Unexpected history lesson in Belfast

This is a bit of a double write up for Sunday and Monday which covers the final leg of my trip in Ireland and coincidentally the first part of my trip in the United Kingdom (aka Northern Ireland)

Sunday 

  I made my way from Galway to Belfast in Northern Ireland.  This is incredibly long, 7 hours, and relatively boring ride as it involves a 2+ hour overlay in Dublin, and the dublin to Belfast portion was sans wifi :(.  But what was to come was definitely well worth it.

My  late afternoon arrival in Belfast left me with simple sightseeing to do that evening.  I got a few recommendations from the owner of the hostel, and one that stuck out was murals that stretched across two neighborhoods in the northwest corner of the city.  I had first heard about these only a day earlier while climbing Burren Hill.  One of the others on the tour briefly mentioned that her boyfriend lived in Belfast and that a black taxi tour of the murals was well worth it.  With two recommendations, they became a must see.  

As the murals were on the opposite side of the city from me, I started with a basic walking tour of the city.  What stuck out to me more than anything was the number of churches around the city.  It really just felt like a CVS and Walgreens war broke out about 100 years ago, but instead of building pharmacies on every corner they were building churches.  Other than the plethora of churches there were a few monuments and generally cool buildings, but nothing super spectacular.  Oh, and if any of you remember those annoying cows that were in Chicago and New York for a while.  Yeah well they were all over city hall, which was decorated with the Olympic rings and corresponding big screen tv, so people could easily watch the Olympics right there on the lawn.  While I was there, the ever popular Andy Murray was playing in the mixed doubles final.  He and his partner were up 1 set to love, however, I would find out later that they would ultimately fall in 3 sets.

As I finished up winding through the centre of Belfast, I arrived at the areas of the murals.  There are two main roads that have the murals falls road on the west/catholic side and Shankill road on the east/Protestant side.   I was told that I could simply walk up one of the roads, get to the end and then jump over.  This was not to be the case, but I'll get to that in a bit.  I arrived at Shankill road first, and so I meandered up the road.  At first I thought I was in the wrong place, but then it came in full force.  British flags, and mural after mural supporting the British side of politics in general.  It was a similar but opposite point of view on the Falls road side.  Instead of the British union jack the flags were the Irish tricolor.  And instead of supporting the Ulster side, they were supporting Sinn Féin and the IRA.  Now between these two roads is a wall and I'm talking Berlin type wall.  The two sides during the heyday of the animosity were literally so adversarial with each that the city built a wall to help deter violence and keep people away from each other.  Today the wall and the divide still exists, however, it's now called the peace wall.  And there is about 1/3 of a mile of murals set up in the name of peace.  It's an experience to just walk along this and sense how much passion went into the peace mural as well as the murals supporting each individual side.  I mentioned earlier that one should be able go get across from one side to the other without issue, however i encountered a big of a dilemma.  There are gates which when open, allow people to cross sides, however while I was there they were all locked, which prevented me from getting from one side to the other and made for an incredibly long walk to get out of the Shankill side of the neighborhood and back to the falls hill side.  Overall, if you ever make it to Belfast this is a must see activity and is probably best done on a tour as they will be able to give more background to the significance of everything,

Monday

This was a tour day, allowing for four stops along the way, providing a it of scenic wonder with additional insight into what makes northern Ireland tick.

Carrick-a-rede rope bridge. 

Back in the day fishing was incredibly important to the area. As they learned over time, the best fishing was out near an island. To get there they hung up a rope bridge to get across. The old rope bridge has been replaced by a newer and safer version which you get to cross over. Just don't look down if you're afraid of heights!!  The views in this area are incredible. 

Giant's causeway

Legend has it that in this area of northern Ireland lived a lonely giant, Finn. When Finn heard of another lady Giant in Scotland, he built a causeway to see her. They became smitten and returned to Ireland together. After a short while a third giant, who had a thing for the lady, came a calling and challenged Finn to a dual. Finn was quite nervous as the second fella was twice his size and presumably twice as strong. Finn and his lady talked and she came up with a plan that would unfold the next morn.  When the morning came and the challenger knocked upon the door the lady answered and to the question about where Finn was she replied "why he's out for his morning run around Ireland. It should only take him 20 minutes so he'll be back soon."  She then served the challenger up a breakfast of scones. As he went to eat them he nearly cracked a tooth as they were hard as stone little did he know they were made of stone).  Before he could say too much he heard a noise and inquired. "Why that's just our child. He hardly sleeps through the night, so we try to get him to sleep when he can". She guides the challenger to the room to see what he believes is the biggest baby he's ever seen under the blanket, what he doesn't realize is that this is just Finn. However, it makes him wonder how he could possibly defeat Finn, a giant that can run around the hole of Ireland in 20 minutes, eats stones for breakfast, and has a child so large. With all of this in his mind he pardons himself from the lady and runs all the way back to Scotland with such force that it collapses the causeway and leaves what we can see today. 

I'm sure Ive not retold the story 100% correct but it's a nice fable so I wanted to share for those who have not had the pleasure to visit the area. And while I can share the fable and the pictures, I am not versed enough of a writer to truly share the experience. How do you explain the freedom of being out in nature and climbing around the rocks. How do you explain the simple pleasure of listening to the water crash into the basalts. Or for that matter how do you explain their smell that whiffs up and catches you off guard. 

Dunluce Castle

It's a castle, not much more to say :). Apparently somewhere along the line during a lightning storm it was hit in the kitchen area which apparently fell into the ocean. It's never been the same since. 

London~Derry

This city has two very interesting backstories and both have to do with the conflict between the Irish Catholics and the English/Scottish Protestants.  

Back in the early 1600's when there was a grant influx of English and Scottish, the town built a wall around it.  The wall, which is overall a mile long and I'd say easily 20-30 feet wide in some places, was actually paid and built by a group of londoners and in exchange for the wall they city  had to agree to add London to its name, and thus a city that was once Derry became LondonDerry.  The wall remains completely intact and is one of the few if not the only such city call to remain in tact in all of Europe.  

The other significant backstory in this town is referred to as bloody Sunday.  On Jan 30 1972, in the bogside area of town, 27 individuals were shot, 14 of whom died, during a civil rights demonstration to call out the inequality in politics and even availability of jobs for Catholics in Northern Ireland. Based on what the guide told us, the IRA, Irish Republican Army, was, up to this point, a small group without much stream; however, after this event, many enlisted and 30 the years of violence we've all read about ensued.  Though by the early 90's the violence had subsided, it was not "officially" ended until the good Friday peace agreement, which ultimately led to a more autonomous Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom.