Category Archives: Northern Ireland

Belfast, Belfast Castle, Northern Ireland, Peace Walls

Sunshine in Belfast

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Yesterday we trooped like good tourists to  the Titanic Museum.  I wrote a  review on TripAdvisor entitled, “A Disappointment of Titanic Proportion.”  I’ll just leave it at that and pop in one picture just to prove our attendance.

Oh, but one more, the venerable “Crapper” aboard the SS Nomadic, the Titanic tender ship.  Click to enlarge so you can see the logo.

We have fallen in love with those “Hop On, Hop Off” buses.  They give a great tour of the city and we end up seeing things we wouldn’t otherwise see, getting a sense of the city overall.

We decided to walk the few blocks from our hotel to Queen’s University and the Botanical Gardens and after trouping around there . . .  hop on.

Our street –  can you conjure a more definitive Belfast street scene?

The first building in our path, the handsome Union Theological College.

Ah, a new job!

Then on to the Botanical garden – more flowers.

Such a dandy chap!

The Palm House Conservatory, finished in 1840, and one of the first to feature curved glass and cast iron.

Just a few steps to the iconic university building with walls of stained glass.

Time to hop on.  It was raining when we boarded so no pictures to show until we got to Royal Victoria Hospital where I guess they are not accepting new patients (click to enlarge).

As the bus zigged and zagged through the now sunny neighborhoods, the guide let us know if it was Catholic or Protestant.  The city is still mightily segregated.  Here is a “peace wall” which started springing up in 1969 to “minimize inter-communal violence”.  This one is still standing around a Catholic neighborhood and the gates close at 6:30 every evening.

Here a slowly crumbling prison where folks were held without cause.

And on we went to Shankill Road (yesterdays post referred to the Shankill Butchers) where allegiances were proudly displayed.

Then you turn a corner and flash back into the world of Irish Ozzie and Harriet.

The Belfast Castle is nestled in the hills just outside the city centre.   The gardens have a view across the river to the shipyard.

Another turn, another declaration.  This claims territory for the Ulster Volunteer Force.

The fragile peace is palpable.

For the sake of history, here is the Albert clock.  Vickie built memorials all over the empire in an effort to impress upon everyone how sad she was to lose her German husband.  I’m not a bad photographer, the clock tower leans.  Never one to be told no, Vickie had the thing built over a submerged river.

Back to the hotel and a view out our window of the mammoth H & W cranes next to the Titanic dock.

It just started raining while the sun is shining . . . pot of gold?

Since we are getting to the end of the trip, we can safely add a tip for hoteliers around the globe.  THESE THINGS DON’T WORK.  You step on the pedal and it  hits you on the shin!

Belfast, Belfast Troubles, Northern Ireland

A Poignant and Troubling Day

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During the “troubles”, downtown Belfast was enclosed by a steel wall and vacated at the end of the business day.   It became  known as “Dead Centre”, which appropriately, is the name of the tour company which guided us around today.  As a child, I saw the “troubles” through a television set and some pictures in Life magazine.

Here in Belfast today, I saw through the lens of testimonial, time, and place.

Paul, our guide, is a teacher now with a degree in political science but lived through the troubles as a child.

When he was four a store a few doors from his home was bombed and his parents found him upstairs sound asleep amid broken glass.  Some of his earliest memories are of his family carting out their possessions to move to a place of safety.  Paul also does mediation work between Republicans (predominately Catholic) and Unionists/Loyalists (predominately Protestant).  His perspective both personal and intellectual brings clarity to the disturbing history of this city.

We started at City Hall (note; Births, Deaths, Marriages and Civil Partnerships).

Here Queen Vickie, holding the orb, stands in authority (perhaps the root of the problem).

In just a short walk we were in the middle of dead centre.  The steel wall was a ring of fencing around the city centre, you had to be searched to enter.  It did not come down until 1995.  Here you can see what it was like to go to work each day.

Even now the streets are deserted at night and shops closed on Sunday leaving a ghost town feel amid the clash of architecture past and present.

Across the street from this shot was one of the first bombings in the entrance of a night club.  The bomb was set by a paramilitary squad who pulled up, held the bouncers at gun point, set down the bomb and then told them they had ten minutes before it exploded.

In 1972, the Abercorn Restaurant was bombed, killing 2 and injuring over 130.  The IRA was blamed but no one was ever charged.

The scene then.

Abercorn bomb.jpg

And now.

This is the sight of Mooneys Bar where three Scottish soldiers (two of them brothers aged 17 and 18) were lured out of the bar  and  into the hands of IRA paramilitary then shot at a remote location.

The response from the Protestants was to start the Tartan Gangs and the Shankill Butchers who would kidnap, torture and murder random Catholics. The point being, if you couldn’t kill an IRA soldier, you killed a civilian.

July 21, 1972, is remembered as Bloody Friday when 20 car bombs went off all around Belfast in less than 80 minutes terrorizing the entire city.

This building in 1972.

And today.

During the course of the Northern Ireland Troubles there were 16,209 bombings and attempted bombings.  Most in Belfast, a compact city of 300,000 individuals spread over just 42 square miles.  Compare with Chicago at 1,318 square miles and you can understand the concentration of terror involved in living each day.

Signs of hope appear randomly throughout the city.  Charming cobbled streets, flowers, and a street mural project that reinterprets the violent murals of the past.  And what is more hopeful than a smiling Cavalier?

As Paul said, “A city that has one eye on the past is wise, a city that has both eyes on the past is blind.”

Belfast, Northern Ireland, Uncategorized

Tinker, Tailor, Tourist Spies

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We tinkered with our route this morning and had some extra time which we used to travel the coastal route paying the dividend of more stunning beauty.  As promised, no more pics of landscape.

We entered Belfast and were immediately aware of its unique identity.  It’s a more urban feel with abundant graffiti, a little grit on the streets and a plethora of Thai restaurants (I think we are about to see Thai food hailed as the first global cuisine, it is ubiquitous).  Belfast has a little over 300,000 citizens, so a smallish city.  It’s been occupied since the Bronze Age and Queen Vickie gave it city status in 1888.  We’ll be tourist spies tomorrow on  a “Troubles” walking tour  but Belfast is now known as one of the safest cities in the UK.  We are staying just blocks from Queen’s University and the neighborhood is young, diverse, full of street life and vintage shops.

This statue sized drinking fountain is affectionately inscribed with the phrase,  “Whoever drinketh here will surely thirst again.”  Nice to know.

But now for the win of the day.  Wayne has been in search of a replacement for his threadbare 35-year-old tweed jacket.  He didn’t want something new or different – more of a reproduction.  We searched in Dublin, made a special stop in Donegal to ferret something out (see current label below) all to no avail.

We did locate the closest Donegal tweed fabric in Dublin at Kevin and Howlin where they said they couldn’t make the jacket but did cut a swatch of the fabric and filed it with his name on it in hopes that a tailor in Chicago could do the construction.  Belfast was our last hope.  So we set out with a list of tweed stores proffered by google.

The first was a bespoke shop, North Clothing, Gentlemen’s Outfitters.  The proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  Inside, the proprietor, Michael Donnelly, a tailor in his own right was about to get a sale.    He got on the phone, talked to the store in Dublin, measured Wayne up, and we’re dropping off the old jacket for him to copy before we leave on Wednesday.  So he’ll end up with Donegal tweed from Dublin made into a new jacket in Belfast.  Couldn’t get more Irish than than that.

Michael letting Wayne know he is a tailor, not a miracle worker.

On the phone with Dublin getting the fabric sent.

Time to measure.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Mr. Donnelly, “The grief I give you is extra.”

 

Giants Causeway, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Portrush

A Giant Legend

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A singular purpose today – explore the Giants Causeway,  designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986 and the source of Gaelic mythology regarding a giant named Fionn mac Cumhaill.  On the way, we took a stop at Dunluce Castle a ruin from the 13th century precariously situated on a cliff.

After parking at the visitors center it was an easy walk, downhill, not so easy on the way back.

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The geological formations look routine.

Then from nowhere the lack of randomness makes you ask –  is this the result  of 60 million years of geological activity  or human intervention?

The geology expanded into a virtual field of columns pushing out the ground and into the sea making your feet underneath seem extraterrestrial.

Climbing required care.

For safety there were several “Causeway Cops” blowing whistles when someone strayed into dangerous territory.

Here is the experience of navigating the field. Forgive my attempts to narrate over the wind.

Nooks and crannies, vast fields, an Escher stairway pouring into the sea.

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The Wishing Chair.

Whole landscapes like no other.

You have been kind to all these scenic pictures over these last several days.  I promise they are over.  We head into Belfast tomorrow and the scenery will shift to urban architecture, old and new.

But wait, a decoy was spotted in a yellow rain slicker making several attempts to photo bomb our pictures.  This must stop.

Giant Causeway, Northern Ireland, Portrush

Horn Headed

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Good day from Portrush, Northern Ireland.

Always, always, always talk to strangers when you travel.

Last night while consuming Donegal Bay oysters, steamed mussels, and chips at The Olde Castle Bar and Fish Dock, two women scooted into the booth adjacent to ours struck up a conversation.  One, whose late husband was Irish, claimed Donegal County her favorite part of Ireland.  She talked about cliffs way out on the peninsula.   She was referring to Horn Head a series of cliffs that rise 600 ft. straight out of the sea.

We rose early and after a quick breakfast made the decision to drive there even though  our car time increased by 2 hours.   It was one of those instincts, “When are we ever coming back to Horn Head?  Let’s go.”

The drive took us through a range of Irish topography.  And it quickly became extremely rural, with  kilometers between  farm houses.

First the Irish green.

Then the ground hardened and grew more barren.

But still some sheep.

Farm trespassers beware of biosecurity!

And then the windmill farms.

Then back to green and blue.

And the occasional mountain.

Then we had Peat Moors.   Interesting fact; peat is the most efficient carbon sink on the planet.

The rows you see are cuts where the peat has been harvested.

A car came past in the opposite direction, flashing his lights at us.  Why?  Watch out!

Google Maps took us right up to the pinnacle of Horn Head.  These are not the Cliffs of Moher and as a result, are almost devoid of tourists.   Only two others crossed our path.

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On the highest rise sits an abandoned defensive structure.  Who knows if it is WWII or earlier but definately built to be manned for significant periods.  Why else have a fireplace?

Seems someone tried to claim its symbolism.

Looking back on the cliffs you get a different perspective.

Good thing we were the lone car on the drive down.

Our friend from last night told us tensions still exist between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, UK, crown vs. catholic.  That was apparent when we crossed the border.  No checkpoints, just a sign saying, “Welcome to Northern Ireland”, black spray smudging  out “Northern”.