Belfast and Derry, Northern Ireland, UK!

So much happened this past weekend! I went on my first trip out of Ireland, into the UK. It was only a three day trip, but it was phenomenal and filled with fun and laughter. This might take a while to write down everything that happened, so bear with me :) I booked the trip with a bus tour company that specifically targets students at both the University of Limerick and nearby (I think) Tralee University. We took a single coach bus, filled to capacity, from both universities, up to Belfast, along the Antrim Coast to Derry. I think what made it most interesting was the history of the whole country! I knew that there has been violence in Northern Ireland, but never imagined the extent of the whole thing. We went on tours that were incredible, filled with historical events and locations. I will start from the beginning of the trip and go from there. 

On Friday morning, the bus left UL at "8 am sharp", which in Ireland is more like 8:15. The sun was still rising, so it was still a dawn grey, with the clouds and everything. We boarded the bus and met the driver and the tour guide. Ironically, our tour guide was not Irish. She was French, and spoke with a heavy French accent, but has been everywhere in Ireland and really knew her stuff. It took about four and a half hours to get to Belfast from Limerick, and most of it was spent in near silence, as almost everyone slept most of the way. When we arrived in Belfast, we drove around the city and were shown some of the most well known sites around the city. There are about 300,000 people who live in the city of Belfast, but the bus drove through the main squares, not the residential areas. The architecture was beautfiul. As Northern Ireland is part of the UK, there is a lot of British influence throughout the city. Some things were subtle, such as the architectural style of all the buildings (Victorian. More about Victoria later), but there were obvious ones as well, like the Union Jack flying on every street. 

Our first hint of violence was made shortly after we got into the city. We passed by a fancy-looking hotel called the Europa. Turns out, this hotel is the most bombed hotel in the world. It has been bombed a total of 34 times. We didn't hear why all of these bombs occurred, most of them were probably politically or religiously (or both, which happens frequently here in Northern Ireland) motivated. In fact, as we drove by there was an ambulance and a few medical personal right outside, bandaging a man's head. For all I know, he could have simply fallen down, but I found it very appropriate that something was going on outside this infamous hotel. We continued driving around the city, and our guide would point out famous landmarks or statues. Back to the Victoria thing: as a city, the people of Belfast seem to be obsessed with Queen Victoria. Everything is named after her, there are tons of statues of hers, etc. As the guide would point to things, she would have us guess what they were named after, and it quickly become clear that everything was named after her. The main street was Victoria Street, the mall was Victoria Square, the bridge was the Queen Victoria Bridge. There was even a statue in the city of her husband, Albert. Whenever she was ask what anything was named, we would all respond with an enthusiastic, "Victoria!"

I didn't actually know very many people on this trip, only a few and not very well, so I was being brave and just hanging out alone. There was a girl who is in a few of my classes and lives across the street from me, Callista, and I hung out with her and sat next to her on the bus. During the bus tour, we drove by the largest arena in Northern Ireland (seats 20,000 only), and someone mentioned that Belfast had a hockey team. Turns out, the girl directly in front of me was from Canada, and we bonded over the hockey worlds we lived in. From there it was easy: I think I finally found my best friend here! Her name is Meggan, and she was with one of her housemates Rhiannon, a girl who I recognized and had met briefly in one of my classes. The four of us (the first friend and the two new ones) bonded the rest of the bus ride and decided afterwards in our free time to walk around the city together. 

The Titanic Museum

This bus tour around the city was really just meant to kill time, as we had gotten there early and our tour of the Titanic quarters wasn't scheduled for a little while. I was really excited to go on this tour. I don't know why, but I have always had this interest in the Titanic, and we were going to get to tour the docks and places that the Titanic was built and first launched. Our tour guide was hilarious. He was a short ("wee") little man who lived his whole life in Belfast. He started the tour off with, "I know everything there is to know about the Titanic. If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask, I will answer it. Even if I don't know the answer, I'll just make it up." I knew from there is was going to be interesting. We walked past the Titanic museum (which I heard was really cool, but we didn't have time to do both), and were going to do the outdoor walking tour. We saw the Drawing Room, where the Titanic was designed (along with her two identical sisters, the Olympic and the Britannic). As the tour guide held up a picture of the designer, Thomas Andrews, and asked if anyone knew who he was, I heard Meggan whisper under her breath, "Victoria!" The joke continued throughout the day. 

The guide also had really interesting stories, the lesser known incidents that happened during the building of the Titanic. There was the story of Wee Jim, who would, at the end of every work day, leave the shipyard with a cart full of junk: scraps and rubbish. Nobody understood why, and he never said why. The guards just assumed he was a bit dumb, and left it alone. After a while, they thought maybe he was steeling other materials, and just piled the trash on top of it to cover it up, but they had him empty the cart and he wasn't. On the last day, he was retiring, one of the other workers finally asked him what he was doing with the cart of rubbish everyday. He responded with, "I was stealing the carts." Turns out, he would eat his lunch quickly everyday, go back and build an identical cart with the materials, and fill it with trash, wheel it out, and sell it. Every single day for 20 years. He wasn't dumb after all. There were other stories, like the final worker to die building the ship (there were a total of 10 that died while building it), who go run over by the Titanic as it was being launched into the water. Tragic way to go. Or the story about the worker biking to the dry docks, the 44 foot deep dock that held the Titanic in order to paint the outside, on a foggy, dark morning accidentally biked off the edge and fell. He didn't die, but he didn't go back to work for three years. 

The dry dock of the Titanic.

Anyways, the tour was incredible. The sheer size of the Titanic is not exaggerated one bit. The  museum was built to be the exact height of the bow of the ship. But that isn't the end of it. The bow is the shortest portion of the ship. The center, with all the upper decks and smoke stacks, is three times the height of the bow. So the guide had us picture this building, with two stacked on top. It was HUGE! The dry dock was built to the dimensions to fit the enormous luxury ship. We got to go down and walk in the dry dock. The scary thing is that the water was being held back be an enormous gate. Thankfully,  since the original gate was in service for over one hundred

years, they built a new one. So the really old gate was still there, just not actually holding back any water. There was water that trickled along the edges, which was slightly nerve-racking, but we were told this was perfectly normal and safe. Rhiannon, not thinking said about the dripping, "It's not like water's ever killed anyone." She quickly realized the error of her statement, as we were ironically standing directly where the Titanic was, which about 1,500 of it's passengers were, in fact, killed by water. We still haven't stopped giving her crap for that one. Just little jokes about this place were made throughout the tour. As the tour guide repeatedly stated about the three sister ships (two of which sank, one was sold for scrap parts by the British), "They were perfectly fine when they left here." 

Callista, Me, Meggan, and Rhiannon

After the tour of the Titanic quarters, we went to our hostel (my first experience staying in one!) and were told we had the rest of the night to do whatever we wanted. The four of us dropped off our stuff in our rooms, and headed out to walk around, find the mall, and explore. We took beautiful photos of the Belfast City Hall and statues surrounding it, looked for "relatives" on the list of victims of the Titanic disaster, and eventually made it to the mall. The mall was beautifully designed. It was partially indoor, partially outdoor. There was a domed roof over the center, and the spindles off the center of stores were covered with a glass roof, but there were doors containing the shops, it was just open on the ends. I have never seen anything like it. We wandered around the mall, ate at T.G.I Friday's (I know, total Americans, but it was really good...), and eventually made it into a Claire's. Meggan ended up getting her cartilage pierced (again), and we had a few laughs with the employee. She just kept bringing up stereotypes about Americans, and we would respond in turn with stereotypes about Irish and British. When we told her that the four of us had just met about four hours before, she didn't believe us. By then we were just having a grand ole time, and laughing and goofing off. It was a lot of fun. We were getting tired from all of the walking and bus ride, and had to be up early the next morning for more activities, so we walked back to the hostel and just hung out there for the rest of the night. 

The next day, we had a more detailed tour of Belfast on the bus. This is the day we heard about the Troubles and the violence was very apparent. It was all very eye-opening. I knew about the conflicts between the Protestants and the Catholics in Northern Ireland, but this was more in a general sense. Definitely not to the extent I heard about it the rest of the weekend. We drove to the Peace Wall, the wall that divides the Protestant neighborhood from the Catholic neighborhood. There were gates that were around both neighborhoods, that close at a certain time of night and on certain days of the year (religious holidays, mostly), topped with spirals of barbed wire. There was one street that made me (and the rest of us, I think) incredibly uneasy. This was the street where there was recent fighting and rioting (only about a month ago, it was in the news). Our tour guide didn't make it any better when she said, "There are many buses from the Republic that don't even drive into this part of the city, it is too dangerous. We just aren't going to stop here, we will keep driving and get out at the Peace Wall." That was really fun to hear...

The Peace Wall

The Solidarity Wall

At the Peace Wall, we all got out, and were able to write something on the wall. Hundreds of thousands of young people like ourselves have done the exact same thing, in many languages, all about pleas for peace and end to violence. All up and down the walls are murals and paintings about the wall, it's history, and it's purpose. We also stopped at another wall of murals (there are murals all over Belfast). This one was called The Solidarity Wall. The pictures on this wall depicted not only please about human dignity, civil rights, and peace in Northern Ireland, but in other areas around the world (hence "solidarity"). There were a few aimed specifically at the Israeli-Palistinian conflict, as the people of Northern Ireland can relate on a different level to their situation-religion vs. religion, hatred and suppression and violence in such a small area for such tragic reasons. Both of these walls have powerful histories, and were incredible to visit and read. The violence becomes so real when you see the barbed wire, the smashed windows, the walls that divide in order to protect. Most of the buildings in Belfast, especially in the areas around both of these walls, had metal cages on all the windows, not for fear that people will break in, but that the violent confrontations might shatter the windows by accident.

The entire city remains on edge constantly. Like I said, only a month ago there were riots and violent protests going on in the city. We left Belfast around noon on Saturday, and as we were walking back to our bus, we walked past the city centre, past city hall and everything. On every street corner there were at least three police vehicles (big boxy, sturdy vehicles with cages on the bottom that prevent people from going under them and cages on the small windows with bars on them. Just these police cars were a sign of violence and riots, built to withstand and prevent riots and retain protestors. We saw all of these vehicles and the police standing on each corner in their bulletproof vests. We were confused and nervous, and started to walk faster through the center. We seemed to be the only ones on edge and nervous about the police presence, so it must be a regular thing to prevent violence. It is so sad and scary that that is necessary to keep the peace. 

Police cars parked on every corner around the city centre

The Giant's Causeway: basalt pillars 

Nature's very own stepping stones!

Our next stop was at The Giant's Causeway. We drove along the Antrim Coast, the northernmost coast of the island of Ireland. It was a beautiful drive, and the sun was shining (I always seem to luck out-all of the trips I have gone on have had beautiful, sunny weather, not typical for this island). When we got to the Causeway, we got out and had two hours to explore. For those who don't know what The Giant's Causeway is (I didn't have a clue before this), it is a coastline covered in basalt rocks/pillars that are hexagonal in shape. There are approximately 40,000 stones that were formed from a volcanic eruption about 60 million years ago. They form natural steps that are easy to walk on. They were just incredible! There is also a legend that goes along with the formation that I think is pretty cute. It tells of an Irish warrior named Fionn mac Cumhaill. It is said that Fionn built a road that connected Ireland to Scotland, but was then threatened by the Scottish giant Benandonner. In David vs. Goliath fashion, Fionn needs to outsmart Benandonner in order to beat him, and comes up with a plan: he pretends to be a baby, and his wife Oonagh tells Benandonner when he comes that Fionn is not there, but shows him "Fionn's son". Benandonner, seeing how big Fionn's son is, fled back to Scotland and tore up the road so that Fionn could not follow. 

On the walls of Derry

We spent the few hours there, and then drove on the bus for another hour and a half to Derry, a very old and historical city. Derry (also called Londonderry or The Walled City), is the only completely walled city in all of Ireland, and one of the few in Europe. As a historical city it was fascinating. It used to be a departure city, where immigrants would walk to in order to immigrate to North America, England, or even Australia. It is one of the oldest established cities in all of Ireland. It is the UK's City of Culture for 2013. 
We stayed in another hostel on Saturday night in Derry. This one was more of a house-like atmosphere. We watched "Easy A" and hung out in the living room. It was fun and relaxing.
We (Meggan and I) started to plan our trip over Reading week, to London (Harry Potter studios here we come!), Germany, and Austria. We went to bed relatively early, but at one am we had a terrifying awakening: an alarm started BLARING. It was the loudest alarm I have ever heard, but it didn't sound like a typical fire alarm. It went off for about 30 seconds of sheer terror, confusion, and cursing. It stopped on its own, but one of the girls in our room (there were six of us) peeked outside to make sure the place wasn't on fire, and we all slowly got back into bed. I still have no idea why it went off.

The site of Bloody Sunday

Today it is peaceful, but Derry is unfortunately known throughout the world as the location of rioting and protests during the Civil Rights Movement in the late 1960s. The most infamous one is the Battle of the Bogside (an area just outside the walls of the city that is almost 100% Catholic), where Catholic protestors took to the streets and fought with the police. They were protesting Internment, a process of accelerated trials (or sometimes even no trials at all) of 'rebels' and their subsequent imprisonment (sometimes even execution). These protests were the start of the Troubles throughout Northern Ireland, the civil rights movement, the conflicts between the Catholic and the Protestants. The Bogside is also known as the location for the infamous Bloody Sunday (you know the U2 song?), where thousands of peaceful (unarmed) Catholic protestors, on Sunday January 30, 1972 marched in the streets. The police opened fire on the crowd, killing 13 people, injuring 13 more, and one died later on from his injuries. At the place that this happened, there is now a memorial garden and statue, and the walls of the buildings have murals that depict the events and the desire for peace in the area. 

"The Death of Innocence"

The most tragic of all the murals, though, is one titled "The Death of Innocence". The mural is of a 14-year-old Catholic schoolgirl named Annette McGavigan. In 1971, in the early years of the Troubles, Annette was walking home from school and was hit by a stray bullet fired by the police during the clashes, and was killed. Her father would come, up until recently when he died, and sit across from this mural and talk to her. Many people would pass him, but would leave him be to grieve. They say he never recovered after the death of his innocent little girl, and died of a broken heart. This is the only mural in the Bogside that has been changed. When it was first painted, the artist said that he would change the mural only when strives for peace have been made. In 1994, the peace talks began and the artist changed it. Originally, the rifle on the side was painted black and was intact, and the white circle was blank. Once the peace talks began, the rifle was paint red and broken, and the butterfly was painted in the empty space. This just shows the tragic results of the Troubles, and it was incredibly eye-opening. 

We drove home on Sunday afternoon, about 5 and a half hours to get back from Derry to Limerick. I was exhausted, from all the walking and fun. Once back in my room, I got to check Facebook for the first time in a few days and uploaded my pictures. I then walked over to Meggan and Rhiannon's house and we watched "Bridesmaids" (Meggan and I had been quoting it all weekend, and Rhiannon had never seen it). It was an excellent end to the weekend. :)

New best friends!

Just chillin' with a guy we nicknamed "Wee Jim" in the dry dock

"No more ships in here"