Belfast

We took a day trip to Belfast during our stay in County Antrim.  I had heard of Belfast, of course, before coming to Ireland.  I had vague notions of unrest there during my growing up years, but I didn't really start paying attention to international issues until I had kids, and even then, I only did so at a very surface level.  I pay a little more attention now because of our travels, but often feel incredibly ignorant when it comes to this world of ours.  I had heard the terms "IRA" and "Sinn Fein" but really didn't know what they meant. I didn't know who were the good guys and who were the bad guys; I just knew that in the past there had been divisions based on religion/politics that had been pretty violent.  Though I was pretty sure our day in Derry had opened my eyes a bit, I really wasn't sure what to expect as we drove into Belfast.

We were meeting our tour guide, Ken Harper, at City Hall (the building pictured above) so we headed right to the heart of Belfast.  What first caught my eye was the interesting mix of old world and modern ~ we found beautiful old buildings, funky sculptures and Starbucks all on the same block.  The downtown area had an upbeat, active feel, and when we needed to ask someone for directions, the gentlemen who helped us out couldn't have been friendlier.

This is Ken ~ born and raised in Belfast.  Another great tour guide who had endured much in the city he loved.  He was very knowledgeable, rather soft spoken, very nice to the boys, and as he toured Belfast with us, you could sense his pride for his city.  However, you could also sense an underlying emotion that I am not even sure how to label (embarrassment....sadness....disappointment???) that surfaced as he showed us the peace wall and told us of the continuing tension and division....BUT I am getting ahead of myself. :)

Belfast was once an important ship-building port with it's most famous (or maybe I should say infamous) product being the Titanic.  While there are no more ships being built in Belfast, all things Titanic do add to their tourist trade.  This was a recently dedicated memorial garden near City Hall.

After getting a tour of the area surrounding City Hall we jumped into Ken's taxi and hit the streets.  Ken told us that the area outside of that downtown "neutral zone" was, like Derry, divided by a "peace wall".  Only this peace wall was 45 ft. high, and 13 miles long.  There are numerous gates in the wall, but I think Ken said only 2 of them stay open 24 hours a day.   The rest are closed at night and some are closed on weekends.  It was hard to fathom that this was how the city went about life....divided.

We started out on the Protestant side.   Like Derry, Belfast has lots of murals.  This was one of the first ones we saw, telling the story of Shankill Road, the main drag on the Protestant side.

There are many U.S. Presidents who have been of Irish descent ~ County Antrim alone boasts 6, including Andrew Jackson, who is pictured here.  Ben and Chris liked this one ~ not because they love Andrew Jackson, but because they love flags.

This is William of Orange, an English king/Protestant hero, who seized the power from the Catholic King James in, yes, you guessed it ~ 1690.   So......wouldn't you think that if people were trying to heal after such massive conflict and violence, the landscape would not be dominated by murals that celebrate one sides victory over the other no matter how long ago this particular battle was?  And this was a subtle mural....not far from it there was also one of a man wearing a balaclava holding a machine gun.  It has been referred to as "The Mona Lisa of Belfast" because wherever you walk, it looks like he is looking at you.  Ken pointed out that children have to walk past these murals everyday on their way to school (and I will add that the schools we saw were themselves surrounded by fences topped with razor wire.....he said they didn't really need these fences anymore, but left them in place for the children's safety)....I guess I can see how this division just becomes a way of life.

This is one of the gates in the wall which happened to be closed (though it was the middle of the day).

This is a section of the wall called Cupar Way.  It is highly decorated by both professional and amateur graffiti artists from all over the world, including Ben and Chris.  Ken gave them crayons so they could add to the wall.

My photos of the boys and this wall are my favorites from this tour.  Part of it is simply the splashes of color in a city of mostly gray, but I realized later they are the only photos from the tour that I took from outside the car.  It was the only time we got out.  The rest of the tour was experienced from behind the windows of a car....a buffer, a distance....from the reality, from the conflict, from any potential danger.  I hope it does not sound like I am judging this city and its people ~ I am not.  This buffer means that I can't know what it is like to grow up in this culture, to lose loved ones in the violence that has gone with it, so I don't even feel entitled to an opinion about it.  I can only observe, listen, and learn, and pass it on to others in the hope that it can soften my heart and the hearts of others toward the people of this world of ours.

Jeff really enjoyed talking with Ken.  Those of you who know Jeff might have noticed that he has a wee bit of an interest in politics. :)

This piece of artwork was my favorite part of the wall.  I keep meaning to look up the artist (Chad Lyttle) but haven't found time yet.

We headed over to the Catholic side of the wall.  Falls Road is the name of the main street.  One difference we noted was that street signs were back to being written in English AND Irish, which is what we have seen all over Ireland.  There is no written Irish seen anywhere on the Protestant side.

This is a mural of Bobby Sands, an activist and member of the IRA ~ a group that fought for Irish independence from Great Britain.  He died in prison, the result of a hunger strike in 1981.  There is SO much more to the story, but I think I will just leave it at that or I will NEVER get this post done.

This wall has murals supporting various political prisoners all over the world.  While some seemed legit, some just seemed to be rather random....supporting political prisoners simply because they were imprisoned, regardless of what they had done.

OK, on to the less emotional, less controversial part of town!  Next we headed down to the shipyards....well, what used to be shipyards, home of Samson and Goliath, two huge cranes that are symbols of the city.

We did not tour the newly opened Titanic exhibit, but we did see the dry dock (above) where the Titanic was built.  It was really interesting ~ I guess I have never given any thought to how they actually build ships that big.  Wish we could have gotten closer and explored it a little more.


And that was the end of our tour.  Ken drove us back to City Hall.  I had mixed feelings about this tour...I am grateful to have learned more about Belfast and its history, but who truly likes to have their head pulled out of the sand?  I feel like a new door has been opened ~ I am forced to look at the world in a different way.  While it is a little discomfiting, I am grateful for it.  I am also grateful that I was blessed to grow up in a peaceful country in a time of relative peace and did not have to walk past murals of men with machine guns as I walked to school.  Okay....enough said.

And now, onto other important things.....as we walked the downtown streets, we went into a sporting goods store to get new shoelaces for Ben and what did I see to brighten my day but a PACKERS hat!!
I moved the Steelers hat that was right next to it to the shelf below it. :)

We then split up for a "lunch date" ~ Ben and I ate at a noodle restaurant called Wagamama.  It was delicious!  Now THAT is a real smile. :)  It was in a very modern shopping mall called Victoria Square.

Next we decided to do something very mundane (maybe in response to the foreignness of what we had experienced that morning) ~ we went to a movie!  We saw Oz, the Great and Powerful and enjoyed it thoroughly.

The boys wish this concept would catch on in America ~ "pick-a-mix" candy at the movie theater.  I rather enjoyed it myself....I have developed a bit of an addiction to bon-bons (rhubarb and custard is my favorite).  That cliche about sitting around eating bon-bons could finally apply to me!

Last picture from Belfast taken from  a dome at the top of Victoria Square from which you get an excellent view of the city.  Needless to say, I will never forget our time in Belfast.

Fast forward a couple of weeks....we are moving today from County Cork to County Kerry, our last stop on this wonderful tour of Ireland.  I am not sure if there is internet in our cottage in Kerry.  If there is NOT, I may not be posting anymore, though hopefully I will do another couple of posts from home. Hopefully there will be more posts, but if not, thanks for following our journey!