Christine Dwyer Hickey: Looking for the heart of Armagh

When I was a child I believed completely in God. This was not something I had picked up at home –ours was not a house for religion. Indeed, my father, a Dubliner and baptised Catholic, could at times, put Ian Paisley to shame with his anti-Catholic stance.

My belief in God came from teachers and concerned aunts. My love for Him came from my own small heart. God, as I understood it, was watching over me. He watched me on my way to school and while I was sleeping.

He watched my thoughts as they slipped through my mind. My cousin assured me that he could see me when I was sitting on the toilet. Even if I turned out the light, he could see me. If I blame my lifelong constipation on the presence of God in our bathroom, I blame my occasional neurosis on his mind-reading ability.

In the end, it all became too much for me and so somewhere around puberty, I quietly gave up on God. Nowadays, I hardly give Him a thought, except for those dark-soul-of-the-night moments. This means, I suppose, that like Brendan Behan, I am a daylight atheist.

Lately, God as watcher has been on my mind again. This follows a visit to Armagh city. There, He is everywhere. On signs big and small: God is Watching us. God is Listening to us. Jesus is About.

Tension

The first time I was in Armagh city was 10 years ago and the tension that had long since left Belfast was still there on the apple-scented air. Belfast of course, still had its moments and – if last Sunday’s flare-up is anything to go by – continues to do so. But I have always found it to be a welcoming city.

On my first visit to Armagh, I felt far from welcome: my accent appeared to cause a few hackles, if not to rise, then certainly to bristle. It was suggested to me by a man at the bar of my hotel, that I would do well to remember I was in a foreign country. Not that I needed reminding, the irritating escort of Union Jacks all the way into town had already made that clear.

Things have warmed up a lot since then.

This July, for the second year running, I've been a guest of the John Hewitt Summer School. It's a wonderful festival and I would have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone, whatever side of the podium they happen to be on.

But I still find Armagh a little dour and even, unsettling.

My husband on the other hand, can’t get enough of it. In fact, Armagh Tourism could give him a job. He loves the architecture; the accent; the fact that such a small town (sorry, city) holds a piper’s club and a brass band, both of which appear to be thriving.

He loves that Brian Boru is buried here and that poets such as Montague and Muldoon, have cut their teeth in this city.

I wish I could share his enthusiasm but I like to find the heart of a town before I can make a commitment. It’s a notional heart and can’t be defined, but it’s what gives a place its own personality and what makes me want to connect with it. So far, I’ve failed to find the heart of Armagh.

In the hotel bar, late in the evening, four middle-aged men cautiously crossed the floor. They sat, heads bent in low conversation, one or another of them looking over the room now and then with a suspicious eye.

I expected the order to be four shot glasses and a bottle of whiskey – they looked like those sort of men. Instead the waitress brought a large pot of tea and four plates of apple tart each bearing a large quiff of cream.

Suddenly the men were beaming like little boys. This little scene brought it home to me somehow, the years of fear the people of Armagh must have lived through: fear of going out in the evening and fear of each other. Who could blame them for being suspicious of strangers?

Next morning we came across a funeral. A man in a top hat, led the cortege. A piper played a republican song. The coffin was draped in a Tricolour. There was none of the usual palaver we’ve come to expect from a republican funeral – just a quiet country procession through a quiet country town.

As we left the city behind I wondered how the Tricolour was getting on, if it had gone down with the coffin or had been refolded and put away like the good tablecloth until the next old republican died.

Landscape

The Union Jacks were still a-flutter all across the green velvet landscape, but the sight of them no longer irritated me. It was like watching a group of children waving from the back of a classroom “Miss, please Miss,” to a teacher who had long since stopped listening.

And I realised why I hadn’t been able to find the heart of Armagh – it was because it had been so badly broken. I also realised that the people of Armagh were in their own sweet, slow way, doing their best to mend it.

Christine Dwyer Hickey's novel The Lives of Women was published in April by Atlantic UK