05/05/2020
Why it’s named Falls Road.
My first trip to Ireland I was like a kid in a candy store. I did all the touristy stuff of course, the Guinness factory, the Cliffs of Moher, etc., but let’s not kid ourselves, I was there for one reason and one reason only, and that was the pubs. In just under 6 weeks I had a pint in 111 different public houses, spanning all over Ireland, from Dublin to Galway, Cork to Belfast, Di**le, Killarney, Moate, Doolin, and so on. It was the best vacation of my life and one I’ll never forget. But surprisingly to me, the most memorable day of that trip, was a day that I didn’t visit a single pub. It was the day my wife and I walked Falls Road in Belfast. And seeing the statues and murals of all these freedom fighters who gave so much of themselves in an effort to liberate their country, and seeing the graves of those who made the ultimate sacrifice for it at Milltown Cemetery, is an experience I’ll never forget. It was an emotional day. On that day all the songs Pat Dunlea and all those who followed after him at my local sang, meant something different. People that have followed this journey know my connection to the Irish pub doesn’t come from feigning some false sense of Irish heritage. As mentioned before I didn’t even know who came from where until late in my life when my Grandma told me. My love for pubs came because one saved my life. And for years those songs that were sung on Friday and Saturday nights meant more about camaraderie amongst the friends I was with than anything else. I knew who or what the songs were about, but after walking that road that day, for the first time in my life, I understood what they meant, and it had nothing to do with a sing song at the local. Bobby Sands has always been a fascinating figure to me. As an American, we place so much of our country’s significance on our freedom, it’s what we were founded on and we probably value it more than anything else. And here was a guy in Sands that at 27 years old, wanted it for himself and his fellow countrymen so bad, he spent 66 days on hunger strike, a sacrifice which ultimately lead to his death. SIXTY-SIX days. I can’t imagine the kind of pain and suffering in which that entailed. And that’s something that at the very least we can recognize once a year on this day. A few days after that haunting walk in Belfast I remember being unable shake the emotions I felt that day, I remember sitting in my father in law’s local reflecting on it and it hit me as clearly as anything has, when the day comes that I open my own pub, it will be named Falls Road. In memory of the ten.
RIP Bobby. Gone but not forgotten.
