A Taste of Northern Ireland

This thursday I left for Northern Ireland for our midterm break with my IES program. The trip was great because we got to experience Northern Ireland and that really connected with most of my classes and the other plus was that I didn't have to plan a thing. We stayed in nice hotels, ate good meals, and had a fun time being together on a trip. There were probably about 40 of us on the trip which made it exciting. We left early thursday morning from Connolley Station which is just north of the Liffey in the city center of Dublin. The train ride to Belfast was only 2 hours and the views off the train were beautiful on the coast. As we were riding up it looked like the weather was going to be beautiful- the sun was shining, it wasn't too windy, and it wasn't really cold (but that was to change later...). Upon arriving in Belfast we were met by our IES staff members who were chaperoning the trip and we went straight to lunch at a well known saloon in downtown Belfast. The saloon had very good food and I ate an enormous amount of delicious cod:-) After lunch we had about a half an hour to kill before our cabs picked us up for a black cab tour around the city. We decided to walk down the street and see some sights. I got to see the Europa Hotel, which is the most bombed hotel in all of Ireland, and this was the first reminder of the troubles that occurred.

We then returned back to the saloon and 7 cabs came to pick us up and bring us to all the big sights in Belfast. Our first stop was Shankill (the protestant road). In this area there were pro-British, UDA, and UVF murals everywhere on houses. There were also Union Jacks flying and orange was a common color. I really didn't expect it to be so over the top with British support, but i was proven wrong. The murals obviously told the Protestant side of the story and one mural really stuck with all of us. It's a mural with a Protestant sniper and as you walk around the housing development the gun he's holding actually feels like it's following you around. Even though I don't have anything to do with the conflict and can't really choose a side, I still felt a little uneasy being in the Shankill simply because I am Catholic. Other people also felt this way and it just proved to us how far Northern Ireland still needs to go. Next, we headed over to Falls Road to hear the Catholic side of the story. Here we saw murals honoring the hunger strikers of 1981, Sinn Fein headquarters, and political murals. Our tour guides warned us that anti-American murals were going to be commonplace on Falls Road. We definitely didn't take much offense to the murals, because they spoke some truth and we know how anti-Bush all of Ireland and most of Europe is. The Northern Irish really do like Americans in general and actually love Bill Clinton, who helped with the peace agreement. After viewing the political murals we went to the 'peace wall' which is basically like the Berlin Wall. I couldn't belive that the two communities still need such a huge separation between them. We all signed the wall and saw the gates that close after dark to separate the Protestant Shankill from the Catholic Falls Road. All the houses bordering the peace wall have cages around there porches to protect themselves from petrol bombs and other things that are thrown over the wall. This made us all realize that all violence isn't gone, but it is definitely so much less. Luckily the majority of the population supports peace and doesn't support the extremist groups like the Real IRA and loyalist paramilitaries. After finishing our tour of Belfast we got on a bus and took a 2.5 bus ride along the coast up to Portrush.

Portrush is definitely a tourist town that is thriving in the summer, but a little dead during the winter. Despite the fact that the town was a ghost town we still really enjoyed it. We stayed in a Ramada (which felt amazing, because we are all used to hostels and crappy accommodations). That night we were on our own for dinner and just had free time so we ate a local restaurant and then went to one of the few pubs in the area. The pub was dead, but with 40 of us we actually made it quite busy. I think the bartender didn't know what was going on, because his pub was flooded with 20 year olds on a thursday night that was rainy and cold!

The next morning we got up early, ate an Irish breakfast, and then headed off to the Bushmill's Whiskey Distillery. Is there a better way to start the day than some whiskey? The Distillery was pretty cool and it's actually the longest running legal distillery in all of Ireland- I think they were celebrating their 400th this year. I had my first drink of Whiskey in the bar at the end of the tour with some friends and it was overall a delightful tour. After warming up in the bar we took our bus over to the Giant's Causeway. If you aren't familiar, the Giant's Causeway is a rock formation either caused by volcanic activity or a battle between an irish and scottish giant- I'm going with the volcanic activity explanation. As we arrived the weather took a definite turn for the worse and we all bundled up for our walk around the coast. We were sternly warned not to climb too close to the water, because people have been sucked out to sea in bad weather- so as we left we were all a bit worried about the weather. Upon stepping foot outside the term 'windy' was redefined for me. I used to think that windy weather occurred in Minnesota, but apparently I was wrong. The wind actually pushed people over on the rocks, the waves were really huge, and I was too afraid to get close to the edge of anything because it actually could push you over the edge. We had to walk back to the top of the cliffs on a narrow path without a railing- and we were seriously worried we weren't going to all make it up to the top safely. Luckily we made it back to the tourist center all looking windblown, wind burned, and exhausted. Our IES staff members told us that this was by far the worst wind they had experienced in all 14 trips they had taken up North- so we were pretty proud to have lived through it! We then returned back to Portrush and ate dinner at a great restaurant and then went back to the same pub (there was only one choice) and listened to some live music.

Dunluce Castle was our final stop on our trip on Saturday morning. This castle was built hundreds of years ago out on the edge of a cliff. The ruins were pretty amazing and it was hard to believe people actually survived the weather on the edge of the cliff. Actually, we learned of an event in the 1600's where the kitchen actually fell off the side of the cliff into the ocean taking servants along with it. Overall, the castle was worth the stop, but we were all sick of being exposed to the weather at this point so we then went back to Belfast to catch a train to Dublin.

All in all, the trip up North was amazing. None of the trips I have taken so far have related to what I've been learning like this one and I think the history aspect is what I enjoyed the most. It's impossible to imagine the delicate balance of peace in Northern Ireland without going up there and I'm glad I can finally say I saw the peace wall and saw the absolute separation between the two communities. Everywhere we went we asked the locals if they have confidence in Ian Paisley (UUP) and Martin McGuinness (Sinn Fein) sharing power and people said they never saw it coming years ago but now they actually believe peace is possible. It was great to hear the confidence of people up there and talk to Protestants and Catholics firsthand.