The red carpet will be rolled out for the biggest night in Hollywood this weekend, as Belfast jostles for a prestigious accolade at the 94th Academy Awards.
Kenneth Branagh’s semi-autobiographical film based on his childhood amid the troubles in Northern Ireland is vying for a slate of awards and tipped to win best screenplay. Belfast won Outstanding British Film at the Baftas this month.
Ahead of the Oscars, the Guardian spoke to five people raised in Belfast who also left the city.
They reflect on how leaving changed their lives, the difficulty of adapting away from home, and the impact of growing up amid the troubles on the people they became.
‘The Troubles followed me’
Marcus Oliver, a 75-year-old retired journalist who left for England in 1964 aged 18.
I didn’t meet a Catholic until I went to England at 18. I was the second eldest of five brothers, and we all went off in an orderly departure. It was normal to leave. From my parents there was definitely a sadness, but it was more of a resigned sadness. Things were getting rougher.
You could hear the sound of these bombs going off, because of the echos from the hills amplifying it. I remember one night – this was when I came back to visit after leaving – being woken up by machine gun fire at a nearby factory. My father was a permanent secretary at Stormont and was on an IRA death list. We even had a visit from special branch, which told him: “Look, you need to have a revolver by your bedside.” He said: “No thanks.” My father was the last sort of person to handle a gun.
Coming to England for agricultural college, people would say: “Come here, Irish.” They didn’t understand you were British. I went home two to three times a year. It was like being stuck in limbo, you tried to live in both places. Years later, on 9 February 1996, the IRA exploded a huge lorry bomb just under our building, in Canary Wharf. It was unbelievable, it just wrecked the building. I guess the troubles followed me.
I went back to Belfast again in September 2021. The city is peaceful on the surface, but you can see the tensions are still there.
‘I didn’t know I was leaving for ever’
Patricia Kavanagh, born on the same street as Kenneth Branagh in 1959, left Belfast for Spain in 1978 aged 19.
I was born in 1959 at 168 Mountcollyer Street, the same street that birthed Kenneth Branagh in 1960. I was the third of four children to a Catholic family. On Sundays, we would play out in Alexandra Park after the mass. But I remember the swings being locked up. Protestant kids didn’t play on Sundays, they had Sunday school.
Even as a child, I knew we weren’t really welcome. All my friends were Catholic. We had our windows broken. My dad patched them up but didn’t change the glass for maybe two months; he knew they’d just get broken again. We were targeted. All my teenage memories are of the troubles: British soldiers on the streets, being searched going into the city centre, lying in bed hearing the bullets. It wasn’t a pleasant time.
I left Belfast in 1978 for Spain aged 19. There were no big tears, it was mostly excitement. I thought I was going on a big adventure. Since then I have stayed in Spain, teaching English, and never lived in Belfast again.
Every time I visit, I get this wonderful feeling. There’s a smell to Belfast, the smell of damp cut grass. When it rains here in Spain I think: “There’s that Belfast smell.” One trip about 10 or 15 years ago, I went back to see my old house. “Oh my god!” I said. They’d demolished it. Now, in its place stands a peace wall.
‘I feel guilty for what I deprived my parents of’
Catherine Wells-Cole, a 74-year-old retired university lecturer who left Belfast for England in 1971 aged 24.
I grew up as an only child in the suburbs of Belfast. I avoided the worst of it, but you were very aware of the searches and barricades in the city centre. I went to university in Dublin, then came to England for my MA; I didn’t think I’d be leaving for good.
When I came to England, I was constantly being wrongfooted in conversation. In Belfast, there’s a very pungent, salty way of speaking. You’d use expressions that nobody would understand, like “you’re a queer gagquare geg” to mean you’re funny. You suddenly realised you couldn’t quite talk freely any more.
For my parents, I’m sure there was relief when I left, that you wouldn’t be out one night in the pub drinking with your friends and there’d be a bomb. But I’m only beginning to realise 50 years later that the impact on them was massive. I’ve got an only daughter, she’s 35, and I live quite close to her. If she moved across the sea, I’d feel utterly bereft. It brings home what I deprived my parents of.
‘I remember taping the school windows like they did in the war’
David Turner, a 67-year-old GP who left Belfast in 1973 aged 18.
I felt relatively free until I was about 14. A lot of my friends were Catholic, we played football together. Then there was this huge change: everything closed in around you very quickly. A Catholic chemist got shot – he didn’t die but the bullet grazed his forehead – a supermarket got blown up, there was a lot of ethnic cleansing.
On Bloody Friday [21 July 1972], They shut off all the buses. I had no idea what was going on, so I started walking through the city centre. I walked past the sites of four or five bombs. One of them went off when I was about 200 yards away. I was 17. That was the first time I felt lucky.
In school, we spent a week taping the windows like they did in the war. For university, I had Queen’s University in Belfast as my first choice, Edinburgh as my second. But my friend’s father, sort of like a second dad to me, took me aside and said: “You must get out, this is a great opportunity to change your life for the better.”
So I went to Edinburgh in 1973. Life was just so normal there. You could go into a shop, walk about the streets. I’m happy with my decision and the freedom it gave me.
‘I tried to pretend our upbringing was normal’
Clare Stevens, a 65-year-old freelance writer and editor based in Wales, who left Belfast in 1975 aged 19.
I lived in Finaghy, south Belfast, and you could see the hills from the kitchen window by the sink. You felt hemmed in. Even living in a leafy middle-class suburb, there was that nightly soundtrack of fire engines, gunfire, the rattling of bin lids.
When I left in 1975, to go to university at St Andrews in Scotland, nobody could come with you beyond the airport car park. My sister and I left in quite quick succession. Suddenly the house was very quiet without us.
When I came home for Christmas from Scotland, it was very strange to walk into the living room and see this large picture of me on top of the television. It felt as if I had died and it was a kind of a memorial. It hadn’t occurred to me until then that I was missed by my family.
In Scotland, I tried to assimilate and pretend our upbringing was normal. I told myself it wasn’t that bad. It was only later I realised it was quite bad. I assimilated it in myself.
I went to live in Belfast for a year in 2011, when I was looking after my mother before she died. It felt like a real privilege to have this glimpse back into what my life would have been, the place where my roots are. And since the Good Friday agreement, you didn’t hear bombs. You didn’t have to get your bags searched in shops any more.
• This article was amended on 26 March 2022. Kenneth Branagh was born in 1960, not 1950 as an earlier version said.
