Armagh Project 2015

The archetype of the ancient storytelling Irishman surfaced again at the Translink bus station in Belfast on Sunday afternoon. He perched on the line of curved plastic chairs by the sliding door to gates 14-17, waiting for a subject, anyone. His face was craggy but soft like room-temperature cream cheese; the rough sandpaper tongue of time left its mark on his cheeks and lips. His once-white hair was clumped into twisted bunches; the imprint of his wool cap formed a tunnel around his skull. He slumped in a plaid flannel shirt and tatty khakis. His feet were planted on the dusty tile in flaking work boots.

“Where ya goin’?” he asked a handsome young man of color, maybe African-American, dressed in shades of navy. They discussed the Belfast sights and the crappy tea quality at the restaurant across the aisle. When the young man caught his bus, the old man turned his attention to the raucous toddlers crawling under the seats, screeching, evading their father.

“What ya two doin’ down there?” he asked, and the stories rolled around again.

Place yourself at the window seat of a bus in the middle of a tour of the Antrim coast, the wide sea before you and Scotland in the far distance; as you pass by the numerous glens and high cliffsides, your breath is taken away by the beautiful sights. That is what you see.

Meanwhile, in the background, you can hear the ceaseless chatter of a one Mr. Derek the Tour Bus Driver, dishing out an array of bad jokes and telling a number of Irish myths that can be somewhat difficult to follow, not because they go on forever, but because his lack of vowels (as well as my general disinterest).

Please, Mr. Derek, just shut yer trap and let me enjoy the gorgeous view!

“Whadaya call a woman that burns all her bills? A woman that burns all her bills? Bernadette! Ahhhh?”

In the town of Belfast, née Béal Feirste, there lived a man known only as Paul’s Mate. Paul’s Mate led a troubled life that could be quieted only by getting totally and publicly sloshed on Saturday nights. Like, can’t walk kind of sloshed. Like, you better lean your ass against this street lamp or you’re going to choke on your own vomit kind of sloshed. Like, I’m going to pathetically live up to your basest prejudices regarding Irish people kind of sloshed.

Anyway, Paul’s Mate had one glowing beacon of hope in his life: Paul, his best mate. Continue reading →

Sherry may or may not be here real name, and I only saw her for a second but that was all I needed to come up with her back story. Sherry is a hard working girl who works 10 hours a day just to get by. She has been saving every penny, so she can get this new outfit and go clubbing with her girls on Saturday night. Spends all week picking out the perfect clothes because it’s been so long since she has been out and she wants to look her best. Saturday night comes around and she is out there dancing like its no ones watching her, and then in the comer of her eye she sees someone with the same outfit as her. Sherry spends so much time in looking good and original she did not care for anyone taking her look, so she starts beating this poor girl up. Next thing Sherry knows is she is lying on the floor with the police handcuffing her; and this is actually when I walk pass her, hearing her say “I did not do anything; you should of been arresting that girl who stole my dress.”

I caught a taxi late in the night to take me back to the hostel in Belfast. My driver was a husky man, his head shaved bald. His sleeves were rolled a quarter of a way up to revealed another sleeve of tattoos. He could have been in his mid forties, maybe older, but undoubtedly he looked like a pit bull, some one you didn’t want to cross in a dark alley. He’s a passionate man and still bitter about the troubles. He’ll tell anyone who will listen about the troubles from his perspective.

Driver: Hey kid, where yah from?

Me: The states, Baltimore.

Driver: I’ve always wanted to go to the states, but they won’t let me in.

Me: Why?

Driver: Cuz I got charged wid bombs durin the troubles.

Me: Excuse me?

Driver: [A little louder] Bombs, love. I should have gotten charged with firecrackers. They weren’t gonna do nothin’ but scare em. Fuckin’ brits. There should be one Ireland.

Me: Were you in the IRA?

Driver: Naw, I wasn’t with em, but we were fuckin given em hell anyways.

John, the News Editor, is very withdrawn. He is passionate about one thing and one thing only: his work. The story is what matters.

John is the first one to the office every morning and he is the last one to leave every evening. He works harder than everyone else. His lunch breaks aren’t really breaks because he uses them to meet with reporters and check in on their stories.

John sits at his desk working away and when he needs a reporter to come to his desk he says their name loudly without breaking eye contact with his computer. He doesn’t have time to walk to someone else’s desk and it gives him more control in the newsroom if he doesn’t move around himself.

John thinks of little else but work. He may have a wife at home but kids are out of the question with his schedule.

I don’t know whether to look up to John or pity him. John is what every journalist hopes to become and fears becoming.

There isn’t a lot of difference in Armagh. Actually, I believe our project brings a signifiant amount of multiculturalism to the town this year. So, when someone brown pops up I take notice. As we walked into the bus station in Armagh, I noticed someone else brown. He was about medium height and about my complexion, telling his ethnicity was a bit of a puzzle, he could be asian could be indian; he had stretched ears and dyed blonde hair. I was excited to see him, he reminded me of home.

He loaded onto the bus with us, which soon filled with tons of people headed to stops up and down the road to Belfast. I quickly fell asleep but I’m sure during the bus trip he was texting his friends in Belfast and making plans for the weekend. He looked like he could use a break from the week we were all leaving behind. He didn’t carry a lot of items with him, just the bare minimum so he had friends that were going to take care of him when he got there.

Continue reading →

Damian is a stout Irishman in his late thirties or early forties. He speaks with a heavy but soft and kind accent, and tends to say phrases the exact way he said before, repeating himself like a broken record. He has a wife and four children, the youngest being nineteen, two and a half children out of the house, one and a half in; the oldest stays half the week. Continue reading →

I met another traveler in the station while waiting for the bus back to Armagh. Though she appeared as a young woman in her mid-20s to early 30s, she is actually a demon who follows groups of students and subtly feeds off their life force, which she siphons into a coffee cup for slow consumption. The students themselves suffer few undesirable effects, provided they are already sufficiently brain-dead, but may feel the need to nap more than usual, which may or may not cause them to miss their stops. Because of this, the Traveling Demon is widely regarded as the most annoying of all the demons, but is not usually caught in time to be properly exorcised.