On the "Peace Wall," Clonard area near the Falls Road, August 21st. This Catholic boy is swinging on a support for the wall separating Bombay Street in the Clonard neighborhood from the Protestant Shankill Road area. The peace walls, or lines, were first built in 1969 after riots in which Catholic neighborhoods were burned and vandalized in response to civil rights marches and demonstrations. They were supposed to last only a few months but have existed to this day. There are now over 21 miles of walls, and the hope was that they would be gone by now as a part of the Together: Building a United Community strategy. They are not gone.

Breakfast in Belfast City Center, July 5th. Rosie Casals losing to Billie Jean King in the Wimbledon Women's Singles of July 4, 1972, posed a jarring contrast with the front-page news of "Two More Bodies Found on Roadside." As it turned out, the two bodies found were Protestant brothers, Malcolm Orr, 20 years old, and Peter, 19. They had left home at 8 p.m. to visit Malcolm's Catholic fiancee and a friend of Peter's. The day after the shooting their father, Francis Orr, told Bernard Weinraub of the New York Times, "My sons never complained of ever having been threatened or anything like that. The only thing they ever did wrong -- and it would only be thought wrong in this country -- was one had a girlfriend and the other a pal who were Catholic."

British Soldier on duty in the Clonard section, near the Falls Road, August. This was a regular sight in Catholic neighborhoods. Initially jarring, the sight of soldiers with guns next to small children playing quickly became a given, and barely noticed. To see this was to descend into a rabbit hole of wondering just what they were doing there. Initially, in 1969, it was to protect Catholic neighborhoods from destruction by Protestant/Unionist mobs, then it was to "keep the peace" in a more general sense, then it was to keep an eye on the IRA, and then, as the Troubles continued, the British military became increasingly allied with Protestant/Unionist paramilitary organizations, with resultant deterioration in relations with the Catholic community.

View from the Bone neighborhood, near the Oldpark Road, overlooking an abandoned factory with Holy Cross Church, located on the Crumlin Road in the Ardoyne, in the background. What was previously a large park with multiple hurling and soccer fields, as well as a playground, had become an abandoned dumping ground. August.

British Army soldiers chasing a sniper, Lower Falls, August. This picture was taken around 1 p.m. in the middle of the work week. The street, home to an Official IRA friend whose front yard I was standing in, was about two blocks away from Belfast's premier tertiary care hospital, the Royal Victoria, where most trauma victims from the Troubles were brought. July.

Young Catholic boys looking tough (and IRA-like) outside the notorious Divis Flats housing complex, prominently featured in Patrick Radden Keefe's recent "Whatever You Say, Say Nothing." July.

Catholic kids in the Falls Road neighborhood rolling barrels and throwing rocks at a British Army Ferret vehicle. This was an incredibly common sight, which followed no particular pattern other than the fact that a solitary vehicle was much more likely to be targeted than a whole column. A street could be completely quiet and, in an instant, hordes of rock throwing teens (boys and girls) would suddenly appear just as the British Army vehicle would. July.

Seamus Cassidy's funeral procession begins, July 31st. Seamus Cassidy, a 22y/o section leader in the IRA's Third Battalion of the Belfast Brigade was shot in the head July 28th by a British Army sniper as he sat in a car outside a bar in the New Lodge section of Belfast. Here, the funeral procession turns onto Ardilea Street in the Bone section of Belfast, his home, and heads towards Oldpark Road, and then on to the Falls Road and Milltown Cemetery. The Belfast Brigade was a unit of the Provisional IRA, formed in the split of the IRA into "Provisional" and "Official" branches after Protestant Loyalist attacks on and burnings of Catholic neighborhoods in 1969. The Provisionals believed in armed conflict as a primary means of achieving Republican goals whereas the Officials focused more on economic issues and turning all of Ireland into a "workers' republic."

Royal Marines Commandos wait on the Falls Road, July 31st. A contingent of Royal Marines blocked Irish Republican Army volunteer Seamus Cassidy's funeral procession in the never-ending battle of wills and patience between the British Army and IRA.

Young man with a rock jumping on a British Army Saracen, July 31. At the intersection of the Falls Road and Leeson St., a British Army Saracen has pulled out to block Seamus Cassidy's funeral procession. The man on the Saracen has a rock in his right hand and there are several soldiers just to his right. It was common for the British security forces to disrupt Republican funerals although the strategic value of this was dubious. It was equally common for members of the crowd to start throwing rocks and, infrequently, IRA snipers would get off a few shots, more to announce their presence than to kill. The Saracens were six-wheeled armored personnel carriers used for many things: crowd control, troop transport, battle, ambulances, patrol, etc. They were ubiquitous on the streets of Belfast during the Troubles. They were also well known for helping enforce apartheid in South Africa.

Funeral procession in Milltown Cemetery. After making the several-mile journey from the Bone, down the Falls Road, and into Ballymurphy, Cassidy's funeral procession snakes across fields belonging to Milltown Cemetery. Many of the mourners have umbrellas on this rainless but hazy, hot summer day -- the umbrellas to prevent photographers from getting a good look at mourners' faces. Likewise, the men dressed in camouflage (IRA volunteers) wear dark glasses as a disguise. (They would sometimes wear balaclavas, though it was a mystery as to why they would wear a partial disguise one day and a full disguise another.) This particular area of the cemetery would become, in 1988, the site of an infamous solo attack by a Loyalist paramilitary member, Michael Stone, on the funeral of three IRA members killed in Gibraltar by the British SAS (Special Air Services) on suspicion of planting a car bomb. Stone managed to kill three people and injure sixty others with a mix of gunfire and grenades; none of the mourners were armed nor was there any police protection.

Waiting for Seamus Cassidy's burial, Milltown Cemetery, July 31st. After winding its' way through the Lower Falls section of Belfast, Cassidy's funeral procession ended at this plot in Milltown Cemetery. Although on the Falls Road, the cemetery is in the town of Ballymurphy, County Antrim, and was opened in 1869 to accommodate the Catholic population of Belfast. In addition to being the final resting place of scores of Republican fighters (including the hunger striker Bobby Sands) it is also that of many of Belfast's poor, including those killed in the Belfast Blitz, in April and May of 1941, when over a thousand died and many more were injured by Nazi bombers trying to wipe out Belfast's vital industrial capacity.

Children gather for a photo in the Falls Road, August.

Girl walking back from a store in the Catholic Lower Falls with soda and a pack of cigarettes, mid-day, August 16th. In the background, women stand in doorways and groups of working-age young men congregate on the corner. These two sights were common in Belfast where jobs were scarce for young Catholic men and stay-at-home mothers were the rule and not the exception. This photograph attempts to pay homage to a famous Cartier-Bresson photo of a young boy hurrying down a french street carrying two bottles of wine. August.

Lawrence, a young boy in the Protestant Shankill Road neighborhood, pauses during his playing to have his picture taken several days after the July 12th celebration of the "Battle of the Boyne." Anna Burns, in the novel "Milkman" (2018): "One of the best ways to describe these unspoken rules and regulations [in a Catholic area] would be to hone in on the subject of names...the names not allowed were not allowed for the reason that they were too much of the country 'over the water,' with no matter that some of those names hadn't originated in that country but instead had been appropriated and put to use by the people of that land...The banned names were Nigel, Jason, Jasper, Lance, Percival, Wilbur, Wilfred, Peregrine, Norman, Alf, Reginald, Cedric, Ernest, George, Harvey, Arnold...Winston, Godfrey, Hector, with Hubert, a cousin of Herbert, also not allowed. Nor was Lawrence or Howard...But there was no list of the names that were allowed. Every resident was supposed to know what was permitted based on what was not permitted..."

Two girls playing on a street in the Falls Road neighborhood, July.

Fundamentalist Protestant Christianity was well represented in the various Orange Day parades on July 12th, the celebration of the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.

Loyalist boy early on Eleventh Night, Shankill Road, July 11th. Sporting several Loyalist badges, including the "Belfast Widow's Fund," much sought-after, this nineteen-year-old was helping a group of his younger neighbors to construct a huge pile of scrap wood to be used later that night for a bonfire in celebration of the Battle of the Boyne (July 12, 1690), the Protestant William of Orange's victory over the Catholic James II. The Battle of the Boyne began what is termed the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland.

Boy on a hill in the Bone (Marrowbone) section of Belfast, July. This Catholic boy was playing with two friends next to a wooden British Army lookout post (not visible but connected to the barbed wire at right), strategically placed to monitor the movements of Irish Republican Army members and their sympathizers. In the distance is the Ardoyne neighborhood, a Republican enclave, and several abandoned cars (one of them burning) are seen in the middle of what used to be soccer and hurling fields. The evening this picture was taken, I was accosted by three young men in the bathroom of a nearby Catholic Ex-Servicemen's Association (CESA) club who told be that if I went anywhere near the lookout again, they could not "guarantee the safety" of my kneecaps.

A grandmother and her child go for a walk in the Clonard, July. The Catholic Clonard section of Belfast is close to the Catholic Falls Road but also close to the Protestant Shankill neighborhood from which it is separated by a "peace wall," built in 1969 following rioting when Protestant gangs burned and destroyed much of the neighborhood in response to anti-discrimination Catholic civil rights demonstrations. The houses depicted in this picture are some of the relatively few that were spared. The Clonard Monastery, which is nearby, and after which the neighborhood is named, was built in 1890. It is home to the Redemptorist religious order and was the home of Father Alec Reid, a key figure in the peace process who frequently brokered meetings between republican and unionist/British leaders.

Firemen rush toward the burning Oxford Street Bus Station on Bloody Friday. On July 21st at 3:02 p.m. a gelignite ("jelly") car bomb exploded at the Oxford Street Bus Station, killing six people, including two soldiers and four Ulsterbus workers. Around the same time, over a span of 80 minutes, some twenty bombs went off across Belfast, killing three additional people. False warnings were also called in to sow panic throughout the city. The IRA claimed responsibility. The bombings resulted in a furious British military response (termed Operation Motorman) in Catholic areas of the city: the retaking of no-go areas, the internment of hundreds, and multiple deaths. Operation Motorman had been in the planning stages for some time but Bloody Friday provided PR cover. the IRA eventually admitted that Bloody Friday was a strategic mistake and finally apologized to the victims and their families in 2002.

Six killed at the Oxford Street Bus Station, Belfast, July 31st (Bloody Friday). When the gelignite ("jelly") car bomb went off at the bus station, I was about three blocks away having lunch with my friend Richard Dunne. We rushed to the station and immediately began taking pictures, not really thinking much about the horror of what we were seeing. All across the pavement at the back of the station were scattered bits of bodies and two partially intact ones where the men's faces had been completely obliterated. I hesitated for a few seconds to photograph all of this but went ahead using the rationale that my role was simply to document and not to edit.

Royal Ulster Constabulary police collecting body parts after the Oxford Bus Station bomb explosion.

Woman walking her charge below a bombed-out apartment and pub. August.

Wall of bombed-out pub along the Cliftonville Road. August.

Two Catholic girls on an Andersonstown street at dusk, July 10. This picture was taken around 11 p.m. in the Republican stronghold of Andersonstown, a suburb of Belfast. The girl on the left had been hit in the hand by a rubber bullet during a confrontation between the British Army and residents of a nearby housing estate, Lenadoon. The original dressing had been replaced by a cloth one fashioned by her friends. In what came to be known as the Battle of Lenadoon, a British Army tank rammed a lorry carrying a Catholic family's belongings as they prepared to move into a house abandoned by a Protestant family. Residents rioted and the British Army responded by firing rubber bullets into the crowd. This girl just happened to be in the proverbial "wrong place at the wrong time." Rubber bullets, made of extremely hard rubber, were 37mm in diameter, had a slow muzzle velocity (designed to go about 110 yards), and were supposed to be aimed at the ground so that they would bounce and hit protesters in the legs. However, rubber bullets used during the Troubles killed at least three people and seriously injured (blindness and neurological damage) many more.

Boys playing near an abandoned soccer field in the Ardoyne. In the background, written on the wall of an abandoned factory, is a call to join the "Fianna Eireann," roughly equivalent to the Boy Scouts but primarily known as a feeder organization for the Irish Republican Army.

Boys playing on street barricade in the Falls Road. August.

After a christening in the Bone. August.

Boy playing in the Ardoyne. August.

Boy in car. In a neighborhood close to the Shankill Road, a Protestant paramilitary stronghold, a boy plays in an abandoned car. Directly behind his car is a small truck with the letters "UDA" painted on the right rear panel. "UDA" stands for Ulster Defense Association, a militant Protestant/Unionist organization tied to a number of Catholic killings. The UDA was banned by the British government in 1992.

"The Boys" hanging out on the corner of Ardilea Street and Oldpark Avenue in the Bone, Tuesday, August 1st. It was common to see groups of working-age men just hanging out on the streets of Catholic Belfast. Catholic male unemployment in 1971 was 17.3% as opposed to the Protestant male rate of 6.6%. And Catholics were dramatically underrepresented in skilled employment. A major thrust of the civil rights movement of the late 60's in Northern Ireland was protesting job discrimination. Other targets of protest were Protestant and Unionist gerrymandering of voting districts, housing discrimination, and laws that allowed only property owners to vote. (Catholics were much less likely to be able to vote as they were less likely to own a house -- they either had no job or a lousy job and couldn't afford it, or, even if they had the money, couldn't find anyone to sell them a house.)

Boy in the Falls Road. July.

Boys in the Shankill getting ready for "Eleventh Night," or July 11th. July 11th in Northern Ireland is referred to as Eleventh Night. It is the night before "The Twelfth," or "Orangemen's Day," an Ulster Protestant celebration of the victory of the Protestant King William of Orange over the Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne (1690) and the beginning of what is called the "Protestant Ascendancy" in Ireland. On Eleventh night, huge bonfires are lit in Protestant Loyalist neighborhoods. The bonfires, which continue to this day, frequently contain the flag of the Republic of Ireland, Irish nationalist symbols, Catholic symbols, and statues; more recently the bonfires have included symbols of the Polish immigrant community. These displays have been widely condemned as displays of ethnic and sectarian hatred, antisocial behavior, and for the large amount of property destruction they generate.

Girl throws more wood onto a bonfire in the Shankill, July 11.

Barricade on road leading to Andersonstown housing estate, July.

Lena and Jim at the Catholic Ex-Servicemen's Club. These clubs were basically bars in Quonset-style huts that partially replaced the many bombed-out pubs.

Man pausing during a walk near a barricade in the Ardoyne. August.

Woman with model of a harp. This woman, whose son was imprisoned at Long Kesh, a detention center/prison whose name was subsequently changed to the Maze, asked me when I was visiting and photographing a friend and her family, to take her picture while holding a model of an Irish harp (clairseach, in Irish) carved by her son. Her son had been "picked up" in a British Army raid on a Republican stronghold for unclear reasons as part of a highly controversial policy known as "internment."

Man trying to reason with mourners after the British Army blocked Seamus Cassidy's funeral procession. July 31st.

British Officer consulting about next steps after stopping Seamus Cassidy's funeral procession, July 31st. A member of the elite Coldstream Guards is on the radio in front of a Saracen discussing what to do after Seamus Cassidy's funeral procession had been halted about three miles short of Milltown Cemetery. A Bone/Ardoyne community leader waits, gauging the restlessness of the mourners.

Man in a park across the street from the Royal Victoria Hospital, on the Falls Road. August.

Young man who may or may not have been a member of the IRA drinking in one of many "pop-up" bars in row houses set up to replace the many bombed-out pubs.

Boy marching in Orangeman's Day parade on July 12th.

Lawn bowling in a park on the Falls Road. August.

Boy in the window of an abandoned house in the Protestant Shankill Road neighborhood.

Walking up an alley in the Ardoyne. July.

Carrying on abut a mile from the city center of Belfast. July.

Boy enjoying lunch with the help of HP sauce. He was the son of two friends of mine who I stayed with regularly. HP sauce was omnipresent in the houses where I stayed and used at virtually every meal. August.

Soldiers pinned down by IRA sniper fire in the Ardoyne. July.

British paratrooper in the backyard, Lenadoon housing estate. July. This British soldier's beret emblem depicting Pegasus identifies him as a member of the Parachute Regiment, or "Paras." Between 1971 and 1996 fifty-one men of the Parachute Regiment were killed while serving in Northern Ireland. The Paras were much hated by the Catholic population of Belfast because they were largely responsible for the Ballymurphy (Belfast) massacre in which 11 civilians were killed in 1971 and Bloody Sunday, January 30, 1972 when 13 civilians were killed and 17 wounded in Derry.

Girl in the Falls Road. August.

Looking into the hills near the Lenadoon housing estate, after the Battle of Lenadoon. July.