A Weekend in Northern Ireland: Belfast and Giant's Causeway

Hi everyone! I just got back from a weekend in Northern Ireland, an overnight trip that my program provider, Arcadia University gave to us for only 40 euro, which was fantastic.

For those of you who don’t know, Northern Ireland is a separate country from the Republic of Ireland, and is part of the UK (meaning that I had to get used to using the pound instead of the euro and that any texts/calls from my irish cell phone suddenly became very very expensive). 

Day 1 of the trip started out with a nice 7 hour bus ride to Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland. My friend Katie and I explored a bit before dinner and found Queen’s University and the Botanic Gardens. Overall, Belfast is very, very British feeling.

From the architecture to the cars to the accents – everything is very British and it definitely did not feel like we were in Ireland. One thing I noticed especially was the absence of the “irish font” – the style of writing that many pub names are written in. First off, there certainly weren’t as many pubs, Guinness was not advertised on every street corner, and all of the bar names were very british sounding – “the royal blah,” the “crown royal” etc. instead of pubs like “the bailey” here in the Cork. The street names were all pretty British sounding too… there were no St. Patrick streets or Oliver Plunkett streets here… and very noticeably the street signs were in English, not Gaelic (obviously).  We went out to a bar that night, but didn’t stay out too late because Belfast can be a bit dodgy at night, since even though there has been a ceasefire since the Good Friday Agreement (I won’t go into too much history here and bore everyone, even though I find it fascinating!), the conflict in Northern Ireland still remains.

Day 2 of the trip was a short ride east to the Giant’s Causeway. Oh my goodness was this place gorgeous. We got to pick a tour guide to go with and obviously I picked the cutest old man ever, who was an absolutely HILARIOUS tour guide. There is a lot of folklore behind the Causeway about a giant who created it (Finn Mckoon) and there are quite a few landmarks there that are supposedly remnants of the giant’s clothes, grandmother, dog, etc. Our tour guide gave us a lovely history of the folklore and also gave us the science of the causeway, which has to do with plate tectonics and essentially it’s a lot of old lava rocks that have rusted and formed an incredibly cool pattern (google it for more scientific stuff – geology isn’t my forte). Basically, it looks like a scene out of minecraft, and the stones definitely did not seem real. 

the causeway!

Me and the famous stones! )

some of the stones (very minecraft esque)

Finn Mckoon's Boot!

After walking through this, we did a cliff walk to return to our tour bus and just got incredible views of the causeway, all of northern Ireland, and since it was such a beautiful clear day, we could even see Scotland from the height of the cliffs (about 350 feet). My pictures don’t do this place justice. It was absolutely breathtaking and we couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day. 60s, sunny – absolutely perfect.

View of the causeway from the cliff walk. Beautiful!

Another fantastic view of the causeway from above!

Incredible Views on the Cliff walk

Sheep!

Site of my future home? Yes, please.

Day 3 consisted of a historical talk about the murals in Belfast and the conflict that exists there and then we took a bus tour of the city and the murals before embarking on our very very long 7 hour bus ride home to Cork. I found the mural talk incredibly interesting because I love history. I’ll briefly summarize it here though since I know everyone doesn’t want to read a textbook. The Northern Ireland conflict is essentially between Unionists (extremists – Loyalists) and Nationalists (extremists – Republicans). Unionists tend to be Protestant and support the union with the Britain. Nationalists tend to be Catholic and want a united Ireland. Northern Ireland is mostly Unionist/Protestant and is home to the UVF – Ulster Volunteer Force which is a paramilitary group that was actually formed before the IRA. Essentially, the city is divided into Catholic and Protestant areas, which are separated by walls and gates – which still exist today, even after the peace agreement. According to our tour guide, the gates still close at a specific time at night, preventing you from entering into a different religious territory. The walls are also especially high between the areas to prevent stones being thrown or “petrol bombs.” – which our tour guide said very nonchalantly. I was amazed at how close the Catholic and Protestant areas are to each other. You could literally throw a stone over a fence and hit your protestant neighbor. The fact that the city is so divided seems ridiculous to me. I couldn’t believe the gates, walls, and the fact that curfews still existed.

Gate separating Catholic/Protestant areas.

While the conflict is beginning to ease up, and as Catholic numbers within Northern Ireland grow (now over 1/3 of the population), the division is extremely apparent – not only with the walls but also with the economic status of the neighborhoods. The catholic sections did seem a lot lower class than the protestant areas. Moving on, Belfast has a rich history which is depicted in the murals around the city which are mostly painted by Loyalists since it is much more difficult for a Republican to paint a mural without being ostracized. Most of the murals are either militant (many masked men wearing guns, holding warning slogans) or celebrating William of Orange and their British ancestry. The Republican murals are celebrating Irish history, the gaelic language, gaelic culture, and also have some militant IRA murals as well – but as a whole, the Loyalist murals are much more militant. Now there is a law about having militant murals, unless the gun is there for a historic purpose, but some are still seen. (mona lisa – the gun is pointing at you from whichever angle you look at). I found the murals fascinating and interesting. Especially how there were a lot of murals about the Israel and Palestine conflict, which many in Northern Ireland feels mimicks their own situation. 

Nationalist Mural.

Loyalist Mural (celebrating British heritage).

The "Mona Lisa" - loyalist mural.

The peace wall down Falls Road was built to separate the Catholic and Protestant area, and is now a site for peaceful graffiti and hopeful messages during this peacetime transition process. I wrote on the wall “Love is all you need.” Here are some pictures of other hopefully messages for peace that visitors and locals have written. I was inspired by the hope of this wall and it was really moving to be present at it.

The Peace Wall.

My contribution to the peace wall :)

Overall, I really enjoyed the trip. Cork is definitely a better than city than Belfast in my mind –Up the Rebels! But I did enjoy my time there. I am definitely happy I decided to study in Cork though – it feels more authentically Irish. One thing I am definitely noticing is how proud I am becoming to live in Ireland. 

Overall, good weather, good sites, good history, beautiful views, good friends, cheap drinks, lots of laughs – another great weekend in Ireland.