Irish Blood, English Heart, Ulster Fry

by Annie Caulfield

  Very conveniently for me, a play called Protestants was having its opening night a few hundred yards down the road.

  The play was directed by a young Catholic woman, married to a Protestant. She’d wanted to go back to the simple core of Protestant belief, hoping to understand Protestant identity in a way that reached way beyond the small, distorting confines of Northern Ireland. The director already had a West End transfer with a play about snooker player Alex Higgins; troubling herself with Protestant theology wasn’t something she was doing to make her name. As she said in the after-show discussion, ‘I could have done the play about Protestants that everyone would have expected to come out of Northern Ireland and had a controversial hit – but that would have been so lazy, and everyone in the audience would go out feeling they’d got exactly what they expected and could have written it themselves. You know the play I mean, you can see it in your heads now.’

  A lone actor played a range of characters; a Catholic-hating Glasgow football hooligan, a Cromwellian soldier from Cork, an American snake-charming fundamentalist… Somewhere in all this was a Protestant from Armagh, remembering his grandfather’s preparations for the Orange parades, tending his garden and wondering what his heritage was, beyond the carefully brushed bowler and lovingly ironed orange sash.

  All these types had a clever tilt to their character that made me understand, if only for a moment, their point of view. The tilts also gave them resonance. That Cromwell’s loyal soldier was Irish took the story of Cromwell’s massacres away from the familiar ‘look what the bad English did to Ireland’. And reminded of constant internal betrayals in Ireland, convoluted contradictions…

  At the core of the play was Martin Luther himself, seeking a simple loving relationship between man and God – without wealth, hierarchy or politics to intervene in this spiritual relationship. Luther concluded that each person had a responsibility to create this relationship for themselves, protesting against anything they felt corrupted it – responsible for this relationship in how they thought, lived and prayed. True Protestantism was a very grown-up religion.

  Most of the mesmerized audience stayed for the opening-night discussion. Among invited guests was the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Northern Ireland, an elderly bearded man, who professed himself baffled for a while by the play’s abstract structure and that he’d been very ‘put off by the f’ing and blinding’ but he conceded: ‘In the end I saw what you were getting at, although to my mind you could have got at it by a more straightforward route. The Glasgow hooligan talks of a culture of “every man for himself”, there is that danger in our religion. Individualism can be seen as a licence for anarchy. There still have to be structures – family, moral responsibility. Luther was saying man’s relationship with God is individual, but not presumptuously self-indulgent. And the play reminded us of how much, in this province, frippery and unnecessary trappings of so-called tradition have been attached to what is a simple religion.’

  A young man at the back, with trendy hair and what looked like very expensive designer clothes, put his hand up to speak and beamed when it was his turn. ‘I have to say the play made me proud to be a Prod. And I’m a Catholic.’

  Much laughter round the room. I agreed with him. Judging Protestantism by the Northern Irish trappings of Loyalist paramilitaries and Unionist belligerence was like judging Catholicism by the Magdalene Sisters and the Vatican bank.

  The Catholic proud Prod concluded, ‘I liked being made to remember that the word “protest” is in there and a protesting conscience can belong to anyone. I liked the play making me understand something I’ve always felt excluded from – what on earth it is that most of my neighbours believe in. What they believe is simple and moving, I didn’t know that. And it’s modern, about seeking God. Seeking for yourself, that’s very modern. I didn’t know about that.’

  I had the same ignorance about Protestantism. However long you’ve been away, you know you’re a Northern Irish Catholic when you hesitate writing the word Protestant, because you think it has a ‘d’ in it.

  A man in front of me asked why there had been no mention of the Bible in the play, as the Bible was such an important part of Protestant worship. The director said, ‘I didn’t want to put the Bible on stage, as many would feel that was blasphemy.’

  The man was then introduced to the audience. A Unionist politician from City Hall. He asked where else the play was going.

  ‘We’ve had invites from community groups in Protestant areas. We’ve also had an inquiry from a Catholic community centre in the Ardoyne. If it turns out they really want it up there I think it would be very interesting.’

  The Unionist politician then asked, almost rhetorically, why Protestants were so under-represented in the arts.

  The director replied, ‘I don’t know. There are Protestants in the arts, lots of them but they tend to be… well, very few of them are Unionists.’

  The politician said nothing. There was a mumble from some of the audience, but no one offered a contradiction.

  Everyone left in ebullient mood, for different reasons, some feeling vindicated, others, like me, feeling educated.

  The play really needed to be compulsory viewing for Catholics who couldn’t see the woods for Paisley and Chelsea Headhunters.

  There was definitely a shifting mood in Belfast – a Unionist politician had come out to see a play by a wee Catholic girl about his religion. And he’d wanted the audience to know he was there.

  His question about the lack of Protestants in the arts was probably one he could have answered himself, if he’d thought further about the history of his religion in the city.

  Belfast had put in a bid to be European City of Culture 2008. This would have meant a massive injection of cash into the city; it could have been on the map for a whole new range of reasons. Being City of Culture changed Glasgow completely – or certainly changed its reputation. Belfast’s bid wasn’t even shortlisted. Liverpool won the prize – so it almost went to an Irish city.

  The remnant of the Troubles came quite low on the list of reasons given for the bid’s failure. The main reason given was that Belfast had no culture. This provoked fury among Belfast artists, partly because most artistic endeavours were from people of Catholic backgrounds. But for a capital city, Belfast had very few theatres, concert halls, major art galleries, artistic education establishments…

  From early on, Belfast culture was dominated by a Protestant way of life that had no time for the arts. Belfast grew up as a port and an industrial city. Making money and praying gratitude to God were the reason things were built in Belfast. And until the latter half of the twentieth century, the Catholics had no say in anything as important as the city’s cultural development.

  As well as rumblings about the influence of a generalized English racism about Northern Ireland, there were two other things that made the artists of Belfast dissatisfied about the failure of the City of Culture bid; they believed that fear of resurgence of the Troubles had played a larger part than the judges would admit. And they felt Belfast’s Unionist Council, without a history of interest in the arts, hadn’t pulled many stops out to back the bid.

  The Unionists were running the city the way history had made them run it and they hadn’t grasped the fact that the arts were a business, attracting business, as much as the grand old trades of linen, tobacco and shipbuilding.

  Between 1880 and 1925, one in ten Belfast men worked for the Harland and Wolff shipyards. The value of this business was one of the reasons why Northern Ireland had remained immensely important to Britain. Harland and Wolff became an emblem of Protestant pride and Catholic resentment. Yet the owner, Edward Harland, had begun with a determined anti-discrimination policy. After Protestant workers rioted in protest about Catholic workers coming in from the South in 1864, Harland had threatened to close down the yard and relocate. But by 1872, when rioting broke out again during the Home Rule debates, Harland, now Mayor of Belfast and against Home Rule, ga
ve up on his stand against discrimination, and let the intimidated Catholic workers drift away. Many Catholic ship workers emigrated. Although a handful remained, shipyard jobs tended to be passed on through family connections, so by the twentieth century, Harland and Wolff had a reputation for only employing Protestants.

  Indirectly, the shipyards did provide Belfast with some of its more influential Protestant artists, although these artists didn’t live in Belfast any more, and certainly hadn’t been influencing how the city was run. Van Morrison’s father worked at Harland and Wolff. It gave him enough salary to spare to buy the blues and jazz records that he played around the house – not everybody in the shipyards grew up hearing the Old Orange Flute. Those who did, like James Galway, went off round the world and did things with a flute no one in a marching band had ever thought of.

  Little by little, through the latter half of the twentieth century, Harland and Wolff closed down. The shipyards went through a long period of neglect, rusting and collapsing. But recently they were being reconsidered, viewed as historical monuments.

  Visible from far across Belfast are two giant yellow harbour cranes, nicknamed Samson and Goliath. These had been given a conservation order, to be lovingly oiled and painted, or whatever it was big cranes needed to be kept in a contented old age. Other harbour areas were slated for redevelopment, or had been developed – the massive Odyssey complex, with a concert hall, a Hard Rock Café and bars, had been up and running since the millennium.

  One of the waitresses from the Hard Rock Café was on the little boat trip I took round the shipyards, along with a gathering of her relatives from Canada. The chatty guide told us the history of the yards, while urging the boat-driver to get further away from the Sea Cat ferry to Holyhead which was about to set off and swamp us with its wake.

  There was still passenger and cargo shipping in Belfast, but this had been moved away from the city centre, since the construction of the Lagan Weir in 1994. This barrier meant the level of water in the city could be controlled to allow for residential development, pleasure boating and the construction of new bridges across the old shipyard complex.

  The biggest development plan was for the Titanic Quarter, with housing, shops and a maritime museum. The boat’s guide thought it was ridiculous that Belfast of all places had no maritime museum.

  ‘But there’s been a lot of time wasted over the last thirty years.’

  He pointed out where Queen’s University Science Park was being developed in the former shipyards. ‘It’s appropriate it’s there, as the engineering and scientific innovation that went into Belfast’s ships was cutting-edge at the time.’

  Belfast became a great port in the eighteenth century despite obvious drawbacks: the river Lagan and the Lough weren’t deep enough or wide enough for major shipping. Huge engineering works were undertaken to dig out the waterways and the land on which the shipyards began was entirely man-made.

  A sailor’s grandson, James Pirrie, returned from a brief emigration to Quebec and drove the political machinery of the city into action to keep the harbour growth going and make more provision for shipbuilding. The industry began to struggle toward success.

  Harland, who’d worked for the great shipbuilder Robert Stephenson, came over from Newcastle to be manager of the Hicks shipyard in the mid-nineteenth century. He cut wages and pushed men to a higher standard of work – work he inspected personally and minutely. Harland could see the shipyard had enormous potential. He could also see that Hicks’ business was failing through bad management.

  Harland was connected by marriage to the Schwabes, a family of Hamburg merchants. They were originally Jewish but had converted to Lutheranism. The Schwabes had various shipping interests in London. They were related to Gustav Wolff, a Jewish engineer. Harland took on Wolff as an assistant and head of the drawing office in 1857. By 1858 Harland had bought the yard from Hicks. In 1861, Wolff, bringing considerable family capital with him, was made a partner.

  Harland and Wolff made radical changes to ship design and changed business practice. As shipbuilders they put up all the initial costs but would then get a commission on the finished product from the shipping lines. Most major shipping lines became tied in to this circle of obligation to Harland and Wolff, including the White Star Line, which shipped emigrants to America. Entrepreneurial James Pirrie was invited to join the company to help secure these convoluted deals with shipping lines and to give the company political clout.

  Three times Harland and Wolff built ‘the largest ship in the world’; in 1889 the Teutonic at 10,000 tons; in 1899 the Oceanic at 17,000 tons; and the ill-fated Titanic in 1911, which displaced an unprecedented 76,500 tons.

  Pirrie pioneered the idea of ocean liners as floating hotels. Cabinet-making, linen-finishing, glassworks – all these crafts as well as related industries benefited from the need to fit out the liners to the highest standards. He recognized oil as the fuel of the future and had diesel engines manufactured for the company in Glasgow. There were also Harland and Wolff yards in Glasgow. The close ties between Glasgow and Belfast that still exist today were developed through the shipyards. Workers would move from one yard to another depending on where the bulk of the labour was needed.

  Eventually, Pirrie was left in control of the company. He was an extravagant, ambitious and very peculiar man. When the Titanic sank, Pirrie had already brought Harland and Wolff to the verge of ruin with his bizarre and secretive business practices.

  The Titanic, intended to compete with Cunard’s new large liners the Lusitania and the Mauretania, had been Pirrie’s attempt to reassert his White Star Line’s supremacy of the waves. The Titanic would be the biggest, most luxurious liner ever constructed. Pirrie had much of the interior modelled to replicate the designs of his own lavish homes in England, where he constantly entertained and courted influential figures of the day. His book-keeping might have been chaotic, but his ambition was ferociously single-minded.

  When the Titanic was being built, it was considered a lucky ship. Only two workers died building the ship, a statistic well above average in this hazardous line of work. There’s no truth in the story that the ship was considered cursed from the start because the hull number 390904, when read backwards with narrowed eyes, could read NO POPE. For a largely Protestant workforce, this would have been seen as a good omen.

  According to the standards of the time, there were no design faults in the Titanic. Subsequent ship design added more watertight safety features. And these later ships had the advantage of a North Atlantic patrol being set up, to chart the position of icebergs after the Titanic disaster.

  The Titanic didn’t have enough lifeboats but it had more than were required by the Board of Trade regulations of the time. There were no crew drills about what to do in the case of a major emergency. The ship took over two hours to sink and people were reported to have remained calm, yet there was massive confusion, with lifeboats leaving near-empty and men refusing to leave until all the women and children were safe. Lifeboats that could have picked up survivors seen in the water didn’t go back because escaping passengers were afraid they’d be swamped by the slowly sinking ship. The Titanic disaster was worse than it should have been because of incompetence and strange, unnecessary, stubborn courage in some, alongside cowardice in others.

  Pirrie had intended to be on board on the maiden voyage of the Titanic but was recovering from a prostate operation. One of the other owners, Bruce Ismay, was on board, and survived. Derek Mahon’s poem, ‘Bruce Ismay’s Soliloquy’ speculates on the shipbuilder’s lonely, guilt-ridden life after the disaster.

  Pirrie struggled on, selling off shares in the company. Eventually, he died of pneumonia at sea, in a bid to find new orders for his yard in Argentina. He died on a ship built by another Belfast yard.

  Pirrie left no will but massive personal debt and a collection of annual business reports that on examination turned out to be half incomprehensible and half invention. A man who could be cruelly whimsical w
ith employees and wantonly dishonest with associates, he nevertheless was remembered ambivalently. He was also sentimentally generous, charming and inspirational.

  Building military ships and mail boats kept the company going after Pirrie’s demise. Short’s aircraft factory used many of the former shipyard engineers and workers, creating a new source of employment for East Belfast. Although Short’s was very successful, it didn’t dominate the drive and psyche of the city the way shipbuilding had.

  There was a sense our little boat making its tour of the old shipyards was puttering around the remains of a lost city, once inhabited by giants. Huge dock walls and locks soared above us… The guide on the boat was telling us Belfast hoped to develop an IT industry to rival the success of this new industry in Southern Ireland.

  ‘But I don’t know,’ he sighed. ‘I’ve a cousin writes computer programs. Great money, but what is it? Lines of numbers in the air. We used to make great big things everyone could see. All over the world, I guarantee, people would rather be making big things they can see and touch.’

  One of the Canadian tourists said they had no shipbuilding these days either. ‘It’s a shame,’ he added. ‘It’s a job with grandeur.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said the guide. ‘Exactly’

  The affable boat tour men had plans of the Titanic for sale. They were also selling, with authentication certificates, small rectangular wooden boards, made into key rings. Every man who worked at Harland and Wolff had to have a board, a sort of clocking-in card. It had his number on it and if he didn’t have it to hand in at the end of the week, he wouldn’t get paid. The boatmen had found thousands of these lying on the ground and saved them. ‘There were probably thousands more that were ploughed into the ground but we thought they were great, each one of these belonged to a man who worked hard making a bit of Belfast history’.

  Shipbuilding and dock work was dangerous and cited as one of the reasons why Belfast developed a high standard in medicine. The guide on our boat tour said more men died building ships than had ever died in the Troubles. Pirrie, as Mayor of Belfast in 1896, started a campaign to build a modern hospital in Belfast. He set up a fund for what was to become the Royal Victoria Hospital, although he eventually funded most of it himself.