Allie in Spain (and Ireland): How long, how long must we sing this song?: Northern Ireland

This past weekend was yet another full of travels and adventure. This time, we headed north and crossed the border into the United Kingdom to visit Northern Ireland. I'm going to start this blog off with a little history lesson, because I know that the whole Republic of Ireland vs. Northern Ireland, U.K. involvement can get a little fuzzy sometimes.

So basically, what went down is that during Britain's 700 year occupation of the island, the northern portion of the country grew to have a much higher concentration of Protestants. Currently, 85% of the Republic identifies as Catholic, while in Northern Ireland, it's only about 40%. The reasons that this happened are kind of up for debate, but mostly it was just because the North was more easily controlled by Britain and their military campaigns were more successful in that portion of the country, while the South was more exposed to external interference from Catholic countries like France or Spain. This meant that the penal laws and other forms of Catholic oppression had more effect in the North, so the Protestants flourished there. As a result, the North became a political stronghold and much of the wealth from Britain came into that part of the country. The North became much more economically developed than the rest of the island and Belfast became the only truly industrialized city, while the rest of the country had an agrarian economy.

Fast forward a couple hundred years, and in the early 20th century you have the Irish really starting to push for independence. With the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921, Britain agreed to grant 26 counties dominion status, but they refused to give up 6 counties in the province of Ulster - Fermanagh, Tyrone, Derry (Londonderry, depending on who you're talking to), Antrim, Armagh and Down. This condition of the treaty was a major point of contention for many Republicans, and resulted in a split in the IRA which led to the bloody civil war in the Republic that would carry on for 2 years after the treaty. Eventually, the pro-treaty group won out, and the 6 counties were never integrated back into the Republic as most Irish people had originally wanted. The truth of the matter is that these areas had a Protestants majority and a vote never would have resulted in them joining the republic voluntarily. There was, however, still a significant Catholic population so clearly they were going to have problems.

Enter: The Troubles. I'm sure that mostly everyone has at least some idea of what the troubles were all about. Basically, under British rule in Northern Ireland, Catholics continued to be discriminated against and so eventually, led by the IRA, they started to fight for Civil Rights. This led to a lot of violence throughout the 60's and 70's and the famous 1972 Bloody Sunday Massacre that U2 wrote a song about. Britain took Northern Ireland's parliament away and brought a lot of British troops in to try and control the violence. It wasn't until the 1980s that the Peace Process began to make way, culminating in the Good Friday agreement of 1998. This continued throughout the 2000's, as the IRA decommissioned its weapons and the power-sharing agreement was brought back. That was a massively generalizing summary, but hopefully we get the gist now. Although the situation is currently much more stable, our tour guide explained to us that Belfast and Derry really are still "war-zones" and you have to be careful what you say and who you're saying it to. And once you get there, you can tell that he's not exaggerating.

We arrived in Belfast around 5:00 on Friday night. It's actually only about a 2 hour drive from Dublin. We were meeting up with our tour guide, who we would later find out is ex-IRA (as are most of the cab drivers in Belfast, since it's the only job they can get, apparently), in the city center where he would join us on our bus to show us around. I had no idea what to expect, but once you arrive in Belfast you can just sense the grimness. Maybe this is just because I know about the history, or maybe it's just the general lack of sunlight, but the place seriously feels like it has a shadow cast over it. As we drove around and George explained things, I was shocked to see that the city truly is still divided between Protestants and Catholics. We saw murals in both areas of the cities - the ones in the Protestants neighborhoods sported portrayals of Oliver Cromwell and King William of Orange, while those in the Catholic neighborhoods showed IRA Remembrance Monuments and Bobby Sands. Each area has its own schools, churches (obviously), community centers and whatever other type of building you would expect. Catholic neighborhoods fly the Republic's flag while Protestant neighborhoods fly the Union Jack. The 2 areas are literally divided by a wall which they now call a "Peace Wall" and a gate which stays closed throughout the weekend. They had a vote a few years ago to see if the citizens wanted to tear down the wall, but they voted to keep it up. The city has been making a lot of strides in becoming more integrated, but the fact that there's segregation if painfully obvious.

One particularly interesting thing to witness was the build up for July 12th. I don't know what our trip planner was thinking when she scheduled this trip for July 8-10, because every year there is violence and rioting leading up to commemorate the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, when the Protestant William of Orange took back Ireland from Catholic James. For a few weeks beforehand we were worried that we wouldn't be able to see Belfast because of the rioting, but fortunately it died down before we went. We certainly had to take our precautions though - we only left the bus for a few minutes at a time to take pictures and there were a few areas where the tour guide wouldn't less us get off. They're not really concerned with tourists though; this a local battle. We saw people on the Protestants side preparing enormous bonfire pits to be burned through the night on July 11th. It's amazing how prevalent the sectarianism still is.

Driving around Belfast and seeing the city was a really great opportunity. Especially since I've been learning about the history, seeing the situation for myself was really interesting. Belfast is not, however, somewhere I would ever go just for pleasure reasons. It's mostly just industrial and it really doesn't feel safe. I was glad to get out of there and head further north to the Antrim Coast.

We stayed both nights in the small town of Ballintoy on the Antrim coast, and it was, like the rest of Ireland, incredibly beautiful. In fact, the coastal drive is considered to be one of the most beautiful motorways in the world. This area also houses many of the famous sites that Northern Ireland boasts including the Giant's Causeway, Dunluce Castle and the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, all of which I would be seeing the next day. Like most of the towns we stayed in on other trips, this one was small and quiet, but we were a smaller group this time (23 people) so it was MUCH more enjoyable. We went into a pub and we weren't the only people in the pub. The couple who owned our hostel also owned pretty much everything in the town and they showed us a great time and cooked us a fabulous dinner for only 5.50 pounds (I'm ignoring the fact that this is about $10; I can't even talk about exchange rates anymore). Note: Throughout my pub going in Ireland, I've come to the conclusion that Jameson is hands-down the best mainstream whiskey out there.

The next morning we woke up and headed for Derry. Derry is one of Europe's best examples of a walled city, and it is famous for the siege of 1689. This seige took place before the Battle of the Boyne and was carried out by Protestants attempting to protect that city from Catholic James' rule. This event became an icon of Protestant culture and is commemorated annually by the Apprentice Boys of Derry, which has fueled further sectarianism and violence in the area. One of these commemoration parades directly led to the event that is considered to have started the troubles: the Battle of the Bogside in in 1969. The Bogside refers to the area in which Catholics lived, which was basically a slum and was outside the city walls, despite the fact that 60% of Derry's population was Catholic. Riots broke out in response to the Apprentice Boys marching on the wall and the battle raged on for 3 days, sparking violene in other areas of Northern Ireland as well. Eventually, the British Army had to be called in to quell the violence, marking the first direct intervention of the London government since the partition in 1921. Violence continued throughout the 1970's, including the famous Bloody Sunday Massacre in 1972 in which 13 unarmed protestors were killed by British troops. All in all, it is estimated that around 300 people were killed in Derry alone during the Troubles.

We walked around the city, along the walls and into the Bogside. We saw the political murals, the H-block memorial, the Free Derry sign and the Bloody Sunday Memorial. Another interesting thing to note is that the official name of Derry is actually Londonderry, the London having been added by the British government in 1613. All the street signs read Londonderry, but if you're heard saying that in the wrong part of the city I would imagine that you can get yourself into trouble. Although not quite as grim as Belfast, Derry certainly has a depressed feel to it as well.

Seeing all of this was a bit surreal. I knew so little about it before coming to Ireland, that it's weird to think that the Peace Process didn't even really take effect until my lifetime. For me, it's really strange to think that this kind of sectarian, religious conflict is taking place is a modern, developed, western country. But being there, I was able to see that it's very real. By the Good Friday agreement of 1998, approximately 3,500 people had been killed in the Troubles. This may seem like a somewhat small number, but think of it like this: 3,500 people is is about .2% of the Northern Ireland population. This would be like 650,000 Americans dying due to sectarian violence. Clearly, these events had a huge effect on Northern Ireland's culture and most individuals were affected by it in some way or another. Thinking about and seeing all of this was very heavy and I was happy to leave Derry and be out of the city for a while. We really got out just in time too - violence broke out in Derry on Monday with petrol bombs and bricks being thrown at police.

We ate lunch at a pub in Derry (steak and Guinness pie - awesome) and then we headed back along the Antrim coast to visit the Giant's Causeway. First, we stopped for a photo op at Dunluce Castle - supposedly Ireland's most romantic castle. The Giant's Causeway is an area of about 40,000 basalt columns which were created as the result of a volcanic eruption, some 50 to 60 million years ago. Or at least that's what all you boring people can believe. The real story is that the Irish warrior/giant Finn McCool built the causeway across the channel to Scotland so that he could fight his Scottish rival, Benandonner. However, upon learning that Benandonner was much larger than he was, he chickened out. Benandonner crossed the Causeway to track him down and Finn had his wife hide him under a blanket and pretend that he was their child. When Benandonner came looking for him, he saw the alleged "baby" and became terrified that if the baby was that large, Finn himself must be gargantuan. He fled back to Scotland, tearing the causeway up on his way so that Finn could not follow him. This is clearly much more realistic than that whole volcano theory.

Believe what you want, but either way the Causeway is beautiful. Most of the columns are hexagonal, but some are different. There's also various formations making chimney stacks, an organ, and even the Giant's boot. Climbing around and exploring was a lot of fun and fortunately we had pretty good weather all weekend.

Next, we were headed for another major Northern Ireland tourist attraction: the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge. The Bridge links the mainland from nearly Ballintoy to the tiny island of Carrick. It was built by Salmon fisherman over 350 years, and although only 20 meters long, it will certainly give you a rush of adrenaline while crossing, especially if you're afraid of heights (it's about 90 feet above the ocean). Once on the island, you have amazing views of Rathlin Island and Scotland, which is only about 12 miles away.

That night, we decided to splurge a little on dinner and actually go out to a restaurant in town. I had some amazing salmon and delicious chocolate cake among a lot of other food in between that I don't really care to list here. My diet starts...soon. It was totally worth it though...it's not like I'm going to change those pounds back to euros. Especially now that the euro dropped FINALLY. It hit 1.39 the other day, which is the lowest it's been since March. It was 1.33 when I left for Spain in January. It kills me to think about how much money I've lost just because of the exchange rate. Thank goodness for the financially inept leaders of the EU (cough cough Greece), otherwise I wouldn't have had any reprieve. I seriously went on bank run that day it dropped and I hopefully won't have to go again before I come home in 16 days. So apparently I lied earlier and I can actually talk about exchange rates more, but I'll end this rant here.

Sunday was a pretty slow day. We'd already done all of our stuff in Northern Ireland, so we headed back into the Republic. Thanks to some planning errors, lack of organization and more bus malfunctions, we were incredibly behind schedule, but we got to see everything on the scheudle and still made it back to DCU by 7, so it wasn't too bad. First, we went to Slane Castle. This Castle is in County Meath and is actually still a private residence for Lord Henry Cunyngham. However, he opens it up for concerts pretty frequently and a lot of famous bands have performed there incluing U2, the Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Kings of Leon, the Killers, Oasis, R.E.M., Bruce Springstein, Guns n' Roses and many others. Unfortunately, we didn't actually get to go inside the gates because we were late (thank you obnoxious people who decided we had to go to Bushmills just to find out that the distillery was CLOSED; besides, who wants Bushmills when you can drink Jameson?), but we got some good pictures at least. We also went to Monasterboice (monastery) in County Louth to see Ireland's highest high cross: Muiredach's High Cross. Finally, we stopped off at St. Peter's Church in Drogheda to see the head of St. Oliver Plunkett. Yep, that's not a joke. He was the last Catholic martyr to die in Ireland, being executed by the British government in 1681. His head was preserved in Rome and after being beatified in 1920, it was moved to St. Peter's Church. I'm not going to lie, it was pretty weird and creepy.

So that was pretty much my weekend. It was a really great trip and I'm glad I got the opportunity to see a lot of what I had been learning about first hand. Next weekend I'll be going to London, so stay tuned. Here are some pictures:

William of Orange Mural in Protestants Belfast

Oliver Cromwell

The machine gun follows you everywhere...serioulsy

Community Building "peace" mural

Peace wall

Now we're on the Catholic side...IRA Memorial

Sinn Fein headquarters

Bobby Sands

Commemorating the Hunger Strikes during which 10 people (including Bobby Sands) died after Margaret Thatcher revoked their rights as political prisoners