This Week’s column that appears in The Kerryman.
Michael Commane
In conversation with a friend from Northern Ireland, now living in Australia, he insisted we in the South have no idea what went on in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.
He recalled how as a young boy he was mistreated by the security forces. I have no idea what went on. I learned about it through the media, never experienced it in my own flesh.
Last week I travelled by rail to Belfast. If you are a regular reader of this column you will know I am a train nerd. I noticed boarding the train in Dublin that the Irish Rail logo, which includes the colours green white and orange, the colours of the national flag, were missing on the logo of this train.
I discovered that all Irish Rail trains travelling across the border have had the colours removed. Sounds crazy to me. Before the introduction of the hourly Dublin Belfast service Northern Ireland Railways and Irish Rail operated a common Enterprise service with identical trains, which simply had the word Enterprise written on the coaches.
With the new enhanced hourly service it was necessary to use more Irish Rail rolling stock in addition to the Enterprise trains.
Last October the all-new Belfast Grand Central Station was officially opened. It’s a fabulous combined rail bus station. Plenty of open space. I went to a machine to purchase a single rail ticket to Connolly Station to discover it was not possible to buy a ticket to Dublin. I was shocked, annoyed too.
Here I was in a state-of-the-art €340 million new facility and the machine would not allow me purchase a ticket to Dublin. I was directed to a standard ticket desk. I asked a staff member of Northern Ireland Railways why the machine could not issue me a ticket.
He explained that I was moving to another jurisdiction. I retorted I could buy a ticket in a machine in Berlin to Paris, to which he replied that Northern Ireland Railways is a separate company to Irish Rail. Of course I had an answer for him: German Rail is a separate company from French Rail.
At that stage he looked up to the heavens. I got the impression he thought I was impossible. I pursued with my thinking. I think he began to wonder himself how crazy it all is.
My friend in Australia introduced me to a lifelong friend of his, whom I have met a few times over the years. I think I can honestly say that he is a great person. We can laugh and joke together, discuss too. I enjoy his company. Why should it be any other way?
When we first met, I presumed from his name that he was Protestant. I was correct. But isn’t it obscenely outrageous how we create divisions between peoples.
As a child and a young man I always thought it was the other person who was the bigot. More nonsense.
How dare we ever make our minds up about other people when we hardly even know ourselves. Just look at the state of the world and ask why it is in the state of chassis it is.
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