IS TAKING one of Belfast's famous black taxi tours really worth it if you're a local? 'Yes' appears to be the answer, as I discovered when I booked a place on Cab Tours Belfast's Black Taxi Tour.
This 90-minute guided tour of west Belfast's murals and peace walls has just been ranked fifth in the UK category of the TripAdvisor Travellers Choice Best of the Best Things to Do list, which is based on reviews submitted by Tripadvisor users.
Passengers are picked up from Donegall Square East beside Belfast City Hall, with the tour visiting both the Shankill Road and the Falls Road, as well as stopping at the 'peace wall', spending roughly 30 minutes in each area.
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Last year, the tour ranked number 17 on the same TripAdvisor list of best reviewed experiences, highlighting its growing popularity.
“It’s some achievement, TripAdvisor don’t even tell us," explains Cab Tours co-owner and guide, Thomas Campbell.
"We only found out last year when the media started contacting us.
“If someone had said 25 years ago, 'you’ll be doing political tours', you would have laughed at it. To receive recognition for telling people about the Troubles is crazy.”
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Thomas and co-owner Isaac Swindell, both from north Belfast, set up the company in January 2017. Although they are from the same area, they come from opposite sides of the sectarian divide, which is why the unbiased nature of the tour is such an integral part of it.
“We have 10 Catholic and 10 Protestant tour guides, we are completely neutral," says Thomas.
"You get people who try to guess which side you’re from, but we never tell them because it ruins it,”
Starting on the Shankill Road, the tour takes you through the lower Shankill to Hopewell Crescent, where visitors can see loyalist murals such as one honouring UDA gunman Stephen McKeag, who was reputedly responsible for several sectarian murders.
“Most people know Top Gun as Tom Cruise, I would know Top Gun as Stevie,” Thomas explains.
To the left-hand side of the mural is an image of two gunmen. Thomas encourages passengers to get out of the taxi at this point, reassuring everyone that they are perfectly safe. The purpose is to show that, no matter where you stand, both the gunmen and the mural of Stephen McKeag are still looking directly at you.
“We call this the 'Belfast Mona Lisa'," he says.
"What that sort of means is that, at the time when the Troubles were on, if you were from the neighbourhood you had nothing to worry about. Stevie was watching over you. If you weren’t from the neighbourhood, they were watching you.”
However, Thomas is also keen to point out the progress that has been made in the last 25 years, drawing attention to the 'women’s voices matter' mural, The Women's Quilt, which replaced a contentious paramilitary mural and an artwork showing the burning of Protestant homes at the beginning of the Troubles.
Created by the Lower Shankill Women’s Group with artist Lesley Cherry, The Women's Quilt depicts a patchwork quilt designed by group members and featuring words related to women's roles within the community and family, such as 'love', 'aunt', 'hope' and 'granny'.
“I see 'stubborn' and I see 'loud': I have a wife and a daughter at home, the wife’s loud and the daughter's stubborn,” jokes Thomas.
Cab Tours Belfast have also been involved in getting Community Rescue Service murals put up in both the Shankill estate and on the Falls Road side of the International Wall, which is something the company is very proud of.
“It’s a massive statement and a massive step forward,” says Thomas of the artworks celebrating the search and rescue organisation operated by volunteers from communities across the north.
The tour then travels to the 'international wall', crossing from the Protestant side of the divide to the Catholic side, allowing time for passengers to read and take in all the murals on display.
“One side supports Palestine, the opposite side supports Israel, so just by coming through the different neighbourhoods there’s totally different murals and totally different mindsets," Thomas explains.
"Everything in here [on the Falls side] wants Ireland united. Everything on the opposite side is Protestant British.
"They call the wall the 'international wall' as it changes regularly. You could come back here in six months and they’ll all have changed. There’s only two [murals] that have never changed and that’s the Irish Patriots and the Blacks [Black Lives Matter].”
The next stop is the 'peace wall'. Covered in legal graffiti, visitors are actively encouraged to write messages, many of which echo hope for continued peace and equality in Northern Ireland.
“All the graffiti you see is legal graffiti. Graffiti artists from all over the world come here every three years and they do the background graffiti which is non-political. We then started to bring tourists round here, they started to write their peace messages on the wall and that’s the reason we called it the 'peace wall'.”
Tourists also get to see the other side of the 'peace wall' by driving through Clonard village, a dramatic contrast as it is covered with trees and hedges.
Nearing the end of the tour, the taxi also stops at Bombay Street, which is described as 'one of the most famous streets in Belfast' as it is believed to be where the Troubles broke out, as well as at the bottom of the Falls Road, so visitors can see the world-famous Bobby Sands mural.
The unbiased telling of Northern Ireland's troubled history gives the tour a unique selling point, as Thomas tells me.
“When we set up this company we had to stress that it was Catholic and Protestant owned. We get people phoning up saying they want a Catholic driver or they want a Protestant driver and we won’t do it, we just tell them they’re better off picking another company.
"That’s why we get so many good reviews, because we just do it neutral. We don’t have an opinion. They’re here to learn the history, we just tell them what’s on the wall.”
Visitors can also opt to visit Crumlin Road Gaol, the shipyard area or newer attractions such as Titanic Belfast as part of the tour for an even more immersive experience.
“We are closed down today, we can’t take any more bookings. We are closed down every day, we would love another 10 or 20 drivers because we can't cope with the amount of tourists.
"People think they’re all from America, but they couldn’t be more wrong: we get locals from the Shankill Road and locals from the Falls Road. We also partner with Crumlin Road Gaol, so when you go to the Gaol to pick up, it’s not a tourist - it’s a local.”
:: See cabtoursbelfast.com for further information.
