In the Northern Ireland Supporters’ Club on the Shankill there were two women behind the bar at lunchtime but nary a customer.

“Ah, no love, we wouldn’t have any great views on anything like that,” one of them offered about Brexit. “But there’ll be a group of pensioners in at 3 o’clock; they’ll talk to you.”

But that wouldn’t do. The brief was to record the historic moment that the Brexit starting gun was formally fired by Theresa May in this unionist heartland of Northern Ireland.

A dash down to the Berlin Bar, another very well-known Shankill drinking spot, to test the mood. A pensioner in a Manchester United baseball cap was the single customer. Sure, he’d talk to us, but no name mind, and no picture. “Don’t use my name because them IRA men might come up and shoot me,” he says, in jest it seems.

“I don’t care about Brexit. All I am interested in that they don’t get a united Ireland and Great Britain and Scotland stays in the United Kingdom too,” says the 73-year-old.

Immigrants

Still he is glad the UK is quitting the EU: “They are just right because there are just too many immigrants here getting our kids’ jobs. That’s what’s happening. Look at Castlecourt [shopping centre in central Belfast] there are more Chinese, Burmese and all sorts of nese in it [than local people].

“You have to take a chance. If it doesn’t work out we can go back in again. All I’m worried about is getting my pension.”

In a nearby hardware store the woman behind the counter says, “I don’t even know what it’s about,” as she reads the front page of the Sun with its “Dover & Out” headline.

If people don’t drink at lunchtime on the Shankill they must eat. In Beattys fish-and-chip shop the staff are friendly and chatty, but not about Brexit. Manager Joanne Nixon says, “I don’t really know much about it, to be honest, and it’s not being discussed here by our customers either.”

Time for Plan B: if all else fails talk to a journalist. Cross the road to the office of John MacVicar, editor of the Shankill Extra. Its March front page headline is “Wake Up and Smell the Coffee”, a reference to how Sinn Féin came within one seat of the DUP in the Assembly elections.

There are posters in the community offices where the newspaper is based urging local people to get on the voting register. “The vote was certainly a wake-up call for people.”

He voted Leave and reckons that is the dominant view on the Shankill. He has no time for the argument that as 56 per cent of people in Northern Ireland voted Remain that that vote somehow must be specially acknowledged.

“It was a decision taken by the United Kingdom. You are either a democrat or you are not a democrat,” he says. “We are part of the United Kingdom so why should we, living in Northern Ireland, be treated any differently to anyone living in Gloucestershire or London or Birmingham or Manchester?”

He believes the union issue is “effectively resolved” notwithstanding increased Sinn Féin demands for a united Ireland. “Do the people of the Republic of Ireland really want one and a half million citizens from Northern Ireland? Who is going to pay for them?”

MacVicar acknowledges that the EU helped fund several peace projects along the Shankill but hopes that the British government will keep up support for the area.

George Coleman runs a busy greeting card shop nearby. Describing himself as an Irish Presbyterian and committed unionist he is happy that the British prime minister has started the clock ticking.

“People talk about immigrants helping our economy. Well no immigrants come into this shop,” he says.

Motivating factor

“I have spoken to a lot of people in this area and they all voted Leave and the main motivating factor was all the immigrants coming into the country,” he adds.

And neither does he think people in the North would vote for a united Ireland. “Down South they have to pay €50 to visit doctors, don’t they? And there’s no DLA [disability living allowance] in the South. I think ordinary people would vote to stay in the UK.”

Emily Bingham, a shopper in George’s shop, says “we should’ve stayed in the EU”. Immigration does not worry her: “They are all human beings. You can’t just stop people coming in, and it will probably affect us going to their country as well.”

She also sees a “Little Englander” mentality in the overall Brexit vote.

Billy Auld drives 40-foot articulated lorries between Belfast and the Republic all the way to Cork and Kerry. He would hate to see customs posts back on the Border. A driver for 40 years he says, “I wouldn’t fancy sitting at customs all day because it costs a lot of money for hanging about doing nothing.”

But still he wanted out of Europe. “Too many legal decisions have been over-ruled by Brussels but most of all too many people are coming in.”

At this stage the countdown to Brexit has well and truly started along the Shankill and in the rest of Britain and Northern Ireland.

Our final call is at the Alterations clothing repair shop where the man behind the counter says he was a Remainer. He knows the British government has promised Northern Ireland won’t suffer financially from quitting the EU but he is sceptical.

He predicts, “My daughter is in university over in England and she is convinced England has no interest in Northern Ireland whatsoever. We will get as little as they can give.”