Belfast - it was a whole week, bring a snack and take breaks....

Crap crap crap crap crap! I'm about two weeks behind in relaying my exploits and at that rate I will be writing about being in Ireland when I'm back in Minnesota... I will try to avoid that awkward debacle...

So, to keep everyone more updated, I'm going to start with this past week, Sunday 12 July to Friday 17 July, when I was in Belfast, and get back to earlier weeks later.

We left for Belfast on Sunday morning and would have been there in about 3 hours (that's far to many Irish that I've spoken with), but we stopped at Castleward, an estate on Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland. This particular estate is famous for it's weird architecture. The basic floor plan is symmetrical and is split across the middle, separating the front and back halves of the house. Since it was such a big estate, it took a while to complete. Unfortunately for the very fashion consious lady of the house, the styles changed. This resulted in the ENTIRE front half, inside and out, being built in the classic style, and the ENTIRE back half, inside and out, being built in the gothic style. Sadly, my tour inside the house was too long (and too boring frankly, although that has nothing to do with time) for me to get pictures of my own, so these pictures are from the internet. Also, it was Pirate Picnic Day so there were tons of little kids running around in pirate clothes and facepaint to look like goatees and mustaches and eyepatches. I would have prefered that to my tour.... But the castle was pretty cool. Another more... controversial... aspect to the estate, and many estates that were around during the famine, was the idea of the entire estate being beautiful and the upper classes never having to see anything dirty. Once again the lovely lady of Castleward wanted to fit in with the times. Near the estate, within sight of many of the major rooms of the house, was an impoverished famine village. She got rid of it. Kicked everyone out and demolished the lot. All so she wouldn't have to see, know, or think about what was going on around her. So I definitely think that she would have been a great friend, especially on that day your hair just wasn't cooperating. "Oh! You're having a bad hairday? Oh that's fine, just go hide in the closet until it fixes itself, or I won't happen to be anywhere in the house able to run into you at any point to see it. Thanks." Just a lovely lady.

Before I go into the meat of our trip, here are some pretty pictures of places on the north, Antrim Coast, of Northern Ireland:

This is a picture of Dunluce Castle. It's built on an island right next to the shore. It also has a nifty cave underneath for stores of food and getaway boats in case of attack. Although an army would find itself hardpressed to find an easy way to attack this castle. No particularily interesting stories about this castle, just really, really pretty location. Well, I guess some of it has fallen into the sea, and it has a ghost, but doesn't every castle?

Fionn mac Cumhaill. Finn McCool is a mythical giant warrior guy. He has lots of animals and lots of area to protect and other such giant hero things to do. Well, one day he heard about some guy over in Scotland who could be a threat to his domain so he decided he was going to and fight this guy. Being a giant, he just built a bridge, or causeway if you will, out of stone (that's me standing on it). So he goes to see this dude to try and fight him, but this guy is even bigger than he is, so he runs right back. Scottish giant man hears about it and heads over Finn's causeway to beat up the chicken. Well, Finn is FREAKING out, so he talks to his wife. She says, "Dress up like a baby, and lay in this bed." Being a good husband, he listens nicely (plus he's scared out of his giant warrior pants). Scot dude makes it over and asks where Fionna's husband is and he sees the uber giant baby (because it's a full-grown giant pretending to be a baby, so you can imagine) and the Scotsman is so afraid of how big the dad must be that he runs back across the causeway and smashes the middle so he can't be followed. And that's how the stones behind me got made.

.....okay.... I know you didn't fall for it....

Basically: Crack in earth --> Lava seeps up --> cools quickly on top and bottom --> cools slowly in the middle --> stress fractures form pentagon, hexagon, nonagon, octagon, et cetera towers with ball and socket joints in between them -->top stuff gets worn away and you see Finn's Giant's Causeway.

And to end the day (full of sun and so warm and clear and I got VERY sunburned on the back of my neck) we crossed a Carrick-a-rede rope bridge to a very pretty island. Just really pretty and a feat for someone who is afraid of heights. I am not, so it was just really pretty.

Okay, quick overview of the whole Northern Ireland situation.

1.) Ireland is actually the Republic of Ireland, an entirely separate state.

2.) Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom.

3.) Northern Ireland is still divided into two main groups.

These divisions are not hard and fast, but they give a good idea as to why there are still problems in Northern Ireland. IN GENERAL, you have one side, the nationalists or republicans, that want to become a state with the rest of the island of Ireland. If you are a Catholic, you are probably of this viewpoint. The other side, the Unionists, want to remain a part of the Union of the United Kingdom. If you are Protestant, you are probably of this viewpoint. Here's the problem: N. Ireland is a majority Protestant and therefore also majority Unionist. They want to remain in the UK for economic reasons as well as social reasons (the Protestants have been there for years and many are decendants of the ENGLISH plantations of the 1640s, so they consider themselves English (the English see them as Irish, but that's another story)). They DON'T want to become a part of Ireland because they are afraid that Home Rule (Ireland ruling Ireland) means Rome Rule because of the majority Catholic in Ireland. The republicans are Catholic and for the most part consider themselves Irish and want to be a part of the Republic for that reason. Also, the 45% minority of Catholics have mostly been second class citizens of a mostly Protestant ruled state. So add all those things together and you can start to understand why from 1969 - 1998 they might not have been the best of friends. Okay, I think that should work for what I have to talk about now.

Alright, so these two pictures above and below are from the Orange Parade on July the 13th, in celebration of the 12th of July. The 12th celebrates when the Protestant King William (Prince of Orange) beat the Catholic King James in his attempt to regain the crown in 1690. So the Orange Order, a predomintantly Unionist group that was para-military (I believe) during the troubles in N. Ireland from 1969-98, still marches on the 12th of July. From a purely visual standpoint, what we saw was essentially a family parade just full of Lions groups. That's not the reality though. Add in the sound, and you hear war like marching music. Look closer at the banners, you will see celebration of the people who fought because someone else was different. Listen to the conversations, there are people that still hate each other because they are of a different creed.

Knowing the history, especially related to the troubles that are only 11 years away, and seeing these formerly para-militaristic Protestant groups march through Catholic areas TO THIS DAY puts a large amount of tension in the air. The argument of the Unionists to be allowed to continue marching in places they aren't wanted is very skewed. One person that we talked to compared their marching to the civil rights marches of black Americans in the sixties. But it's not anywhere near to that. They are marching a military celebration of one religion beating another in 1690 by a sectarian group (protestant and unionist) that attacked (not unprovoked, there was fighting and killing on both sides, but yeah... the Catholics don't really do an equivalent anymore) the same group (Catholic and nationalists, specifically republicans) for 30 years in very recent history.

We were at this parade at 11 o'clock in the morning and although we were perfectly safe, we all felt the tension. Later in the evening we went back into town to grab some food and we walked past the parade route. There was no parading going on at that point, bu there were hundreds of people in this one small interesection and guaranteed, I'm not exagerating this point, they were all at least fairly buzzed with the majority being noticably drunk. And the tensions rose to the point of riots that evening. Although it's not very hard to see how with all the alcohol. At the time, and I still think this is their story, no one knows who started the riots. The thought is that a bunch of drunk kids with really no serious affiliation with any current political parties (Sinn Fein, the republican nationalists, do not claim any relation to the provokers), but maybe probably Catholics, started some trouble and people responded and the police were called in and all that jazz and rioting continued on in certain areas of Belfast for the next 3 days as well. Riot gear was on the police, rubber bullets were used on people throwing petrol bombs, etc. It was said that this is the worst trouble they have had for almost two years now. It was an intense situation. We were far from all of the trouble though. We were staying in Queen's College in a very suburban and upper middle class neighborhood whereas the rioting and such was occuring in Ardoyne and other such areas that basically looked like the closest things to slums we've ever seen.

These areas are the ones that have the murals that Belfast is famous for. I have a picture of a few below, although there are supposed to be around 2,000, is what we were told.

All of the above murals are one stating a view of one side or another. They show death, nationalism, Unionism, sectarianism, and support of other areas of the world that are going through other similar types of troubles. The below mural is one example of a community mural. These murals are becoming more and more popular and many are of the view that until the other kinds are put into some type of memorial and aren't a reflection of current attitudes, Northern Ireland will not achieve peace. The question is whether they want to remember these things, or if they want to erase them from the history.

Lastly we went to Stormont, the head of the N. Ireland government. Right now, their government shares power between all the parties and the entire country is run based on the ratio of the parties that get voted for. They are attempting to make every thing fair and square, but right now, they are at a stalemate. Nothing can be approved unless the two heads of the two largest opposing parties agree. There has to be a majority in all parties for legislation to pass.

We took a tour and then we got to listen to four representatives, one from each of the four largest parties. It was an intense meeting. We asked them about different things, such as their sectarian education (Protestant State Schools and Catholic Maintained Schools), the right of the Orange men to march, the use of Northern Ireland as an example for peace in the Middle East, and other such issues. The debate got heated. The arguments of both sides of the party were at times astonishing to us. Remember the guy that compared the Orange marches to the civil rights marches? He was one of the representatives. Another representative basically stated that unless they agree completely on something, nothing can be decided. In other words he said there is no middleground.

There is a supposed peace in Northern Ireland, but from what I saw, that's a debatable view. People are not being killed day to day anymore. People are getting educated. Jobs are had and there is less poverty than before. But in the end, they hate each other on the street. Although they are trying to work together in government, they refuse to budge. It is an uneasy truce and it saddens me to say that I don't know if I will even be around to see complete and actual peace in Northern Ireland. They don't even have a shared goal of where they want their country to go. There is no common ground.

But, to end on a bright note: Our tour guide was born, raised, and still lives as a Catholic in Belfast. He was around during the troubles, he experienced the hatred first hand, and he is still constantly working to this day to rise above it. He was very gracious to give us both sides of the story, and he is happy that he has stayed in Belfast, which I see as a sign of how far they have come and can go.

View from the top of Stormont steps across Belfast.

Congratulations, you made it =)

Later,

Anna