So we had a chill night last night and then I woke at 5am because for some silly reason we had a skylight with no blind! Lucky for my eyemask haha.
We walked the 5 minutes to the office of Shamrocker, the company our tour was with. Here we met Claire A, our friend from home, who luckily made it to Dublin after a bit of trouble last night!! En route from Split, Croatia to Dublin, Ireland via London she somehow managed to bypass immigration and they wouldn't let her on her plane! She held the plane up for an hour and luckily then they let her on.
Our tour left on the bus and our guide Dave gave us some information. I had forgotten how similar the Irish sense of humour is to ours, he makes me laugh very easily!! He told us Guinness makes €10 million profit every week and that Ha Penny bridge is named so due to the fact you used to have to pay half a penny to cross it. We passed the Jeanie Johnston ship which made 17 journeys to Canada during the famine. He then proceeded to make us laugh by telling us that the people on the bus for the 5 day tour (instead of 7 like the three of us) would be shot on Friday.
On the bus ride to Belfast we were given a full history lesson about Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. I've grown up knowing some details about the conflict between the two but not too much, I guess I just knew there was trouble fairly recently. Here's what we learned...
After the Celtic defeated the Vikings in Ireland in 1014 there was a power vacuum and the four provinces argued about whether they should be a part of Britain or Ireland independently. In 1169 king Henry II was invited over and he declared himself king of Ireland in 1172.
In 1605 something called "plantation" happened where people were sent over from Britain to colonise Ireland and try to curb the anti British sentiment. But what happened instead was that the ones sent to the three southern provinces were murdered, while those in the north were sent over with army escorts. From this point onward there were two distinct communities coexisting in Ireland.
In 1916 the 1916 Rising occurred, I've given a full explanation about it on the day I went to Kilmainham Jail in March so I won't go into it too much. Basically 3500 people in Dublin wanted to be free of British reign and failed.
From 1919-1922 the Irish Republican Army (IRA) was established and ambushed British soldiers in Ireland. The English didn't want a war as they were still coming back from the devastation caused by WWI so left Ireland to split itself into two countries - the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. And since then there has been much hostility between the two countries - the republic wouldn't even formally recognise Northern Ireland as a country until 1998.
In the 1960s people began to protest and march, and the Catholics/mostly from republic Ireland (49% of the population) and Protestants/mostly from Northern Ireland (51% of the population) continued to clash. A lot of the time these turned into riots and people attacking each other. But it wasn't until the 15th of August 1969 that the first person died as a result of this hostility in the 1960s. Bombay Street in Belfast was set on fire and people were forced to flee their homes. A 15 year old boy, Gerald McAuley, was helping people move their furniture out of the burning houses and was shot. This caused even worse rioting which eventually reached Derry (apparently it's notorious for bad riots).
After this incident the police in Belfast were replaced by the British army and they built "peace" walls to segregate the different communities and religions. Today there are still 44 of these in Belfast, and unbelievably they're still used. Monday-Friday between 7am and 7pm the 13 gates in the main wall are open for passage, but outside these times and on weekends the gates remain shut. Now I've grown up thinking that the Berlin Wall was absolutely atrocious but that it was taken down a long time ago (not long in the scheme of things I suppose), but today I find out people in Belfast still live their lives separated by a wall. Unbelievable....how does stuff like this still happen??!
Dave also told us about Bloody Sunday (finally, the U2 song make sense) which happened on the 30th of January 1972. There was a civil rights march to Derry, and upon arrival the marchers were told to turn around. Some refused and as a result they were shot at. Fourteen people died, and everyone in Ireland knew at least one of them due to it being such a small place.
While Dave finished explaining all this we crossed the border into Northern Ireland and he told us that until 2001 you would've been stopped at a big fence and searched. 2001! I was 9! I remember 2001!!! Crazy. They had a vote for peace in 1998 and 97% of the population agreed. Apparently the official start of peace began in 2005 and there's been progress since then, although a bomb did go off in Lisburn yesterday (luckily no one died). He told us to just not discuss religion at all while here, and under no circumstances don't bag the royal family.
We then arrived in Belfast and did the most popular thing tourists do when visiting - a black cab tour. Why a black cab? Through all the trouble even when public transport stopped here, the black cabs continued to run. The drivers even drove into areas of different religions to themselves, often putting their lives and safety in danger. We went in groups and were taken to various locations and given information (some of which I used up there to fit it all together).
Our first stop was a Protestant housing estate. Union. Jacks. EVERYWHERE. Bunting, flags, you name it. We saw lots of murals including memorials for people murdered, whose families still live in the complex. Then we went to the main section of the wall. I've been to the Berlin Wall but due to it being dismantled I've never had a clear image in my head of what it must have been like. Well now I do, and what I saw today wasn't nice. A huge concrete wall with corrugated iron on top, and then a wire section on top to prevent grenades etc being thrown over. All up I reckon it was about 15-20m high. The man explaining to us here seemed very sad about it all and fair enough too. He said the wall has now been up for 45 years since he was 15 years old, and it's sad that he has to think back to that age to remember what normal life is like. He said kids growing up here think it's normal to grow up in a city whose inhabitants are all separated by a wall, and thanked us for coming, saying that tourists bring to the kids' attention that the wall isn't normal because we come to learn about it. Apparently in 2010 talks to take it down happened, but it was decided to keep it for another 20 years due to there still being some trouble. Hopefully in 2030 it can be taken down. We then looked at some memorials and plaques. Strange fact: someone had written 'go pies' on the wall!
We were dropped back to our bus and had some free time to walk around Belfast. I would have loved to go to the Titanic Museum but never mind. We walked around the city centre and bought some food. Due to it being part of the UK my phone works and I was able to use my English bank card at the ATM to withdraw pounds, but was surprised by the strange coloured notes that were dispensed. I'll have to make sure I use them in the next two days, lucky I didn't get much out!!
On the way to our overnight stop we stopped at the dark hedges, a film location from 'Game of Thrones'.
Tonight we are staying in Ballintoy, a small town with a population of 165. There are 33 of us so we are adding a fair amount of people to the town! I'm sharing a dorm with Claire, Brendon, the two Toms and a girl called Alex.
We walked to Carrick-a-rede rope bridge and I was stoked because I got on for free with my national trust membership as it was a bit of a rip off at £6 a pop! It's 100 feet over the sea and fishermen used to use it to check their nets. The countryside here is gorgeous but it rained a fair bit. Summer in Ireland hey!!
Sorry for how information heavy the blog is today, I just need to type it all down to unravel it all and help it make sense to me. I'm still shocked though at how recent this all is!!
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
No comments:
Post a Comment