Adventures in the North

My housemates and I just returned from our weekend in Belfast, and even though we left on Saturday morning, it felt like we were away from Dublin for an eternity. 

the view from our window

Our Saturday started relatively early, and we got to the train with only a few hitches and twenty minutes to spare. It was pretty impressive. We got to Belfast around noon. Although we had originally planned to stay with Kari's friend, we decided against it, because Ballymena, where he lives, is up in County Antrim, not at all close to Belfast. So that left us in Belfast without any place to stay and no knowledge of where to find a hostel, and naturally, we grabbed a map, wandered around, and played the confused American card whenever anyone nice stopped to say something to us. Eventually, we made it to the south side of Belfast, which really didn't take that long. Belfast is actually a shockingly tiny town. You can walk across City Centre in under ten minutes. In Dublin, it'll take you at least twenty minutes. We wandered into a hostel, simply called Belfast Youth Hostel. It was probably a 5-10 minute walk away from Queen's University and close to the Botanic. Although it looked pretty sketchy from the outside, inside it was very nice. The man at the front desk was incredibly helpful. He checked us in, gave us advice on where to eat, and told us how to coordinate a Black Cab tour. 

We wandered just down the street to a place called Bishop's for lunch, which was supposed to be the best fish and chips in Belfast. They were just okay, which I guess means Belfast fish and chips aren't that great. While we were waiting for our food, my housemates (and even though Brianne doesn't live with us, I think I am just going to include her in that group) asked me to explain the Troubles to them. Normally, I love it when people let me rattle off my useless history knowledge, but it was weird doing it in Belfast. I felt awkward talking about it. Especially since it is still going on.

In any case, we walked back to the hostel, and the front desk guy called the Black Cab tour people, and they sent someone over. Seamus, our driver, was there in ten minutes. He was a short (no taller than me), middle-aged man with gray hair, who was probably old enough to remember when the Troubles began. He was also incredibly knowledgeable.

Since our hostel was in Protestant south Belfast, we started there and saw a mural which was recently painted with the face of King William of Orange. Seamus then explained that today was an Orangmen parade. This parade was quite contentious, as it had historical been the Protestants lording the fact that the British came through and conquered Ireland in the faces of the Catholic minority. During the Troubles, these Orangemen had been allowed to march through the Catholic areas of West Belfast. I am sure you can imagine the conflict that caused. Since this parade was going on, Seamus explained, he didn't think that he could take us to see the Shankhill Road murals (which are the Unionist Protestant murals in West Belfast). (When the black cabs had first started, they were associated with the Republican movement and the IRA, thus Seamus was afraid a potential altercation with the Orangemen.)

After the William of Orange mural, Seamus took us to see the sight where the first killings of the Troubles happened. There were two of them on the same day, August 15th, 1969. The first was Patrick Rooney, age 9, who lived in the apartment complex where the plaque is adhered. The RUC, the heavily armed British police force during the Troubles, shot a bullet through the wall of this apartment complex and it hit him right in the head. The second was an unofficial RUC officer named Hugh McCabe. 

We then drove down to the international murals, which seems to mark the start of Catholic, Republican West Belfast. Otherwise known as Falls Road. Unlike in America, these Republicans align themselves with many left-wing causes internationally. For example, they support Palastine. However, their main goal is to get the British out of Northern Ireland. In any case, these murals mixed old causes (the 1970 Falls Curfew, the 1976 blanket protest, the 1981 hunger strike) with more contemporary ones (Marion Price, ending the British policy of internment). 

Next it was the Bobby Sands mural and the Sinn Féin headquarters. After 66 days of not eating, Bobby Sands died on the 5th of May 1981, while Maggie Thatcher sat in London claiming that the Republican cause had no supporters. However, while Bobby was on his hunger strike in prison, Sinn Féin nominated him for election to parliament, which he won. Therefore, on the mural it says Bobby Sands MP, member of parliament. After looking at the most famous of the Falls Road murals, we say the front of the Sinn Féin headquarters, which of course, was closed because apparently things in Belfast are never open. On the front, it had the names of four Sinn Féin members to be killed in various ways by the Ulster Volunteer Force, a loyalist paramilitary organization that has colluded with the British government and killed many Catholic civilians simply because they were Catholic. (The UVF declared any Catholic a legitimate target.) More on them later.

We worked our way down to Clonard Garden, which was up against the peace line separating the Catholic and Protestant communities of West Belfast. There, the wall is probably 15 to 20 feet high to block the petrol bombs from the Protestant side from coming over. For good measure, the houses along the peace line have steel cages on them and plastic windows, all to make them bomb resistant. This garden commemorated the many Clonard inhabitants who have died, IRA man or civilian, at the hands of either the British army or loyalist paramilitary groups. I believe the most awful thing that Seamus said on the entire tour was when he talked about a couple who went to the Shankhill butchers, simply because they were stopped at a road block and identified as Catholics. They were taken to the UVF and sliced up little by little until they were dead. It makes me shudder just thinking about it. 

After that we went to the other side of the peace line, the Protestant side. We didn't go very far, just the road along side it. The entire block was lined with large police trucks, which look like  big white squares, something out of the 1980s. In all reality, they probably are. They are also probably petrol bomb resistant. On that side, the wall was full of graffiti, with only one part of it seeming to actually commemorate something or even mean anything. 

We quickly made our way back to the more friendly Catholic side of the peace line and over to a wall covered with photos. Under all of the photos in big red letters is the word "MURDERED BY CROWN FORCES/UNIONIST PARAMILITARIES" and a date. The dates seemed to be as recent as 2002. All of these pictures were people killed by British paramilitary groups who colluded with the British government. All of these people were innocent civilians. Their only crime was being a Catholic. Seamus told us stories of some. One of them had been his father-in-law, another had been engaged to his sister. I was amazed at how tight-knit this Western Belfast Catholic community is. Every five minutes, it seemed like Seamus was saying hi to someone. They all know each other, and they all have been affected by the Troubles. Had family be killed by the UVF, RUC, or the British army. It's truly mind boggling to think about it. Back to the collusion wall. One of the pictures on that wall is Pat Finucane. I had read about him in Kevin Toolis's Rebel Hearts and asked Seamus to point out his picture for me. He was a civil rights lawyer killed in 1989 by the UVF. Pat had been known for defending IRA men and doing a damn good job of it. So the UVF broke into his house and shot him 20 times in front of his wife and children in the middle of dinner. No one has been charged for his murder. 

After the wall, we saw a couple more historical murals, which glorified the Republic of Ireland gaining their independence and have you. After that Seamus brought us back to the Black Taxi hub, and we went our separate ways. Afterwards, we went back to the hostel and took a nap in preparation for our night ahead.

Once we got ready, we set out to find a place to eat and eventually decided on Robinson's, which was right next to the Crown Saloon, Belfast's Temple Bar. The inside looked like a swanky wild west saloon, with wooden walls and what have you. However, there was a string quartet playing during dinner. It was all very odd. After finishing our delicious meal, we set out for a club called 21 Social to meet Kari's friend. 

Now my spiel about clubs in Belfast. We walked into 21 Social in jeans, blouses, and high heels. We expected Belfast clubbing to be like Dublin clubbing, and oh Lord, it's not. Belfast clubbing is comparable to prom if they had a bar and there were British people there. And God, it's awful. All of the girls were dressed to the nines in prom dresses. Some of them even seemed to have had their hair done professionally...to go out to a club. Needless to say, we felt out of place. After a couple of hours on the second floor dance floor/sauna, not really having fun because it was mostly girls who didn't want to talk to us, we went downstairs, where two guys started talking to the five of us. And they looked exactly like Lennie and George from Of Mice and Men. I kid you not, if I was directing an Of Mice and Men movie, these two would have the part, hands down. These two did not seem to get the idea that we didn't really want to talk with them, and eventually, we just gave up on 21 Social and Belfast clubs in general and went back to our hostel. 

This morning, we all woke up slightly disenchanted with Belfast, and when I say disenchanted, I mean that we hated the place. I mean, I guess I don't hate it that much. It's gloomy and can seem like a ghost town. My housemates swore that they would never come back, but I don't think I can make that promise. There is so much more I have to see there. 

Anyways, we left our hostel at 11AM in search of food and ended up at a café, where Kristen and I got a huge breakfast of eggs, bacon (which is really Canadian bacon), sausage, toast, and tomato chutney. And it was awesome. We then wandered down the street towards Belfast City Hall, where four tour guide guys started talking to us. After they realized that we weren't going to do their tour, they were quite funny and helpful. They told us not to go to Belfast Castle like we had planned because apparently, it's shit and we'd be stuck there for two hours, because of the Sunday bus schedule. Also, apparently everything in Belfast is closed all the time because the city is run by the Presbyterian Church and there is nobody around because they are either dead or in jail. (Belfast has the highest suicide rates of any city in Europe, according to them, and most others start doing drugs and get caught by the police.) We were happy that we weren't the only ones to find Belfast gloomy. 

We decided to head to the rail station and make our way out to the seaside town of Bangor for the day until a later train home to Dublin. Upon arriving at the station we found out that we had to take a bus to Newry and then a train from there to Dublin, which kind of sucked, but it was good that we found that out early. We got our tickets to Bangor and hopped on a train. 

Bangor is a really beautiful little town. What you'd expect from a coastal town, really. Everyone really liked it, but something about coastal towns like that makes me a little depressed. I really couldn't tell you why. Anyways, we wandered around along the coast for a little while and then made our way over the the "castle" (just a big house really, think Downton Abbey) and then to the beautiful walled garden, where we sat for about an hour. We then made our way back to Belfast to ensure that we didn't miss the last bus at 7PM. We got there with plenty of time to spare, so we walked to find food. Eventually, we arrived at this large mall which I think is called Victoria Centre, but I forget, and ate at Wagamama. Which is always a wonderful thing. 

We got back to the train station with plenty of time and just sat on the second floor of the double decker bus taking us to Newry. Eventually, the bus got rolling, and we were out of Belfast. It was actually nice to take the bus, got to appreciate the Irish (or I guess, British) countryside and what not. 

Finally, we made it back to Dublin. I don't think any of us have ever been so happy to see Shanowen Apartments. We ended our night watching the always classy show, Love in the Wild, as is our typical roommate bonding. 

So that was my weekend in Belfast. Sorry that it was so long-winded and full of trivia. Actually, I am not really sorry. But hopefully I won't write a small novel on my visit to Cork this coming weekend. But, really, I probably will.