Word: belfast
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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...
Barricading streets, burning cars and tossing petrol bombs are mostly summer events, when there are anniversaries to commemorate, school is out and nights are warm. It's a time when the air of Belfast is thin with the promise of excitement, and mothers pray for rain. "The lads don't go out and fight as much when it's raining," says Betty, 33. Four of her five brothers have done time, and her three sons are all adept at making petrol bombs. Even the six- year-old, whose forehead is blackened by a burn mark he got while making...