Northern Ireland

Last weekend, on a sort of spur-of-the-moment decision, I took a 3 day bus tour up to Northern Ireland. I used the same company that taken me and Jessica on our western tour, and actually ended up with same guide, which was a bit funny.

It was a fantastic, and very revealing tour. We hit all of the hotspots: Derry (aka Londonderry), Belfast, the Giant's Causeway. The scenery was beautiful: green, rolling hills and charming little towns. Apparently the land there is some of the most fertile on the island, which was part of the reason it was so coveted in the past, and why the British government had (long ago) populated it with Scottish people, rather than Irish.

We spent our first night in Derry, which is also known as Londonderry because it was largely established and built by the guilds of London. It is a walled city, and its walls are remarkably intact; we were told that they were to thank for the city's never having been breached. We took a walking tour of the walls, were shown many of the historical landmarks, and were taken down into "The Bogside", as the Catholic area is known. This neighbourhood featured some really remarkable murals: Derry endured plenty of horrible events throughout "The Troubles", and these murals document what happened. They tell the story of children fighting and dying, of housewives acting as an early warning system on the approach of the police, of a city full of rubble and tear gas. They are a warning, a reminder. We also saw the memorial to the victims of "Bloody Sunday", which took place in the Bogside. It was strange to think about all of these horrors taking place in what is now a quiet neighbourhood--children were playing on the memorial, seemingly oblivious to its meaning. A little unnerving, but also kind of heartwarming.

The murals in Belfast are quite the opposite: on Sunday morning, we took a "Black Taxi Tour" with Catholic and Protestant drivers. The city is divided by a wall, which separates these two groups, a very sad thing to see, especially when one learns that not only did the wall have to be built, including sets of gates at each street that are opened and closed as needed, but it had to be raised twice, since people kept throwning explosive devises over the top until it was too high.

The Protestant area centres around Shankill Road, and includes some truly horrifying murals. These paintings do not tell a story: they make martyrs of the gunmen who were killed, and demons of the gunmen who killed them. The most terrifying among them is a mural of a masked gunman, the muzzle of whose gun, through some optical illusion, follows you around. These murals aren't set aside in a memorial, or anything: they're right there, in the middle of a neighbourhood. Children grown up under them, and it's impossible to think that there is any chance for peace if this is what they are taught. The murals on Falls Road, in the Catholic area, are no less frightening, though they were less graphic. They celebrate their martyrs, and demonize their neighbours, much as the Protestants do.

The cities may have been a bit depressing, with all their tales of woe (especially Omagh, a town we stopped in, where 29 people--including a woman who was pregnant with twins--were killed in an IRA bombing in 1998), but the countryside was lovely. The Giants' Causeway, in particular, was amazing: the causeway is a coastal area that is covered in hexagonal rock formations that are remarkable and thus far inexplicable. Legend has it that Fion MacCool, the Irish giant of long ago, constructed the causeway to link Ireland and Scotland to enable him to fight his Scottish equivalent. According to the story, the Scottish giant was even bigger than Fion, so he disguised himself as a baby, bit off the Scots' finger and sent him running at the thought of the father of the monstrous child, tearing up the causeway as he went. (The causeway can be found on the western Scottish coast, as well.)

We also crossed the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, which crosses 60 ft. over a 90ft. drop into the ocean. Apparently it is traditionally constructed by salmon fishers to give them access to a tiny island around which they set their nets. It may have been quite a fearful crossing once, but having become the tourist attraction that it is the bridge is now so reinforced that it didn't bother me at all (though some did not share this feeling, especially when their crossing companions jumped up and down). The island itself really is tiny, and has absolutely nothing on it; we used it to watch a seal swimming around and to take a brief sun nap on the grass. It is so far removed from any traffic or anything that it is wonderfully peaceful, and completely relaxing.

I saw little sign of "The Troubles", outside of the walls and murals. People seem to have moved on fairly well, and we saw no armoured vehicles, had no checkpoint to cross at the border. There are a few strange signs, however; the litter problem, for example. I know I've complained about Dublin being dirty, but it was nothing compared to the cities of Northern Ireland. My guide explained that this was because all public bins had been removed years ago, when the bomb threats began, and had only been replaced fairly recently. People are still getting used to them. Its the little, everyday things like this that really make you think twice about how these people lived for years, constantly worrying about the police and the IRA, bombs on streetcorners and in schools. Major public buildings are surrounded by cages to protect them from such threats.

There are some noticable changes, however; the British army are in the middle of dismantling all of their bases there. Those that still remain are not the fearful places they once were, either; in Derry, we waved to one of the surveilance cameras at the army base, and recieved a wave (via a window wiper) in return, as well as a nod and wave goodbye. It was funny, but also a reminder that there must still be someone watching the now-quiet streets, a job that would once have been very important.

In any case, it was an education. The guide on our walking tour in Derry asked us to tell everyone how much we'd enjoyed our time there (and to keep our big mouths shut if we hadn't), since Northern Ireland is only just beginning to climb out of a major economic depression, and desperately needs the income that tourism can provide. I'd recommend it as a fascinating place to visit, especially with a good guide who can explain the meaning behind everything you see.