Steaming Belfast by Vijai Maheshwari

The revelers at Belfast’s mall-like Odyssey complex are ‘steaming’ ‘pumping’ ‘flying’ and ‘romping’ on Saturday nights, according to Mary Rose Gilmore, Operations Managers at the vast & cheesy entertainment complex, whose attractions include a loungy Bar Seven, a Coyote Ugly bar, the Bamboo Beach Club, the members-only Precioius nightclub, and the Refinery. “We facilitate 6,000 people on weekends,” says Gilmore, a fast-talking, opinionated woman-- “only old codgers drink guiness here, the rest are into alkopops,” she says-- who moved back to Belfast from the UK three years ago, like everyone who is somebody in this fast-changing Klondike town, which is finally returning to normalcy since the ceasefire with the IRA in 1998.

The three year old Odyssey isn’t stylish or modern, in fact it is downright derivative, an outpost of suburbia in a country more known for dark pubs & lyric poets. But its presence is signifant in more than one way: It is at the junction of two seriously rough areas--one Catholic, the other Protestant. Just a little over five years ago, snipers controlled the neighborhood. Now it has been reclaimed, its huge arena next door playing host to big acts like Nelly & Beyonce. “Bands love playing here because they get a response they don’t get anywhere else in the world. People here are eager for being deprived for so long,” says Gilmore.

Elsewhere, Belfast is quickly building over the scars of its decades-long internecine warfare, and rushing to emulate its sister city of Dublin. Slick lounge bars/restaurants like the Apartment with large plate glass windows, cocktails like St. Petersburg Slug & Siberian Express and nouvelle-cuisine menu are buzzing even during the week. The energy of the well-dressed patrons at the Apartment, and other upscale bars and clubs like Bocca, La Lea, Skye is palpable. Even when the commercial DJ plays Billie Jean, the short-skirted Irish lasses go into a frenzy, flailing their arms around and twirling around with their partners. The conversation-level at the nightspots is deafening, and lines around the bars are five feet deep as Belfast’s new beaumonde of bankers, lawyers, ad executives and real estate developers vie for an alcoholic high before the mandatory 1 am closing time. With cheap charter flights to the big cities in England’s north, Amsterdam and Barcelona, partyers are also flying in for the weekend to enjoy a city that hasn’t become jaded yet. “It’s like Dublin ten years ago,” is the slogan on everyone’s lips. Even the Dubliners themselves have bought into the hype: Eleven Dubliners on a ‘hen weekend’ of shopping and boozing were staying at our design hotel, TenSq, whose lavish Pudong style rooms are modeled on pre-war Shanghai. “It’s more friendly than Dublin,” said one of the girls. “People have become quite snooty there.”

Kevin Traynor, a resident DJ at the Edge nightclub, and founder of a DJ skool, also moved to Belfast from London three years ago. “There’s a lot of space for new ventures. People are still very open and the scene hasn’t yet fragmented into house or drum n’ bass enthusiasts as elsewhere.” He’s considering organising a dance music festival in the summertime and bringing in big-name DJs from London and beyond. “Everyone wants to come here. They’re curious to see what it’s like now.”

Clubs and bars aren’t the only markers of Belfast’s Renaissance. During the Troubles, the long decades of low-intensity conflict, which ended in 1998, downtown Belfast was a barricaded area of barbed wire and road blocks patrolled by British troops; a dangerous urban space which became a ghost town at night. Big iron gates downtown on Falls Road were slammed shut at night to separate the Catholic & Protestant neighborhoods. With the money flowing in since the ceasefire though, the city has gone on a building spree, with new office complexes, hotels, art galleries and designer shops brightening up downtown again. The cylindrical, glass-walled Waterfront Hall includes a theater space, swish restaurants and conference facilities. Belfast’s ‘Leaning Tower,’ a Victorian-era clock edifice has been restored, and so has the Linen Hall Library. Kookai, Deisel and other designer labels line Donegal Square, the city’s main shopping drag. A highway now separates the ‘ghetto’ area where much of the fighting took place from the center, a signpost for a 24 hour Tescos supermarket looming over the passing cars.

Meanwhile, a glass-encased blue bridge crosses the River Lagan, highlighting the renovation of the waterfront with new apartment blocks and office spaces. A 30 ft ceramic ‘fish’ built by a local architect also dominates the piazza near the river. An old bathouse has been turned into a cutting-edge modern art space, The Ormeau Baths Gallery, whose recent shows inlcuded Yoko Ono and Henri Cartier-Bresson. The neo-classical City Hall has been given a facelift, and so have the cobblestoned streets around Cathedral Square downtown, which now buzzes with cafes, pubs and high street retailers.

The hectic pace of change and the giddy optimism of the residents can be disorienting for those coming to Ireland for its traditional charms: thick, shoe polish black Guiness with a heavy topping of creamy foam, black pudding and folksy hospitality. Our first meal in Belfast, starving as we were from a budget EasyJet flight from Amsterdam, was fries at a Burger King. Later we ate ‘curry’ for dinner. It was only on the second day that we found the Crown Pub, a Victorian-era gem with bright-colored polychromatic tiles decorating its front entrance. The inside is so ornate that it recalls a baroque church: the ceiling is painted primrose yellow and gold; Corinthian columns divide up the space; and there are gilded mirrors everywhere. The pub dates back to 1826 and is famous for its Guiness and champ--mashed potatoes with onions and sprigs of rosemary. Two brothers from Manchester in town for a family weekend are eager to chat and share their experiences growing up in war-torn Belfast. “We nevah come doon heer, we’d a been searched nekked. We got pissed in the outskirts yonder.”

The Crown Pub is not the only remnant of Irishness in Belfast. There is the wonderfully restored Linen Hall Library with its varnished bannisters and upholstered seats where the ghosts of Jonathan Swift and other famous native bards linger. (A hill which looks like the face of a man from a distance inspired Swift’s Gullivers Travels.) The famous Titanic was built at Belfast -- once the biggest shipbuilder, linenmaker and tobacco manufacturer in the world -- and the old shipping docks are still there, although the shipyard has long been shut down. Better than wandering the eerie waterfront there, watch a 3-D documentary of the voyage down to the Titanic at the IMAX Theater in the Odyssey, as we did.

The exhibits at the Ulster History & Transport museum just outside town recreate Ireland of the early 1900s with life-size barnyard churches, mills, blacksmiths, candy shops, artisan houses & tea rooms. The sweet shop still sells liquorice, rock, rhubard candy and other delicacies familiar to readers of Enid Blyton or Jane Austen. The grounds of the museum are covered in that lush-green grass that is so redolent of Great Britain; mist hovering over the ash, poplar and oak trees, brings one back to the novels of Thomas Hardy and Edwardian-era films. The old man in his Ulster suit at the recreated Post Office, which sells Victorian-era postcards, is funny & cheeky, as the Irish can be. When we compliment him on his friendliness he retorts, “We ain’t friendly, we’re just nosey.”

“Imagine the city you think you know; now start again,” is the slogan of the Belfast Visitor Center. It’s a line which rings true in more than one way. Modern Belfast is exciting and uplifting but as visitors we were still keen for some of the ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ experience, wanting to revisit the sites of the pub bombings and terrorist attacks which dominated the news in the 70s and early 80s. Most of the trouble took place in the city’s downtown ghettos where poor Catholics and Protestants once lived side by side. Falls Street was the epicenter of the violence and the riots and so we headed there on a sunny Saturday afternoon. The area is still seedy and depressing with boarded up houses, paint peeling off storefronts and beer cans and litter everywhere. As we drive past the shabby houses and shuttered pubs we’re struck by the murals: Large frescoes painted on the sides of the buildings are the only reminders of the past fightings. ‘No discrimination against Irish POWS,’ reads one, which features men brandishing machine guns. ‘To the heroes of the 1916 Post Office’ reads another. The brick offices of the Sinn Fein, the political arm of the IRA, are here, and the side wall features a particularly famous mural in honor of George Sands, an IRA member who died in prison after a 66-day hunger. His beared visage smiles at passers by, the words ‘George Sands--Revolutionary, poet, freedom fighter’ painted under his portrait. It is a moving image and it reminds me of similar murals in Puerto Rican neighborhoods in New York. Yet, this is Belfast, and the plethora of murals with their overtly political messages does much to remind visitors of the conflict.

The slick downtown cafes of Cathedral Square are just a stone’s throw away from Falls Road, and yet they seem unreal when we are back in trendy Belfast with its Replay-wearing youth and smart-suited bankers. It is this contrast though which gives the city its particular vibe and enduring charm. Visit now before it turns into another Dublin and is overrun by tourists and the locals turn haughty and unwelcoming.