Tribe, by Michael Hegarty

I sat in front of a roaring fire watching a televised interview with an african politician. He was arguing that the colonial imposition of european-style democracy on tribal central africa was the final act in the death-throws of empire. It was getting too hot so I went for a walk.

The floodlit fog hung around the cathedral spire like Mae West’s white fur boa. The drone of a surveillance helicopter overhead seemed to push that already heavy mist further down into the roots of the city. The noise began to make my head throb. I wanted some relief.

I thought of the feelings that I get when traveling from Derry to Inishowen. The final pressure funnel of traffic queued at the army checkpoint at Coshquinn is somehow bearable because of the knowledge of impending relief. At the customs post at Bridgend my shoulders relax, I breathe out and the tension that furrows my forehead and twists my eyebrows is gone. Everything around seems to relax. The road spreads itself comfortably on the ground. The hills are wild but free, the net of small fields is removed and with it the tight grip of order is released.

Kirsty O'Regan (QUB Student)

But I am not in Inishowen. It’s Sunday night and everywhere is shut. The fog does not seem as heavy in the city centre as it did in the dimlit backstreets. The glow of the self-important public buildings does little to lift the tension from my shoulders and the army helicopter is still rattling in the grey night sky. I turn the corner into William Street. It is busy with taxis and carry-out food. This is a different kind of busy from the daytime busy of market stalls, fruit ‘n’ veg and baps from the bakers, but my reaction is the same to both. I relax slightly.

I know that if I were turning into Castle Street in Belfast I wouldn’t feel as relaxed. The same goes for any of the narrow busy ghetto entrances that fringe cities all over the world. But this is my ghetto, home to my tribe. It could be this tribalism that makes me relax crossing the border into my spiritual home of Inishowen, but I’d like to think that there is something more. It must be more than tribalism that makes a body feel centred and whole standing on Grianan of Aileach on a rainy day. Perhaps however the spirit of place creates a unique experience only for my tribe. Places like the Egyptian Pyramids, the Pantheon in Rome, Aztec temples, the Empire State Building or Ayers Rock have, I am told, a similar significance to other tribes.

Kirsty O'Regan (QUB Student)

I am beginning to feel comfortable as I walk on through the sunday night through my ghetto, with my tribe. I know that I can comment on things without having to qualify my remarks or explain from first principles because of shared experiences and a shared place, Derry and our ghetto. There are other ghettos here, the middle income families huddle together in neighbourhoods for similar comfort motives, however money obviously affects the quality of ghetto life.

At times I despise the idea of being tribal as being insular and defensive. At these times I want to get away, safe in the knowledge that my tribe will always be there to return to. I can never join another tribe but can only be adopted by them on their terms, as a curio and a blow-in. A sinister grey Landrover appears out of the fog and slows as it passes me. My shoulder tension returns and I walk on with furrowed brow into the night.

Copyright: Michael Hegarty
Originally published 14 March 1992 in ‘City Lights’ Magazine