at this statue of Jim Larkin outside the GPO it's like oh brilliant there's Jim with his socialist ideals but all around him was fucking Burger King Starbucks the opposite of fucking socialist ideals so I figured

right okay the only legitimate way in order for me to reflect that hypocrisy then I then have to read out the proclamation outside the GPO dressed as a black and tan. Because that's as offensive as fucking Jim Larkin being beside a Starbucks. So I was dressed up as a tan, and the day that we were filming

was the day that Sinn Féin had chosen to recreate and commemorate O'Donovan Ross's funeral in Wynne's Hotel. So Sinn Féin were all there dressed up as volunteers, and we were there. They were fully, like, reading fucking Pierce's speech at O'Donovan. Really solemn and straightforward, like Gerry Adams as well, you know. at O'Donoghue, really solemn and straightforward, like Gerry Adams as well, you know? And then I'm, so we're there in the hotel that we happened to accidentally book

as the same hotel as Sinn Féin doing their reenactment, us dressed as black and tans, being very apologetic. Sorry, Sinn Féin, sorry, Sinn Féin. Because they thought it was deliberate. They thought we were deliberately doing it to piss them off. We weren't, it was an accident. And then as I'm looking at all the shinners, dressed as fucking volunteers,

I bump into Jerry Adams and I'm like, oh fuck, there's Jerry Adams. So he's there as a volunteer and I'm there as a black and tan. And I want that moment written on my grave.

Did you speak to him? Did I speak to Jerry? A little bit. He follows us on Twitter. Does he? He does, yeah. He does. He likes to cover

a lot of shit up with duck jokes. So anyway... I'm not buying it. That beard is too friendly. So we've got a lovely question here. Feta says here, I'm from the north and I'm living now down south. My girlfriend is Egyptian and she's really confused about how the communities mirror themselves to Israel and Palestine.

I'd like to hear a proper answer on the parallels and the limit to which those parallels go. Right. Easy one to start with then. Okay. And this is the end of your enjoyable evening, by the way, folks. Brace yourself, you know. There are parallels. I mean, if you go onto the falls, you'll see ANC murals,

you'll see ANC flags. And what is the ANC for our Cambodia listeners? Well, actually, first of all, it's absolutely nothing to do with Palestine. I've completely caught up there already, OK? You'll see Palestinian flags, et cetera. And Republicans tend to see themselves as part of an international network of oppressed peoples, et cetera. You do have that duplication on the loyalist side. You'll see Israeli flags. And some people see that as a knee-jerk response. If they take that side, therefore we'll take the other. But there's something deeper than that. Some

people in the loyalist community, for example, identify with Israelis because they see themselves, rightly or wrongly, as a marginalised, misunderstood people surrounded by hostile natives, etc. You do have an element of the tit-for-tat, but you get some superb anomalies. Sometimes you'll get people coming over to support Loyalist parades, etc. Some of them, not all, come from the far right of British politics. They're pretty anti-Semitic, and then they see Israeli flags in Loyalistist areas and they get very upset about this. Suddenly, it's not making sense anymore, you know. I had a cracker example about five years ago. There was a tour, not one of ours, it was a bus tour of Americans who were very sympathetic to the Irish nationalist Republican position and they were going around the sites of Republican

West Belfast. Then they get to the international wall, and at that point in time, there was a mural of Fidel Castro celebrating the Cuban Revolution, and the Cuban-Americans on the bus suddenly go apeshit, storm off the tour, you know? So that model of one conflict automatically transfers to another conflict can be very problematic, with lovely results sometimes. But what I've always wondered is like, like how reactionary, like has someone ever tried to put that to the test?

Like would say if all the fucking nationalists start eating Smarties, does that mean the loyalists will start eating Skittles? It's, it's, it's already happened. Already happened. But like, what do you think? Like how much, like, you said that to me earlier on about the

the unionists view themselves in the way that the Israelis would, in that they are this minority surrounded by hostility. Is that legit? Is that really what the unionists say? Many unionists do so. I mean, that's been quite clearly documented. There's also a school of unionism. Now, it's a minority school, but there's a group called the British Israelites. Oh, fuck, I've been getting balls deep in them recently. They tried to dig up Newgrange looking for the Holy Grail, and WBH stopped them.

Fact! They do believe that they are descendant of the Lost Tribe of Israel, and that the Ulster Protestants are actually God's Lost Tribe in some way. It's a Masonic, it's a strange little Masonic thing as well, isn't there? Even within cults, within sub-cults, it's quite minute in many ways.

And they still exist? People like Nelson McCausland, for example, who's been a government minister here, subscribe to this. Nothing to worry about there. But were you familiar with the British Israelites? Have you heard about them? They think that the Holy Grail is buried in... It's either Newgrange or the Hill of Tara.

It's actually Milltown, which is problematic. But, yeah, odd cunts. Do you know what I mean? I mean, they genuinely believe this has to be descended from the 12 tribes of Israel, you know? Yep. So that fits in with that Israeli identification as well. You can see a strange sort of linkage in there. So does that mean you will get a Unionist claiming anti-Semitism

because he's originally a Jew from a couple of thousand years ago? I mean, how far are they going to take it? I have no idea. No idea. Also interesting, you know, if you go onto the shangle now, on the Northumberland Street, the loyalist-sided interface, there is actually a mural depicting and some memorial to the Holocaust. So you can see that linkage taking place there.

And ironically, beside it, there's actually a mural depicting the role of Polish, overwhelmingly Catholic, airmen in the Battle of Britain. So there's all sorts of messages going on out there, what exactly they all mean. Sometimes you'd need to speak to the message bearers to find out what it is that they're actually trying to say. And the thing is that the the optimist in me, like there's one thing with down south right, we're now seeing down south a rise of, we'll say, racism. It's kind of a thing with my generation.

We didn't really have it as... There wasn't enough immigrants. You'd be getting pissed off at nothing, but now we're getting immigrants and the rise of racism, nationalism, all of that shit is happening down south. So I like to... It would be nice for, we'll say irish people down south to be aware of

their history of oppression so that can then communicate as an empathy towards people who are being oppressed and i know up north now you're having similar issues yeah which on both sides of the community people are refugees are coming in and that is now the direction of anger. But is there a possible benefit, we say, if the unionist community are identifying with something like the Holocaust, that that can transcend into a type of empathy that would mean stop spitting at the Syrian men? Well, it's actually one of the most complicated issues we have at the moment and it's an emergent issue.

We're new to racism, it's new in town in some ways. And you have a perception out there that in the unionist community, racist incidents against people from outside. Down south. But again, see, the thing is with me down south is we know nothing. We know nothing about this shit.

We've been fed a very, very simple narrative about this. And the narrative that we've been sold down south is pretty much if I was to frame it, it's like oh brilliant, look at the unionists being racists, do you know what I mean that's genuine what it is down south, it's like oh the unionists now, they all, they have a problem

now with Nigerians and Polish people and the Catholics are being pure sound but that's until I fucking, I did a gig over the summer up in Lisburn and I was a Catholic taxi driver who just spent the whole time complaining about Syrians but the genuine the narrative we have down south is that

the only way we're told that the oppression that the unionists tried to bring against the Catholics is now being transformed identically now onto we'll say people of colour up north and we're not told at all about nationalist or Catholic communities yn cael ei gyflawni yn unigol nawr i bobl o gwlwyr y tu ôl. Nid ydym wedi cael gwybod o gwbl am gymunedau Cattolaidd neu Nasiolid yn bod yn rhaid i rhai rhaid i'w ddysgu o ran eu bod yn rhaid iddyn nhw ddysgu a'u cyd-dysgu gyda'r Pant.

Mae gennych ddifrif arbennig gwahanol yma. Pan ydych chi wedi cael cyflwyniad rhaid o ran cymunedau Nasiolid, mae gennych yn arfer cael ymateb cyflawniol iawn, yn amlwg gan Sinn Ffain, peiriannau, protestau, ymddygiad â'r rhai sy'n cael eu llwyddo, ac ati. Mae unionism, sympathy with those who've been victimised, etc. Unionism is a broad church, and some people within unionism would be pretty right-wing, and they would be quite happy about that. And Protestant churches are quite broad, I know, and this is sitting in here.

I mean, we're sitting in a Protestant church this evening, which is interesting in itself. But you've also weaker structures within the loyalist and unionist community. So if people do feel angry about racism, which they say is not done in their name, they're not always immediately quick to structurally identify and protest against

it, you know, so you have those issues. And generally, I know many unionists who would quite happily say, yep, we're pretty right-wing, this is the turf that we sit on. Nationalists tend to, naturally, take ownership of the language of civil rights and of equality and of integrity, so that's quite contentious, again, at the minute with some of the recent political statements.

So you do seem to have very different responses. There's also another issue here. There's much higher housing demand in nationalist areas. There's much less housing. There's a lower demand in unionist areas. And you tend to have more people from ethnic community backgrounds, immigrants, people from Eastern Europe living in predominantly Protestant areas. So that's where you're going to have, nearly empirically, immigrants, people from Eastern Europe living in predominantly Protestant areas. So that's where you're going to have,

nearly like empirically, statistically, the manifestation of that type of racism. So there's ideological reasons, there's structural, social reasons as well. And as again, one model doesn't always fit others. It doesn't fit everything, you know. Was that a clap or someone opening a can? Yeah, that's the first time I've ever heard that, because again,

we have a very simple narrative down south, you know. One lovely question here. And again, here's another narrative that we are kind of showing down south, that nationalist murals are class and then Protestant murals are badly drawn. Like genuinely. Down south it's like

oh the murals are lovely but don't go into our Protestant area because the eyes are too close together. There is a classic example. There used to be a mural in the Craig estate in East Belfast where George Best was brought up, and it was of a local UVF member who was actually killed by the SAS outside Queen's Students' Union.

And I remember looking at it and talking to a local loyalist figure and saying to him, it's very, very badly drawn. Look at this guy, he's called Willie Miller. Look at the state of that eye. It's very, very googly. And your mum said to me, it's fucking brilliant. He said, well, he had a googly eye. It's absolutely perfect. So maybe on that occasion, not so bad, you know.

Do you know one thing? One thing I've... One thing I've always wondered and I haven't a clue about, right? You're essentially taking over the gable end of someone's house. Hmm. Yeah. Like, was that forced upon people, or was it voluntary, have this side of my house, or we're going to do this to the side of your house?

I had a brilliant conversation. What if someone was behind? I had a brilliant conversation one time with a guy who used to be commander of C Company after Johnny Adair. He's now, you know, he's he stood down to put it euphemistically um and i said to him see the murals what what are your what do you think of them he said they're brilliant this is when they were very militarized in the lower shangles state i said what are your kids thinking he says oh i fucking hate them they hate them they're terrified of them it's going this is your own kids i said what's the process then whereby you paint a mural on the wall? And he said, oh, like,

we go and consult with people, we talk to the community, we talk to people, do you mind if we paint a mural on your wall? Nobody ever rejects. And I just said, hold on, you've got about 2,000 men, you've got guns, you administer punishment beatings. I said, this is a bit like a North Korean election. 102% turnout, but not quite democratic somehow, you know.

Because I was thinking as well, like, all right, like, what if we say those areas become gentrified? Then having a mural... No, but you know what I mean? Would it not be like having a fucking Banksy on the side of your house? And some yank moves in and he's got a UVF mural with googly eyes on the side of his house. But, like, now that, you know what I mean, is... Like, how does that work?

Like, do people want the house with the mural? Well, it's usually social housing that's going to be allocated. So you don't have a choice? No. Or you could say, I want to move in such and such an area and I want that UFF mural to cracker. I'm sure it happens, like, you know what I mean? We don't have that down south.

We just kick balls off the side of Gable Inns, don't we? All right. Have you ever been heckled on the tour? Not in any major way given where you're walking through the nature of what you're talking about sometimes people do stop and they sort of listen out of the curiosity and they'll pass on by the best heckle I ever did have though was on High Street on a city centre tour Sometimes people do stop and they sort of listen out of the curiosity and they'll pass on by.

The best heckle I ever did have, though, was on High Street on a city centre tour where a voice shouted from a car, don't believe him, he's a lying bastard. Which is classy. But what was even classier was that the heckler was actually the Reverend Bill Shaw, who's vaguely associated with this enterprise here. So the group who I were with were sort of a bit stunned and taken aback, and I assured them it was okay. The heckler was actually a Presbyterian minister.

And then they were startled, and I said to them, see, that's how fucking hard we are in Belfast. Presbyterian ministers speak like that, you know? LAUGHTER LAUGHTER LAUGHTER Um... you know what's the story with Catholics and Protestants dating each other during the height of the troubles

well it happened very sinful but it happened you know sometimes I know many people who despite the most traumatic times of the troubles did did, you know, fall in love. Yeah, what are you going to do, Luke? They got married, you know. Example, my family originally from the Shangle, one of my dad's sisters married a guy in the late 60s from the New Lodge, just the other side of the road.

You know, they had to move out of Broome Street, which was right on an interface, because they were a mixed marriage on the battle line. Now, my grandmother was very, very Protestant, good loyal Protestant, Shankill Road woman. She accepted it. She never ostracised any of the grandchildren etc. But my first cousin, the first son in that marriage was called Sean. My grandmother until her dying day called him John. There was just a little bit too far where you couldn't go. I also remember on Christmas Day, we used to go to my grandmother's in the Lower Shankill Estates, you know, that nasty NFC company, etc.

It was Christmas Day, it was great, we're all family, we're having a good time. Then at three o'clock, the Queen's Speech. Brilliant. The Granny would crank it up to hear Her Majesty's words of wisdom. The two cousins, Sean and Jim, would go out the front, stand and have a feg, come back in a quarter past three when the Queen's speech was over, and nobody ever said a word. Except my da, used to whisper, it was nearly as traditional as a turkey,

elephant in the room time, elephant in the room time. And to the non-Irish listeners there, feg is Belfast for cigarettes. That's right. Because we were talking earlier about kind of different linguistic things that would differentiate a Catholic from a Protestant. And I thought feg was one, because I thought ye have flags up here.

And I thought flags just referred to the Union Jack, and I thought that's how you tell. So if someone said feg, then they're a Protestant, but apparently not. No, no, no. I can scotch that math straight away. And what about the alphabet? What's the other one I heard? Oh, I... H and H.

H and H, yeah. Yeah. That's a good one. I mean, there are linguistic cultural reasons with that to do with linguistic development, etc. But you can get the odd anomalies still. I always liked the anomalies. My son, normally Protestant by background, has been at an integrated school since the age of four. His first teacher was from Dublin. She taught him the alphabet and he says H. We live in predominantly Protestant East Belfast and I used to say to him, Matthew, see you keep saying H son, see when you're out there in the streets, in the playground,

you're either going to have to learn, you're going to have to fight like fuck or you're going to be able to run like fuck. Because every time, every time you say H, they're all going to think you're a Catholic, you're a Bill Craig, you know. One thing I always wondered about, and I'd love to know if you know anything about it and I don't know is it urban myth or not right but the south of America around Mississippi and the people the first Scotch Irish that

the first Irish that canonised America were from the north that's why so many yeah the Presbyterians they were subject to the penal laws so they had to get the fuck out as well yeah so a lot that's why so many american presidents are from like antrim and shit like that but i i heard this is the myth that i and i can't trace it to any academic source but right so you've got a load of fucking orange men right? So they're all named William. So then they go to Mississippi, and Presbyterians are quite strict, you know, so there's no drinking or anything like that.

So when they had their little commune, if you drank, you were kicked out of the commune, and you had to go to the hills, and your name was William, so you're a hillbilly. That's what I heard. And then the hillbillies who were kicked out, you know, they had Scottish blood, essentially,

so the sun would burn them. So then when the sun would burn their necks, their necks would become red. So then in order to solve the redneck, they would grow a mollusk. And then that turned into people in the north liking country music. That's what I...

I don't know where I heard it, but it's stuck in my head. Have you heard something similar? Is there any historians here? Is there truth in that, or is that just a smear campaign? Well, obviously the slight extremes of that are going to be debatable etc but that diaspora of scots presbyterian scots irish did hit the opulations they did davy crockett's and they've been called billy like come on like they were called billy loads of them the loads of them are called billy but davy crockett was called davy that's quite demonstrable.

And, but does that explain the country music thing? Nothing explains country music. Like, that's a general fucking... Like, what's that about, like? But it's like, I mean, there's a line in Ireland, it's from Monaghan up. Below Monaghan, we don't give a fuck about country music, you know what I mean?

What's that? What is that? What's that? I know it doesn't, you're not going to get asked this on one of your fucking Troubles Walking tours, but, like, what's the story of a country music? What are you doing? What are you doing? Why?

Well, it's a sort of, it's a wonderful self-indulgent dirge, isn't it? It appeals to the sort of dour aspect of the Presbyterian character. But I've never given a decent... Totally tenuous, making us up as I go along. I've intended to listen. Actually, anyone, please get on to me on Twitter and then send me some decent loyalist country music, will you, please? Because I've no sources, I've no sources on it.

But, like, country music, to me, like, it does have... There's a lot of cliché in it. There's a lot of... It relies upon pun. There's a lot of, my wife left me, I'm drinking too much, all this, carry on. Is that the same with Northern country music,

Northern Irish country music? And do Catholics do it too? Oh, absolutely. Probably worse, to a certain degree. Is it just a Protestant thing or a Catholic thing, the country music and do Catholics do it too? Oh absolutely, probably worse to a certain degree. Is it just a Protestant thing or a Catholic thing, the country music? It is... Are these people demonized? So technically it's a good thing then because it's crossing divides in society. Yes, there's this sort of parody of misery there, in some sense.

Here's a bit of a fucking hot take. All right. Now, is it possible that emerging racism in Northern Ireland could connect the Protestant and Catholic community because now they can be pissed off with Muslims. Listen, I know that sounds terrible and I've framed it in a terrible fashion but that is historically, that type of shit happens.

Like, even down in Limerick, we say Polish people in Limerick, if a Polish lad wants to become that little bit more Limerick, then it's a good idea for him to give out about Africans. And if he does that, then he becomes accepted a little bit in the community. And there's something I spoke about in the podcast a few

fucking episodes ago. There's a book called How the Irish Became White, right? And the central tenet of this book is that when the Catholic Irish went to America in the 17th century, early 18th century, and they were, essentially, they came from a country with the penal laws, which is a racist system whereby you couldn't own a fucking house, you couldn't have land, you couldn't have an education.

Shut up, William. You couldn't have an education, you couldn't own a weapon. There was a systematic, a system of oppression against you if this was your religion and fucking calvinists and presbyterians as well but when these irish people went to america from this system of oppression they discovered the color line that basically when the irish went there first they were the the first yanks were essentially brits as such um and they brought the anti-Irishness with them but the Irish figured out that if they performed acts of violence against the African-American community, the freed slaves, they then climbed up the ladder of white privilege to become

equal to their over-rulers. So that's a thing that happens. Is that possible in Belfast? We're all going to unify because of some of those I always think the other thing that got me thinking about it is did you see that

fucking what's her name the robot that talks artificial intelligence woman you're all talking at once lads

what's her name see now there you go now devil air once, lads. What's her name? See, now there you go. Now, devil air is out, lads. No, no. There's an artificial intelligence robot. So it's this robot with artificial intelligence. And she has a name. And Alexa.

Is it Alexa? Sophie. Sophia. Sophia. So Sophia the robot was unveiled about two months ago. And Sophia is an android. She's the world's first android. And she has artificial intelligence that's... It's the closest we'll get to human intelligence so far.

So I saw the first video of Sophia. She's very terrifying. Because she's almost human. Do you know what I mean? And there's this thing called the uncanny valley where when something when something becomes almost human it becomes terrifying so sofia was in a room full of lads from saudi arabia so me as someone from limerick when i look at a room full of people from saudi arabia i view them as culturally different they're dressed differently they look differently so they I feel them as that is an other

You know what I mean? And when Sophia was in the room, she was so fucking freaky that they felt like one of me But you get me do you get what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? It's like what when when it's like I I always think the cure for racism on this earth is when aliens come. Right. But it's true.

If a fucking alien comes down with 20 cocks and two hats or whatever they do or an arse for an elbow, we will then forget about the petty divides that we have either

because of sectarianism or because of skin color because now there's a lad there with 20 cots and two hats do you get what I'm saying? now that's a very fucking devil essentially what I'm saying there is racism good in Belfast lads is it good for us? does it benefit us?

is it going to deplete sectarianism? yeah like is there a possibility that a fucking no you don't think so no so you'll end up with Is it going to deplete sectarianism, et cetera? Yeah, like, is there a possibility that it fucking... No. No, you don't think so, no? So you'll end up with, we hate Islam more than they do? Yeah. Fucking hell. They're hating Islam wrong.

Christ almighty. All right, are you keeping time at all Willie or are you just drinking what's that this is a very chaotic and odd podcast so far

yep how did we get from the peace walls to this actually the fucking peace walls. Are they outdated remnants of a bygone era that should be demolished or a necessary evil? And that question comes from Vincent Brown.

Right, OK. You know, I had someone out on a tour last week, an English guy, 49, same age as himself, and he said, I didn't realise there a tour last week, an English guy, 49, same age as myself, and he said, I didn't realise there was a peace wall in Belfast. He just found it absolutely extraordinary. And then we started digging beneath the surface. Why are they there? Why did they come about?

You know, we always have patterns of segregation in this city. After 69 and the population movements become some of the biggest in Western Europe after the Second World War, it's quite extraordinary. You know, those peace walls become a necessity for some communities. I was talking about this earlier today. 2013, or then, PowerShare and Executive came up with, I love this, a policy aspiration. Not a policy, just an aspiration. To have the walls taken down by 2023.

And I've done a lot of mediation work in the past with interface communities. And people have said to me, how did it come up with 2023? And I said's as scientific as this it took 2013 they added 10 that was that was the process you know one wall has come down about 18 months ago between Ardoyne and Woodvale Shankill it was a pretty minor wall in terms of its size but it was a very important wall strategically in terms of preventing violence or minimising violence. That took seven years of inter-community negotiation involving statutes, political representatives, community representatives. So I don't think

in that sense they're outdated, they're horrible, they're grotesque, but they're a physical manifestation of the deeply deeply problematic relationships that we have had here for several centuries within the city you know so to wish them away and say oh that's awful that's terrible it's not going to work you need to have astrology about it and you look at that wall between cooper you know cooper street and the falls shankle i mean the sad thing about that is i mean that started off as wooden fences with barbed wire in August 69. It'll be over by Christmas, you know. It's now higher than the Berlin Wall ever was, and it's been in place longer than the Berlin Wall, you know.

And that was a symbol of international, you know, divide between East and West, et cetera. Our walls have outlasted that. I've always said here, you know, people can wish the walls away. It's not going to happen. We're not having a revolution here. We're having an evolution, and these things will take an evolutionary

long time to address themselves and to come down. Yep, they're horrible, but they're there, and they're there for the foreseeable future. Do you think does shit like that embarrass the British government? I don't know if the British government really do embarrass them, to be honest.

You know, I can think of many things they could have been embarrassed about and it didn't really seem to bother them too much. You know, I think they take the view of, you know, this is the way it is, it's the real politics, you know. And the walls don't cause, I mean,

Theresa May doesn't go to bed at night and think, oh bollocks, there's still a wall between the walls and the shackle, you know? It's not top of her agenda. If you live in Belfast, it's a very real issue. But as well, one of the important things is people in those communities, by and large, the majority, and there's been lots of survey work and sort of vox pops done, people want them to remain because they feel physically and psychologically safer. And it's like, because I haven't a fucking clue.

Like, the walls for me, like I said, it's something that happens on television, because I haven't a fucking clue. Like, the walls for me, like I said, it's something that happens on television, so I haven't a fucking clue. Like, is it to stop projectiles or is it to stop physical humans? Well, either or. Either or, yeah? Or both, yeah.

And is there a little door? And, well... That wasn't supposed to sound offensive, but it did. Yeah. Well, if you take the... Mr Illiterate Door. If you take the West Belfast Wall, it's perforated, it's hyphenated as it extends

up from the city centre up to the bottom of the Black Mountain area, etc. And there are areas, particularly in the past, you have the dead zones, Northumberland Street, around Cooper, where you have a gate at the National Centre, a gate at the Loyalist Centre, right across the road and for pedestrians, and it's shut at six in the evening.

Six o'clock. Six o'clock in the evening. You have areas where you had security, vehicular barriers which could be lifted, etc. But there's a very real problem here. I mean, this isn't just the ugliness of the whole thing and the symbolism. Say you're living on one side of the wall.

They're all Victoria Hospitals on the other. You have an emergency and you have to get to hospital, and suddenly you're adding time onto a crucial journey. That's the real nitty-gritty of how the walls affect communities in terms of access to services and facilities that are an absolute necessity. So they have a very preventative role, arguably, in preventing violence, but they have a very detrimental impact on living everyday civic life, and that's a real big issue about the walls I'll just give you a further

example though people who were in Belfast in 1969 and remember the violence and the start of those population movements, there are people still alive today who remember that and they want to see the walls there because they saw the destruction and the population movements in 1969 and there are people who've grown up with the walls there because they saw the destruction and the population movements in 1969.

And there are people who've grown up with the walls there and it's as ordinary as a postbox or a lamppost because it's always been part of your physical landscape. I have a friend who now lives in mid-England, Leicestershire. She was back home last year. She grew up literally in a street carved by the West Belfast interface and she said it was only when she moved to England and got married that she realised that wall was an absolute normality up until that point it never occurred to her

that it was abnormal in any way it was a natural part of her landscape on childhood you know and would it be fair to say that then she was nostalgic about the wall oh yeah yeah she had you know the first couple of nights of married life in England she just couldn't sleep she pined for that wall

you know throwing up a few shoe boxes between her and her husband that's it yeah couple of nights of married life in England, she just couldn't sleep. She pined for that wall, you know. Throwing up a few shoeboxes between her and her husband in the baby. That's it, yeah. Create a nice interface. One thing... He could do the seven years of negotiation and get access. One thing I do wonder about, right, what is the crack, we said, the young people now who are born after the Good Friday Agreement, right, who have not, like, what's their story? Like, I mean, do you know what I'm saying?

Yeah. Well, there's no one total comprehensive answer. You have pockets, you have families that have had traditions and experiences. That's obviously handed on. It's intergenerational. So elements of it is not only sectarian, but obviously it's, like in Limerick, we have family feuds. Yeah. So the sectarianism has obviously it's... Like, in Limerick, we have family feuds. Yeah. So the sectarianism has bled into essentially a family feud.

Well, perhaps broader than a family feud. You have kids who don't give a crap about it, didn't experience it. The one thing that worries me, I've done work in school... Is it uncles and parents that are keeping it going, or...? Well, to a certain degree, but there's still that communal myth. I've worked in schools, both state, effectively, predominantly Protestant and Catholic-maintained schools, and I've had kids born after the ceasefires Mae'n fath cymunol. Rwyf wedi gweithio mewn ysgolion, gan gyd-dynol, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, yn ystod y broses, and I've talked about the debunking of that romanticisation process.

Also, it has to do a lot of mediation work. Sometimes we would have situations where kids would get involved in violence that appeared to be nominally sectarian. And one Sunday, it was after, of course, an old firm, Celtic Rangers, or Rangers Celtic Game, and we had people who were phone holders. We got money for them from networks, et cetera, and they're out as stewards and marshals on the peripheries of our communities trying to persuade young people to get back. There was actually one of the Republicans caught

one of the kids from the Republican area, the markets, and he was texting one of the loyalist kids saying the Bon Jovi's, the Provis are moving us on, move around to such and such a street. So they were actually lazing, this was the recreational violence used in social media, et cetera, and all the technology you have now. So that went to the side world. It looks sectarian, and you can understand why. But for some of the kids, it was a bit of crack.

They actually had each other's mobile numbers or communicating in order to get away from their own local authorities. So they're like looking at the fucking, the older generation is... On April 5th, you must be very careful, Margaret. It's a girl. Witness the birth. the older generation is... Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six. It's the mark of the devil. Hey! Movie of the year.

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Former combatants, ex-prisoners, said they were saying, don't be doing this, this is stuff we did in our past. And they're saying, why should we miss out on the fun? That is fucking crazy, isn't it? Well, it's not crazy to you, but to me it is. Yeah. I think it's very healthy, gets them out of the house. They're not sitting on the iPad all the time and all, you know,

a bit of fresh air, run the boat, you know. Down salt, like down in fucking, down in Limerick, like, we've got this song called Up the Ra, right? Yes. Yeah, and it's not about Up the Ra at all. Like, it has nothing to do with Up the Ra. What it's about is, when I grew up in Limerick, we'd say, now, I would have seen,

the troubles would have been something when I was a kid, when I was a child,, now I would have seen, the troubles would have been something when I was a kid, when I was a child, and then I would have been fucking maybe ten years of age when the Oma bombing happened, that would have been, that's the last thing I actually remember. So, when we were growing up, if you were to be hard and masculine as a teenager, you would write

Sierra loves Rira on the fucking bus stop, do you know what I mean you would write continuity IRA or real IRA on a bus stop but no one knew what it meant

and people were writing real IRA and then beside it they would draw Bob Marley and then they would draw

maybe Tupac and then a speech bubble that says up the rah coming out of his mouth but like that was for real. That's what it was in Limerick. We didn't understand politically what any of it meant.

We just understood that they were tokens of being a hard cunt who smokes hash and drinks. And that's what it was. It's like Tupac says up the rah, you know what I mean? Really? I'm not joking. We've the same thing here with Protestant kids drawing pictures of Willie Nelson saying I'm the UDA.

Really? But like, like a year younger brothers and sisters born after the fucking Good Friday Agreement. Yeah? And like, did they give a shit about it? Is it hyper real for them now, you know what I mean? You're a very quiet, you're a very silent community.

What if we traumatise them? Traumatise them? Whatever you say, I say nothing. What's the crack with Protestants? That's a question that was put in... That was an actual question from Twitter, and it was the first thing I saw. Well, there is none. It's all sitting in the house listening to country and western music, oppressed, you know. And you know what?

Here's the thing. This is what... I got into a lot of trouble down south because I was calling communion wafers haunted bread. Yeah. Right? And I got into a lot of trouble from the Catholics for calling communion haunted bread.

And if you're... I'm not, I'm nothing. I'm certainly not a Catholic. It was forced on me as a child. But good man myself. He's after showing you his yorks, man. Dev's tonsils. But I fucking... What was I talking about before you showed me devil

era's mouth catholic oh yeah yeah but like i forgot what i was talking about man what's the crack of protestants what's the crack of protestants oh the haunted bread yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, I got... So anyway, I got in trouble for saying haunted bread by the Catholics. But the thing is, if you're a Catholic, it is actually fucking haunted bread. No, it is a piece of bread that is haunted by the ghost of a 2,000-year-old carpenter. For real, that's what happens. And a miracle occurs whereby when you eat the bread, you are not eating bread, it is the flesh of a ghost, from an Iron Age ghost. That's what they believe.

And they had a problem with me saying that. So whenever I got a mail from like a fucking priest or whatever, I go, oh, so you're a Protestant now, are you? Because it's true. If you have a problem with me calling it haunted bread, that means you're a Protestant now, are you? Because it's true. If you have a problem with me, Conrad, and haunted bread, that means you're a Protestant. Do you agree? Implicitly. But there's lots of crack with Protestants. The problem, or the richness...

of Protestantism is the sheer veracity of Protestantism. You know, you go on the Shankill Road tonight, you see a fellow walking out of the bar full, he's got his bookie sped up, and the Methodist will be up hard that he has been actually gambling. This is a terrible social vice in a sense. So you have so many,

so many veracity. I remember being... Yeah, what's the deal with... We've got nothing in Ireland. We've just got Catholics and the odd Protestants. And I asked my ma years ago, what was the difference between Catholics and Protestants when you were growing up? She grew up in County Tipperary in the fucking 40s.

She said, the only difference between the Protestants and the Catholics is that Protestants used to hide their drinking. And she was dead serious, like, she wasn't joking. God, she never met my granny then on the shankle it was constantly full you know um no you have that huge variety within protestant which is part of it so would you still have calvinists on the whole shebang oh yes you got the predestined you got the elects you've got the the mortally doomed and all that's really brilliantly cheerful stuff but i

remember being at a funeral of a friend's father about ten years ago in a very, very Calvinistic Presbyterian congregation in South Armagh. And they're the very serious kind of normal decoration. Oh, absolutely. It's all plain walls and the good book, that's it. And this young guy

gave a service, young Presbyterian minister, he had a lovely mini Cooper outside, all singing, all dancing, and he gave up, and he did this whole thing about if you get killed on the way back to Belfast today, you know, you're not one with the Lord. Even with the best intent in the world, you're burning in the hells of eternity. And I was with

a friend with me who was from a very Catholic Republican background, and she's just sitting there like this, going, Jesus Christ, get me out of here. And as we left, she was terrified of that darkness. As we left, we paused to let two older women go in front of us, two old dears. And one of them said to the other, we overheard him saying, he said, wasn't that a lovely service? Fuck. So it just depends which flavour you get. So it just depends which flavour you get.

See which flavour you get, you know. Here's one, right? What do the residents of the neighbourhoods that you give tours to, right, what do they make of being gawked at and gazed at by camera-carrying tourists? Well, they're not ghosts. That doesn't happen. It's not that you're peering through people's windows saying, Mrs, can you show us your Virgin Mary up on the wall, your safer card up on the wall.

They're like, you know, I mean, you're going into places like the Falls and the Shankill. There are communities and there are people in those communities, be they paramilitary or political, who want people to come because they want their narrative to be heard. They want their things, their symbols and their murals to be displayed. You know, so you're not being particularly invasive. And also, a lot of the

tourism, now we're independent, DC tourism is very much an independent but a lot of them are promoted by groups such as ex-prisoners organisations, Costio on the Republican side, Epic on the Loyalist side. And people would argue as well, it may bring something to the local economy too. There may be

benefits and they may be having 100, 200 people pass through the falls. They're going to the local shop if they're thirsty. benefits and then maybe having 100, 200 people pass through the floors in the shack. But they're going to go into the local shop if they're thirsty and then you get ex-UBF following them around with hairdryers to make them extra thirsty and then they go into the...

That's exactly it, yeah. Throw salt at them and everything, you know. But actually, what you said there about, okay, some elements of the community would actually be happy that the tours are there because they're telling their specific narrative, right? But what you do is, you don't have an ideology or narrative behind your tours. You're very straight down the middle, historical facts.

Well, we present narratives in different interpretations and leave it to people to draw their own conclusions from what they've seen or heard on that occasion. But do local heads from either side of the community go, fuck you, start saying that we're the class ones? No. It's very interesting. It really is interesting because we go into the falls,

we go into the Shankill. The local tour guides, you know, very often acknowledge us very warmly. We've had people, local people, coming over here from, say, an ex-prisoner background saying, delighted to see you here, hope you're enjoying the tour, hope you're having a good experience of Belfast, essentially. So it's a positive promotion of the city, be it loyalist or be it republican or whatever else,

positive promotion of what we think is a pretty good city in many ways. It's fucking class. It is. No. No, genuinely, I'm not just saying that because I'm here, but Jesus Christ, Belfast is unreal. Even though

down in Limerick we're technically stealing the film industry off you because of Brexit. Do you know that film that came out there, The Foreigner, where Pierce Brosnan plays Jerry Adams? So it's Pierce Brosnan playing Jerry Adams fighting Jackie Chan. You've all seen it, yeah? Yeah.

Have you seen it? No. But you know about it? No. You've all seen it, yeah? Yeah. Have you seen it? No. But you know about it? No. You don't know! You don't know about the film where Pierce Brosnan plays Gerry Adams and fights Jackie Chan?

I think as soon as I hear Pierce Brosnan, I automatically disengage. I want to know, are there a bunch of Chinese tourists coming to Belfast because of that film? I don't know, have you seen it? Is there? If Belfast because of that film? I don't know, have you seen, is there? If there are, put them all to me, I'll take them out. See, when I hear the phrase take them out in a Belfast accent.

Jesus Christ. What? Do I want another one of them? Donzo, would you like a... It's not a Polish beer, actually. They got us... What is it? From Prague, isn't it? Would you like a Prague beer there, Donzo? Thank you very much. Willy's celebrating his 21st birthday today.

And he's got a he's got a he's got a tattoo of Holy Mary that looks like Lady Gaga and fucking Padre Pio on the back

and Willie are you religious at all are you he's in his fuck I've seen him shelve all sorts up his hole He's in his fuck. I've seen him shelve all sorts up his hole. Now, here's a question, right? That you're allowed to tiptoe and be very cautious around.

Okay. But it's something I'm interested in. Do you think collusion between the British and Loyalist death squads went to the very top of government and do you think take that would be good if they had another reunion remember you were singing about being in purgatory and sitting on that fence with spl splinters up your arse? This is the one answer I'm going for here.

The thing about the whole collusion debate, it's part of a whole bigger thing. It's the dirty war, it's the secret war, it's all the stuff that went on behind the scenes. And the key here is, it was all clandestine. By its very, very nature, we'll probably never know. Until certain people just die off. Probably you're talking about intergenerational.

Basically, people have shuffled off this mortal coil. Will there be an environment in which it's possible to actually bring out a lot of what went on here? We talked earlier on, talked about the MRF, the four-square laundry. There was stuff going on there, particularly between 71 and 73 with the MRF,

some of which has come to the fore. People like Martin Dillon have written about it etc but it's the old iceberg and there's so much beneath the surface it's a lot of fucking powerful people in the British government it's very very embarrassing for the British government because once that stuff

gets out, like as soon as I heard about the MRF it's like right then I knew nobody has any moral ground at that point all sides were involved in fucking terrorism you know

you know about the MRF obviously and the laundry and all that shit which is I kind of admire them a little bit because the laundry thing

is kind of clever that was right come on lads come on let's fucking let's clean their laundry and find out if they're making bums.

Yeah. And also, we're sitting here in the Antrim Road. MRF had another covert operation here between 71 and 73. And it was particularly after the killings of the three Scottish Fusilier soldiers up at Lake O'Neill. This was very much a response to the intelligence gathering and that was the Gemini massage parlour on the Antrim Road which employed young English women from the oldest profession in the world. The place was bugged under surveillance, under recording etc. and they were basically encouraging local nationalists and republicans including a senator who was later very brutally killed

by loyalists, they were simply encouraging the boast of their localised knowledge in the pillow talk after the event, etc. And they were gleaning very, very key information about a lot of this. And at the time, Special Branch here, who are very much in the likes these days, you know, they were hitting the ground running. They were all over the place in terms of intelligence gathering, etc.

MRF were guys with British intelligence background who'd been in places like Kenya, etc. And they said, right, the local guys are amateurish, they're not up to speed here, we'll go in and we'll do the speed work. And then arguably they started, even by the standards of the time, to get out of control. And were sort of thwarted,

special branch were promoted. What they're accused of, just for the listeners, is they essentially sparked sectarianism. They tried to get the Raz conflict against the British Army to become sectarian by pretending that they were unionists and shooting innocent people in Catholic areas. Well, I mean, there was certainly plenty of sectarianism already there,

you know, but there was allegations that they had people who went out, undertook activities... Cart wrench, do what you want. They were going to activities, you know. You know, but 71, I always say in 71 we were really falling into the abyss. You know, all the relationships were breaking down. You had things like

the Tartan gangs emerging. What are the Tartan gangs? Tartan gangs were young Protestant gangs and they were a direct commemoration of the killing of three fusiliers. Three Scottish guys. And what's up with the tartan element? Was it Bay City Rotors related? Well, funny, that came along. There was a fusion.

The tartan gangs were young, militant, angry, Protestant teenagers, primarily. They did wear the tartan gear. This was a direct commemoration of the Scottish soldiers. They had vigilante patrols. You can actually go on YouTube. There's a cracking YouTube video. It's a documentary. It's actually Max Hastings, he later becomes editor

of the Daily Telegraph, talking to filming the Patartan gangs in inner East Belfast. Vigilante patrols, followed by the very violent expulsions of Catholics in predominantly Protestant areas, and then very much a feeder into the larger loyalist paramilitary organisations, but very much a phenomena

of the time. I always say in 71 this place was really falling into the abyss you can see the fracture and all the key relationships and then you get to 72 496 people killed here in one year just under 2000 actual bomb explosions you know everything was out of control at that stage um did did music or culture or anything like that help to, I don't know, create some type of fucking divide? Or not divide, fuck, what's the opposite of divide? Connection.

Unity. Yeah, like, I mean, the undertones. A lot of people's focused on the punk thing. You know, you've got the Good Vibrations movie and all the rest of it. You know, I was a young punk rocker. I had a Mohegan. My son now says I have a reverse Mohegan.

Cheeky little bastard. And actually on one of our tours, our city centre tour, we go to what's now Housing Executive, Offison Hill Street, but it was the site of the Harp Bar, and you have commemoration of the punk scene. You don't have any commemoration of a particularly vile gun and bomb attack on the same premises in 1975.

But a lot of people look at the punk thing and say, it was anarchic. Stiff little fingers, alternative ulster, that whole sort of anthem culture around punk here. And it did. You know, it broke down. It gives some people the first opportunity to have positive social contact with the other in a very divided city. But at the same time

it wasn't a panacea to all our ills. Did it try and consciously transcend sectarianism as a movement? No, but punk was never really a movement, given the nature of punk. It was never going to be that cohesive. I wasn't born yet. I was a dirty tot in my father's mind.

I don't know. Again, I'm reading from Wikipedia. Punk wasn't a movement, but what it did have was an energy that's challenged the old orthodoxies of the time. SLF, I mean, alternative ulster suspect device all those songs are very political without really offering a model it's it knows what it's against you did balance like the undertones you know they're from the bog side etc but the books you read this i perfect i took a piss beside the lead singer of the undertones good come on, if you look at some of their songs,

they so avoided politics. My Perfect Cousin, you know, Mars Bar, going down to Spar to get a Mars Bar. It's not exactly firing up the barricades on the bog side sort of stuff, you know. So you had just those different directions. They became irreverent. They went irreverent.

They went irreverent, they went spit poppy, etc. And then ironically, when they broke up, the two O'Neill brothers went into that petrol emotion, who were very, very nationalistic in their lyrics and their songs. Was there sectarian punk? I know that there was, I'm just thinking of England, there was Nazi punk in England, there was bands like Screwdriver and shit like that. Did that equate, was there either nationalist punk or unionist punk or anything like that? Not that I'm aware of I mean I will say I was a young punk

it's not my recollection of it certainly later I mean what we did have again was more the skinhead culture which became quite sick her in etc Johnny Adair was in a neo-nazi skinhead band so on the skinhead side

it was more leaning towards a very right-wing ideology, you had more of a manifestation of that. Punk tended to be scattered, as it was, but essentially either non-sectarian or anti-sectarian, and not an anti-sectarian, or two different entities as well. What is the crack with the likes of Combat 18 identifying with the likes of Johnny A.D.

or the German lads? Oh, the Hamburg lads, et cetera. Yeah, like I saw a documentary and they have a fucking shrine to Johnny Adair. Like, why? Well, he fits the bill, doesn't he? You know? He's big, he's bulky, blue-eyed,

sort of, he has these fairly right-wing ideas, et cetera. But does, is Johnny Adair, is it just Catholics that are as great? No, because he absolutely hated the UVF as well. Absolutely hated the UVF, which led to that shankle feud in the early 2000s. Adair, I mean, if you look at that incident that led, that incident, that day that led to the Schengel feud, the march, the culture march, et cetera,

you know, it was actually very, very interesting in terms of its mimicry of Nazi sort of propaganda, the culture day, the banners, the military. He actually stood in the lower Schengel estate that night and he read out a list of memes of people to be expelled from the community. It was classic sort of right-wing stuff. And he was obviously, he had an eye towards what was happening in Europe, and he was learning from him or taking from him?

He was learning and taking, and they were looking at him sometimes. But the vast majority of people, despite his idolisation and his self-promotion in many ways, the vast majority of people in Shankill Road were terrified of Johnny Adair, or absolutely were felt abhorred by Johnny Adair, you know? And what's he up to now, this?air. What's he up to now, this? What's he up to now, this? I can tell you exactly. Not that I'm a tout, by the way.

Let's be very careful about this. I had a couple on a tour last year and I said, where are you from? Young married couple and I said, we're from Troon, West Scotland. And I went, oh, we exported one of our most famous sons over to you. And they said, we know he lives five doors from our house. And I went, lovely, lovely. And then the woman said, in fairness to him, his garden's lovely.

We would have thunk it, you know. But that's that pure fucking Protestant thing, isn't it? Keep a nice garden. Oh, absolutely, yeah. Keep a nice garden, hide your drinking. Nice, rigid borders, etc. What's the level of awareness of the basic facts of the situation from British tourists? I'll give you an example.

Earlier on, a guy the other day, same age age as me so he grew up with us as the backdrop being astounded when he saw the Peace Wall in West Belfast so again it's like everything there's a paradigm I've had people who are hugely aware their knowledge of the politics and history of here is probably equivalent to many peoples here

I had a lovely tour one time, this woman very articulate, very engaging and she said to me I said you knew a lot about this and she said yeah my family were technically though it never really transpired were under threat from the ira and i said why and she said oh my mother was a politician and i said oh yeah who was she and she said you maybe haven't heard of her shirley williams one of the founders of the gang of four you know so you're getting those to be and we've had people, it's really interesting,

people come to tours, it's a personal journey. They're there to find out stuff to do with their own family history. It's not just an academic thing. It's not a dark, gory thing about what happened here, etc. And some very emotional moments. I once had an Australian father and son. We finished our city centre tour up at Oxford Street. River lagging in the background, the creams and all.

It's a great, great setting. The da had left here, he's from County Armagh, going to Adelaide, and at the end of the tour, it was really, it was a beautiful day, and he suddenly turns to his son, he was 21, Australian, never been here before, and he said, I have something to tell you, son, we didn't leave here just for, you know, the sun and the economy out in Australia, et cetera, and he revealed for the first time ever that a member of their family had been killed in a sectarian killing and the family fell apart and he couldn't deal with it so he decided to get out of this place while he could so it's this incredibly emotional moment of catharsis you know and confession the son the big sort of dubious 21 years of age slowly smiles and nods his head and goes, ah, that's why you're so fucked up.

So, suddenly this life with this damaged, awkward, difficult father suddenly made sense. It went from catharsis to comedy within about three seconds. So then, the last question I got which received a strange amount of likes ask him what he was doing when Norman Whiteside scored in 1985 FA Cup Final

Neil Garland I know you're out there somewhere and I'll get you for this what was I doing? I celebrated naturally I celebrated I just wasn't wearing any clothes at the time. And I'd say absolutely nothing else about that. Here. Any questions from the fucking audience?

Good morning. I want to know what people from the South think about people from the North. And so you talked about this tonight. And I'm particularly interested in how Brexit is happening and how you perceive it. And I would also like adults to talk about that.

Okay, so your question was, you want to know, what do people from the South think about people from the North? And what is our current opinion of Brexit? In that context. First of all, people from the south are fucking terrified of the north, and people from the north.

Genuinely. Because, like I said, we grew up in a hyper-real simulacrum of the north being first like first of all it was true fucking utv and utv in the 90s was just beige so it was a very a very honestly i'm being as honest as fuck if you were from the south the north was a very beige, violent place where occasionally you could get certain things for cheaper. And that was it. That was

the opinion of the fucking north. And the first gigs that we did up north, like, we were fucking shitting it. Really, really fucking terrified. Like, we had to drive through Divis today and we had our southern region and we're driving through there going, it's alright, it's Divis, it through Divis today. And we had our southern rage. And we're driving through there going,

it's all right, it's Divis, it's Divis, it's Divis. No one cares about a southern rage. So another time we came here, we were in the car, and you started taking a fucking photograph of me or the King Billy, and we nearly boxed the head off you. So extreme paranoia and terror and fear and kind of what people who are... people from Dublin think of Limerick. Do you know what I mean?

I understand when I meet people in the north, they're like, will you shut the fuck up? It's grand, we live a normal life. But I am a victim of the hyper-real narrative that has been given to me by the media. As regards Brexit, we feel very sorry for you. That's all. You know, we feel very sorry

for you, but like... And in Limerick, we're benefiting from the fact that George R.R. Martin is moving his operations down to Limerick. I know, what can we say? You didn't want Brexit. You voted against Brexit. But now you're part of a union, and it's been quite clear that...

Look, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter whether you're a fucking Protestant or Catholic or whatever, you go over to London and they call you a paddy. Do you know what I mean? So it's... Most people down south... people are republican to an extent people are republican when someone plays a wolf tone song

but most Irish people the Irish flag I consider to be a very beautiful thing because it's the green white and orange green represents the nationalists orange represents the unionists or the fucking protestants,

and white is the potential for unity and peace within it. And as well, I'm a big fan of Wolfton, which is Wolfton's entire shtick, aside from being a big fan of Scooter. Wolfton was a republicanism that transcends sectarianism. Do you know what I mean? But a lot of people, they don't mind the North becoming an independent country as well. Go on.

I couldn't hear it now because of your shrill voice. Sorry, man. Donzo didn't get to answer that question. It's an interesting question in that sort of, you addressed man here about how do people in the south do the north so I don't really know how to speak on behalf of the people of the south No, fucking do it man, do it now What I can say is I can go back into my little Belfast

cocoon and microcosm and say I know that people from south Belfast are fucking terrified of people from North Belfast, which makes sense. In terms of the Brexit thing, I'm sort of quite out of kilter here. I sometimes would have a pint in a local band hall, the Apprentice Boys Hall, close to where I live, and I think I'm the only person in the entire place who voted Remain. So when I speak out like that, I tend to get the, person in the entire place who voted remain. So when I speak out like that, I tend to get the, what the fuck do you know, you're a bizarre defty type of thing.

But it's a very real issue. People talk about the financial aspect of the peace monies and the structure that we've had enhanced and developed here in the capacity, but to me it's nearly the whole zeitgeist, that concept of post-conflict reconciliation and partnership between people who've been adversaries, the whole European model, and that very much, for better or for worse, influenced our political settlement here in terms of what happened in 1998. So there's a very deep psychological issue there. And I think Brexit is just such a, it's just a reversion to the

past animosities and the old bad spirit, you know, which by and large had been not cured but improved demonstrably way beyond what it had been 30, 40 years ago so I think it's we're on the road to disaster with this and that doesn't make me popular

Again, I haven't a fucking clue but is it fair to say that and that doesn't make me popular. Again, I haven't a fucking clue, but is it fair to say that voting to leave the EU would have been a unionist thing here? Not totally. The majority of the unionists in Accra, if we went out, did vote, Dave, but you can actually look at... But why is that? Because it's like, if we leave the EU,

we get to be part of Britain even more. There was a certain degree of that. Is there suspicion that the EU were kind of wanting a united Ireland? There's got to be an element of that too. But there are certain unionist constituencies, more affluent unionist constituencies, where you can see that the majority of unions actually voted to remain. Ironically, it's in places like North Belfast, East Belfast, etc. Ironically it's in places like North Belfast, East Belfast etc. Which, you know, you walk around and there's so many of the community projects will have their EU blue badge and acknowledgement etc.

And people have voted against the very thing that has actually sustained some of their community development work and practice over the last 25, particularly since 1993 when the peace monies really started to kick in. And was a lot of peace money European money? Yeah, massively so. Because the EU were just like, here, what are you doing right now? What's the ground? Well, the British and Irish governments, basically in the early 90s as we moved towards potential ceasefire situation, lobbied the European Union. The European Union were totally receptive to the idea of finding a major, particularly after the economic onslaught of the campaigns here, but also that idea of fostering relationships, developing a peace dividend,

making people stakeholders and giving people a buy-in, makes them more likely to engage potentially in a political dialogue that will lead to some form of agreement. That sounds all very perfect. There were many flaws with the European model. As somebody who had to do European applications and fill in evaluation in modern forms, it was a bureaucratic nightmare but was part of a greater good certainly from the work that i was doing virtually for mediation work

adult education work was virtually all funded for 20 years through european union and one thing actually the three points i made about the north there regarding being a southerner were quite negative well one of the things that southerners do, a positive that southern people have towards the north is that we are envious of how politically engaged everyone seems to be. And we found that during the

Celtic Tiger we didn't give a roaring shit about politics. As long as we had decking out the back garden, no one gave a shit about politics. But when the recession hit, the average person started to care about what the fuck are the government doing, and we were quite envious of northern people knowing what the shit is at all times, because you have to, do you know what I mean?

Any other questions from the audience? You're not in the audience. Go on. What's your favourite Scooter song? What's my favourite Scooter song? What's my favourite Scooter song? Do you know what? Not... I was going to say raving in the UK.

Not raving in the UK. Raving in Ireland. They made one... Yeah. The gentleman with the backwards hat. How the fuck did this turn into a conversation about Scooter? Scooter look, and they look like fascists. They've got, they're German, they've got shaved blonde heads and they wear bomber jackets.

Any non-Scooter-related questions? This man is standing up. His question is so tumescent. We all vape as well. Yeah, if you want, like. Don't give a shit. What, are you waiting for my permission to vape? What's the... Who's got a question?

This lady with the glasses. Yeah, of course. Why is that even a question? Yeah. No, no brainer. Absolutely. Absolutely. Who's stopping that?

Like, why can't you do that? Is it, no, but like, is it like, in Ireland, we couldn't do it because, um, referendum, it was in the constitution. Like, is it? Yeah. It's what? He'll see. Petitioning concerns. So, like, in Australia, they just got their thing, but I don't think it was public vote.

It's just the politicians were like, it's legal now. Is that how it is here, too? No, it's petition and concern. One side, the community can block, the other side, the community can block a vote if it's a communal concern. So that's what we've had in the recent years. So, okay, a lot of people, when the issue of marriage equality was said there, a lot of people started shouting DUP. Has it become sectarian? Oh, fuck me! Has it?

What do you think, Danzo? Well, certainly Sinn Féin are pro-equal marriage. The DUP most certainly are against it. The UUP tend to split between what's left of the Ulster Unionist Party between their liberal secular faction, Mike, and the rest of the party. Interestingly, very interestingly though, the Progressive Unionist Party who are associated with the Ulster Volunteer Force have had a pro pro equality stance on this very issue for quite some time now. You know, the hard men of the UVF are saying,

yeah, you want to get married to another bloke, you want to get married to another woman? Fine, none of our business. So that's quite a strange one. And within the SDLP, where you have that sort of social democratic strain against the more traditionally Catholic nationalist strain, the Alistair McDonalds of the world, et cetera, you actually have a very real internal tension there about this very

issue as well, you know, so it's not quite unionist nationalist you can see tendencies one way in one community and tendencies one way in the other community but they're complexities because one thing, like within the complexity of fucking Northern politics that we've discussed about this evening

is there an element of unionism that is opposing marriage equality simply because the shinners are like go on the gays but you know what i mean like but the shinners will choose every opportunity to be progressive if they can so is it is it reactionary that's what i want to know is it reactionary or is it because of their hardcore christian that's how they carry on because Because Catholics aren't fans of gays either. Well, certainly within the DUP, you have that very strong theological Protestant content and core within their party. But why don't Sinn Féin have that? They're supposed to be representing Catholics.

No, but seriously, like, Catholics are agents, like. Like, no, but, like, why, like, if the unionists over here are very much about their, like you said, theological, like, I don't associate, even though Sinn Féin represent nationalist Catholic community, I never associate that side of things with anything resembling what I would consider Catholicism. I consider, for me, Catholicism is magna laundris and very, very backward, repressive views, and I never, I don't associate the likes of Sinn Féin with that at all, or Catholics up north. It's like Catholicism is something done. I think this is another classic example of all the contradictions that sometimes come to the surface when you examine underneath. I mean, you know, Unionists aspiring to be, and I've had this out with many Unionists and Protestant friends, aspiring to be as ac yn y ddaear. Mae unionistion yn ymddygiad i fod, ac rwyf wedi cael hynny gyda llawer o unionistion a ffrindiau brotesiynol, yn ymddygiad i fod fel Brifysgol fel Finchley. Ac rwy'n dweud, beth am

y peth o gyfnod cwmni gwaith? Beth am y peth o abortaith? Ac yn sydyn, rydych chi'n yn hollol allan o'r ciltr gyda'r Brifysgol. Gydag ymddygiad brifysgol. Ie. Ac mae Sinn Ffain yn fawr iawn am y peth o gyfnod cwmni gwaith. Ond, clywedwch Sinn Ffain yn siarad am y peth o abortaith. Ie. Ac yn sydyn, rydych chi'n dechrau gweld llawer o tansiynau a tharwadau yn yno hefyd. the equal marriage issue, but listen to Sinn Féin talking about the issue of abortion, and suddenly you start to see lots of tensions and terrible rifts in there as well, you know.

Do you reckon that Sinn Féin abortion thing is a Catholic shame, Tiff Carrion? There's... I'm not a Catholic, I'm not a member of Sinn Féin, so I can't speak on behalf of the broader movement, the population. Well, if you listen to Francie Molloy at the last Ardèche talking about how

what was perceived to be a shifting position on abortion would not go down well about Rome, but Sinn Féin giving a shit about Rome via Boston. Do you get me? That Sinn Féin, they don't give a shit about the Pope, they give a shit about the fact that the Irish-Americans give a shit about the Pope. In the same way that fucking, I don't know, it was about two

years ago, Sinn Féin were overdoing their fundraising, whatever they do with the Americans, and the Americans straight out said to them, it was about the water overdoing their fundraising, whatever to do with the Americans, and the Americans straight out said to them, it was about the water protests. They said, you're being a little bit socialist there over in Ireland, eh? Do you know what I mean? But does that make sense?

The Catholicism of Sinn Féin, it more has to do with Yanks than it has to do with the Pope. Money from the Yanks. Yeah. I've got a new song coming out called The Yanks Love the IRA until they find out that they're socialist. So I think we'll end it on that. That was, Jesus, thanks very much for coming out, lads, and you were... And Thank you very much

For being part of the First Life podcast I hope I translate well for the internet And thank you very much to Danzo For fucking being unreal Alright Danzo for fucking being unreal alright Yards go in peace oh so that was the

interview with Danzo in Duncarn in Belfast and I had a fucking amazing time it was great crack as you can tell the audience were unbelievable em it was a lot of fun em

yeah fuck it that was great crack I learnt a lot and hopefully the live podcast gigs from here on in will be that much crack and I'm really looking forward to getting out there and interviewing some interesting people and improving my interview techniques as well that's the first time it's the first time I've ever actually interviewed another person I'm usually the one being interviewed and it was quite humbling for me because when you're used to being interviewed you're used to being the center of attention so

I'm going to try and work on my listening skills and things like that and become a better interviewer to accommodate the podcast and I hope it didn't diminish your podcast hug and you found that enjoyable this is also the longest fucking podcast we've ever had I think up to 89 minutes there so during that I didn't want to interrupt the interview with the mid podcast um advert so we'll have the ocarina pause now near the end and if you know the ocarina pause you'll know that some weeks you'll either hear a digitally inserted advert or me playing my delicious Spanish clay whistle

which I didn't bring the Belfast with me because it's too precious here's the ocarina this is dedicated to Danzo and the people of Duncown and the people of Duncarn and the people of Shankill. Later on after that interview actually, me and some accomplices, we went for some delicious pints and we went to a place where there was a KLE session, some trad music. Went to a place where there was a. A KLE session. Some trad music.

And then we drove around. At about two in the morning. Around the Duncairn estate. And around the Shankill estate. And I got some photographs. Taken of me. In front of some sectarian murals. Which.

I wanted to do it to challenge my perception. Of Belfast. Normally. You know I'd have been terrified. Fuck me. I can't go into Shank Hill at two in the morning and get a photograph in front of a mural. But I did it. And it was grand. No one said nothing. No one gave a shit. Because it's 2018. So, go in peace. It'll be back to normal, normal I think next week with just your regular podcast and

let me know if you enjoyed the live one if you didn't if you found your podcast hug was interfered with what I might start doing is maybe uploading the live podcast separately hopefully I won't have to do that because that's

twice the work for one week and I mightn't have the time but I'll do that if needs be God bless have a bit of crack and look after yourself for the week thank you very much rock city you're the best fans in the league bar none tickets are on sale now for fan appreciation night on saturday april 13th when the tor the Toronto Rock hosts the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre

in Hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com.