First, a note on the title: One of the many great things I discovered in Belfast this past weekend was the song "Galway Girl," which is apparently wildly popular in Northern Ireland. As someone who prides herself on having known Irish drinking songs from the cradle, I was dismayed to come across one I'd never heard...till I realized it was actually an American country song from, like, 2000. Still insanely catchy, though. I am, in fact, listening to it as I type.
Moving on. So yeah, I went to Belfast. This involved about seven hours of bus travel, beginning around seven on Thursday evening when we boarded the "magical blue bus" (as Jessie called it) from Cork to Dublin. We'd all brought snacks with us, some of which were more favorably received than others. My aging bananas were dismissed as "sketchy," and few of us were brave enough to try Kelsie's salt-and-vinegar flavored rice cakes, aka "death cakes," purchased in error and regarded with great skepticism ever since.
We got to Dublin circa midnight and had to switch buses. As we "waddled" through the cold, I couldn't help grinning at the familiar sights--the statue of Daniel O'Connor on his namesake street, the train overpass, the River Liffey..."Good memories here," remarked Emilie. "Yeah!" I beamed. "Isn't that cool? We have memories here!"
The bus to Belfast, which prudently bore no trace of a "Bus Eireann" logo ("Eire" being a somewhat charged word to put on a bus bound for Northern Ireland), dropped us off at our destination around 2:30 a.m. Our plan had been to walk to the hostel, which was only about ten minutes away, but this seemed less appealing now that we were here, exhausted and shivering violently (having forgotten how much farther north Belfast is and consequently how much colder it would be). The minute we stepped off the bus we were accosted by a cabbie offering us a taxi, and although each of us had turned him down independently as we disembarked, we decided about thirty seconds later to take him up on it. This time, Claudia had the address written down and I actually had it memorized, but the driver had no idea where it was and had to radio for directions. After a couple of U-turns, he delivered us to the right spot (and proceeded to upbraid the Australian staffer for the lack of a sign on the hostel door), giving us an entertainingly colorful first taste of the Northern Irish accent. (Side note: our Irish friends swoon over Northern Irish accents the way we Americans love all accents from these isles.)
In the morning (i.e., six hours later), we started off our visit with a Black Taxi tour. Background: During the "Troubles," buses were being bombed left and right, so the IRA (Irish Republican Army = militant Catholic nationalists in favor of breaking off from Britain to join the rest of Ireland) set up a taxi service as an alternate, safer means of transportation. Later on, this taxi service morphed into a tourism service that now takes visitors to various parts of the city, mainly the "contested" areas (neighborhoods that are still predominantly either Catholic/nationalist or Protestant/unionist...sectarian neighborhoods, if you will). Our driver, Walter, had been driving Black Taxis since 1984. When we told him we were studying in Cork, he did a spot-on imitation of the Cork accent, which made the difference between that accent and his own accent much more apparent to me.
Walter drove us around for almost two hours, starting off with an innocent photo-op stop at Queen's University, a lovely campus just down the block from our hostel. Then we moved into more serious territory, literally and figuratively. A few minutes after leaving Queen's, we pulled over in front of a mural that informed us, "You are now entering Loyalist Sandy Row, Heartland of South Belfast." Just in case we weren't sure what that meant, the statement was accompanied by an image of a masked gunman--a member of the UFF (Ulster Freedom Fighters = militant Protestant/unionist group). Welcome to Northern Ireland. Though Walter was happy to take pictures of us every time we stopped, I didn't feel comfortable posing for a smiley photo in front of this or any of the other murals. And there were a LOT of other murals.
Much of Belfast is divided into Catholic and Protestant sections, separated by the infamous "Peace Wall" and by various gates that are open during the day and closed each night. In both areas, the residents' backgrounds and loyalties are represented by murals painted on the sides of buildings. In a Catholic neighborhood, we saw long wall full of images paying homage to other separatist movements throughout the world. (Northern Irish nationalists tend to identify with pretty much any other "resistance" movement they can think of. They're big fans of Che Guevara, Palestinians, Basques, and so on.) In a Protestant neighborhood, we saw an almost suburban layout of houses that sported elaborate paintings of Oliver Cromwell--complete with Cromwellian quotes about the need to "crush" the Catholic Church--and the Red Hand of Ulster, a symbol used by both sides and rooted in Irish mythology. (One version of its origin goes like this: The ancient kingdom of Ulster--which roughly corresponds to present-day Northern Ireland--had no heir to the throne, so a boat race took place to determine the next ruler, based on a prophecy that whoever's hand first touched Ulster soil would become king. The guy who was losing decided to chop of his own hand and throw it onto the rocks, thus fulfilling the prophecy and winning the kingdom. Good story, tell it at parties.) In both areas, murals paid tribute to people who had sacrificed for their beliefs, whether it was women who had smuggled guns through the city in baby prams, hunger strikers who had died in prison, or victims of street violence. Some of the murals are chilling; others--like the one that proclaimed "Every child has the right to..." (insert images of playing, learning, growing up)--are touching in their appeal for a positive future.
The struggles in Northern Ireland were/are incredibly complicated, and I'm only just beginning to get a sense of them myself, but I think the most important thing to bear in mind is that both sides have enacted and suffered from terrible violence. We stopped briefly at a Catholic memorial for fallen IRA members--some of whom were only kids in their early teens who'd joined the youth arm of the organization--and it included a mini-wall listing the names and ages of civilians who'd died when they got caught in the crossfire. When Emilie asked me, "What is 'civilian'?" I was almost too choked up to answer.
The culmination of the tour was the "Peace Wall," which includes one section where visitors can write their own messages. The wall has been in place since the outbreak of the Troubles in 1969, but in recent years they're muralistic (not a real word) content has been overhauled to reflect more, well, peacelike sentiments. A quote from Bill Clinton--who brokered the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that helped bring an end to the Troubles--was featured prominently in very expensive 3D metal lettering. People are encouraged to write uplifting messages on this part of the wall; Walter gave us each a marker so that we could write something. I spent about ten minutes holding my marker and looking at what other people had written--their names and the dates of their visits, along with platitudes about the merits of peace or song lyrics to the same effect...and then the occasional random comment, like, "Belfast is sexy! Lovin' the accent!" The others managed to think of good things to write, but I kept drawing a blank. I just stood there holding my marker and feeling small. But that in itself was probably valuable.
Walter dropped us off in the city center, where we got a good look at the Europa Hotel (still going strong despite being the world's most-bombed hotel) and the elegant Crown Liquor Saloon (built in 1849 and still at the height of fashion) before catching a free tour of City Hall. Observation: Irish city halls, much like Irish post offices, are actually quite beautiful buildings, rather than the drab, functional structures I'm used to encountering in the states. Belfast's city hall was breathtaking. There was a wedding going on there when we arrived, and we couldn't help thinking that getting married at city hall would be a much classier affair here than it is at home. Highlights of our tour--aside from the gorgeous architecture--included Queen Victoria's original 1888 charter upgrading Belfast from a town to a city; a statue of the last Earl of Belfast (Kelsie: "He was hot!!") whose early death prompted his mother to deal with her grief proactively by commissioning several memorials for him; a Titanic-themed chess set on display (with each piece in the shape of a person who'd been involved with the ship--Captain Smith as the king, little children in life jackets as the pawns); and the Lord Mayor of Belfast. Yeah, he just walked by, sporting his absurdly heavy official gold amulet thingy, and obligingly stood still while everyone took pictures of him. (He even removed his coat to provide a better photo-op.)
Backtracking a bit: after the Black Taxi tour ended, I got a text from my very own Belfast contact, the fabulous Natalie Pavlatos, letting me know that she'd be done with work at her internship around 3 and would try to meet us afterward. The city hall tour started at 3, so I let her know where we were and figured she could come meet us by the time it was over. 3:45 rolled around and Natalie was still en route to city center, having been driven all the way home by her program coordinator (the famous Nigel) rather than dropped off at city hall as she'd been hoping. While we waited for her to show up, I perused the historical exhibit on Belfast's development as a city, which was conveniently located in (of all places) the city hall coffee shop. Apparently Belfast linen conquered the world in the early 1800s, and Jim Larkin was "one of the most effective union organizers in Ireland or the UK." Note the diplomatically ambiguous use of the word "or." Belfast in a nutshell right there.
By this time Claudia finished her tea, the others were dozing off, and Natalie was still MIA, so we wandered over to the Linen Hall Library, which has a fascinating (and sobering) collection of political posters on display. At last, around 5:00, just as the others were poised to give up and go back to the hostel (we were literally standing on the doorstep of the library, umbrellas at the ready) Natalie appeared on the rain-drenched horizon. I must say one of the weekend's best moments was when we tackled each other for one of our classic biffle (derived from BFFL) hugs. And since the rest of this post has been so somber, I think I'll end on that cheerful note. Tune in next time for an account of Saturday's adventures and more long-winded musings on Important Matters Beyond My Grasp.
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