How to hail a taxi in Belfast

After spending the day with my great Aunt Jessie, Uncle Gerard, and then my mom’s cousin Norma, I took advantage of being in town and did a little shopping. After all, I had seen a lovely silk top in a shop that I wanted to check out again. Practicality got the better of me and I decided to save my money for Argentina and head on home. My Auntie Roisin would be serving dinner in about a half hour. And so began the adventure of finding my way home. Plan A was to call my Aunt Roisin as she had offered to pick me up. I stepped into one of those little red telephone booths to decipher how to make a call. It’s been years since I’ve used a pay phone. No such luck though as I had left the phone number at the house. With no number to call, Plan B was to walk to
Granda’s as he has everyone’s number. Granda lives only about 1.5 miles away from city center. On my way though, I thought it might just be easier to catch a cab since I know Brendan and Roisin’s address (Plan C).

As I walked to Grandda’s I kept an eye open to hail an available cab. In the states, a cab will have its top light on signifying it’s available, and turn it off when it’s full. Strangely though, cabs were passing me by with their lights off and appeared empty, or their lights on, but full of people. The few that I tried to hail, didn’t stop. This is strange I thought. There are also “black taxis” which are shared and operate more like buses, but you need to know where you are going and which one to pick…which I clearly did not know.

Eventually one stopped and asked, “Where you going Love?” I said to Cedar Avenue. He didn’t seem to know exactly where Cedar Ave is and said he thought it was located across town. Now I was not about to be taken for a tourist and have him drive in a circle just to charge me a higher fair, and I knew that Brendan and Roisin’s house wasn’t that far from Granda’s, so I got out of the cab and said I’d just head to my relative’s house since he didn’t know exactly where Cedar Ave is located.

Back to plan B. Granda is nearly always home, unless he’s at daily mass. And of course, I chose just that time to stop by. He wasn’t home. I knew I had two uncles within blocks of Granda’s, but had no idea where they live. Hmmm, what next? Plan D was to go to Auntie Jessie’s back towards town, or catch a cab on my way. An empty black taxi slowed down beside me, but when I put my hand out, I just got the finger wag saying NO. At the corner of the Fall’s Road, I asked a man smoking outside a bar what the deal is with determining which cabs are available. (I’m thinking to myself, I get cabs all the time in San Francisco…how hard can it be?) “You can’t just hail a cab from the street!” he said. It’s illegal. Due to “the Troubles” in Northern Ireland and the segregated neighborhoods, it was very dangerous for taxis or buses to go down certain streets. They stopped running these routes, so people set up their own private cab system (the black taxi) to go down these dangerous thoroughfares leading to home. He called me a cab and confirmed that yes, Cedar Ave is indeed “on the other side of town” which is really only about 2 miles away. So the first cab was indeed right. In the States, we think 100 years is a long long time ago. In Ireland, 100 miles is far far away. It’s all relative. In the end I made it home, albeit late for dinner, and with a better appreciation of Belfast transportation.

Finally home! (Me, Naomi, Laura)