Word: belfast
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Belfast neighborhood of Ardoyne, a brick wall separates the Protestant and Catholic working-class neighborhoods, concealing the fact that the terraces of narrow houses are the same on each side. There is a small door in the wall, but the children never pass through it. Ciaran, 12, who was all swaggering belligerence around the British troops, mimicking an English upper- class accent to shout "Bloody buggers" as they passed, goes within 5 yds. of the door, then stops. He won't say why; he just knows that behind it lies danger...
They are bored. Protestant neighborhoods are not patrolled by the British army or the RUC; there is little street life and to the residents, the enemy is an invisible force behind a wall. Robert, younger but more spirited, wants out of Belfast. He hopes to immigrate to Australia someday. Frankie is less of a schemer, more of a follower. His father is a member of the U.D.F., the Ulster Defense Force, one of the Protestant paramilitary groups. He doesn't know what he will do when he grows up, except perhaps end up like his father. "I dunno," he says...
There are plenty of kids in Belfast who reject either option. Some of them opt for "joyriding," a relatively new plague, a widespread, nonpartisan and deadly display of juvenile delinquency that equally confounds parents, the paramilitaries and the police...
Joyriding in Belfast is a very different sport from American Graffiti-style cruising. Kids steal a car, then speed through the streets, too often crashing through police barricades or into oncoming cars. Because the cops tend to start shooting at the first glimpse of a careering stolen vehicle, joyriders will place a four- or five-year-old up against the back window to discourage the fire. Afterward they often strip the car and sell the parts. The joyriders grab cars from Catholic more than from Protestant neighborhoods, so the I.R.A. has taken to kneecapping those whom they capture. For every...
...rules. Simon, 15, a Roman Catholic and a car thief, passionately insists he hates the Provos, hates the cops, but he still knows what side of the civil war he is on. He was in the neighborhood of New Lodge the night of the biggest riot in Belfast last August, throwing rocks alongside the pro-I.R.A. teenagers he normally shuns. He makes a distinction between the thrill of joyriding and that of rioting. "Joyriding is for fun," he says earnestly. "Rioting is because you hate...