Travel Blog

Getting out of Belfast. In our last three posts we talked about airport security in Dublin. Work conditions and also road side check points in the Belfast area, with guns leveled at you. The guards at the checkpoint interrogated you before they would let you go through.

Listening to my friend tell his story about how the guards that treated  him, his wife and his child were scary. Guns are being fired somewhere around this check point also added tension. Fortunately he and his family were ok and they made it safely away from that check point. This is one of the main reasons they decided on Getting out of Belfast. They wanted to leave the country all together.

Getting out of Belfast – Belfast too Dangerous for the Family

But this post is about how he decided it was time to get out of Belfast and emigrate to North America. Raising a family in the conditions that were prevalent in Belfast at the time was very difficult. Every time you left your home, you wondered if you would make it back. Would you be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or would someone mistake you for the opposite clan and you ended up dead.

My friend worked at the telephone company in Belfast. It was interesting about some of the stories that he told about his work there. Our previous post , Belfast Work conditions, talked about how he needed to have an armed escort every time he went outside the office to get supplies!

When you add up all of the issues that he and his family experienced, it is a wonder that he did not move his family sooner. They had an opportunity to emigrate to Alberta, Canada in the late 60’s. He got work for the local telephone company. They grabbed that and then ended up in Ontario later on in his career.

Making the decision was still a difficult one, since you are leaving family back in Northern Ireland. You are going to a new country were the customs and people are very different from what you are used to.

Getting out of Belfast – Making the Decision to Move

One day he just sat back and said to his family that there has to be a better life some where and he was worried that he or one of his family members were not going to make it. He just could not bring his family up under those conditions. In fact another Irish friend of ours also emigrated from Ireland to Mexico decided not to have children ever.

They just felt it was not right to bring kids into the world as violent and dangerous as it was in Belfast at that time. Today, apparently it is much safer, but back in the 60’s to the 90’s it was not a safe place to be.

Turns out that the family agreed 100% that they should move away and leave the violence. They were able to build a great life in Canada and today Canada is their home. My friend and his wife now go back to Ireland on a regular basis to visit with friends and relatives. They also entertain visitors here in Canada as well.

If you have similar stories about leaving Belfast, please leave your comments. We will be happy to post the comments as long as they are constructive and interesting to our readers. We will even approve a link back to your web site if your provide a well written comment, that is interesting to our readers.

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