Celtic Odyssey: Belfast

The last area to visit was Northern Ireland and Elizabeth, Maddie, Kelsey and I were excited to go. Originally we wanted to go to these awesome caves with a river going through it and take a boat ride, but that didn’t work out. Instead we headed straight to Belfast and once we got there, we found this awesome market. It was 90% locals, so that was great because it meant that it was a more authentic market (rather than the ones only for tourists). It had a very wide array of things, from home improvement things to antiques and arts and crafts. I had my first savory crepe, which was actually fantastic. I’ve always considered crepes to be only sweet things, but they are actually very good with other things, like ham and cheese. Afterwards, we walked over to the Titanic Museum, but found that they only let so many people in at certain times, so it was completely booked for the next 2 hours. So we decided to do the famous black taxi tour, a tour of Belfast city from a local so you can get a better idea of what exactly is happening there. While the Troubles have diminished greatly, there is not truly ‘peace’ here. There is a massive wall dividing the city, with many factories and businesses basically in ‘neutral’ areas, like the city centre and in between the wall. The Catholics live on one side and the Protestants on the other. [Don’t forget, the Irish flag is green for Catholics, Orange for Protestants and white in the middle to represent the peace between them, but Northern Ireland is under UK rule so there’s still controversy there]. There used to be more walls, but as there is a relatively stable level of peace right now, they’d torn them down. There are murals on the Catholic side that are changed once a year and we happened to be there while they were finishing up the last two. These are painted with permission by the city and often are statements about political opinions. One wants us, (Americans) to release the Cuban detainees from several years ago, one wants a Catholic imprisoned leader released as she’s dying of cancer, things like that. It was very interesting how outspoken they are. Apparently the wall keeps peace because it separates everyone at night, which is when most mischief occurs. The factories in between the wall (because there’s dead space in between) have a door to each side and you would enter and exit from the side that you were on. We visited a section of the Catholic side that’s essentially the ‘Little India’ part of the city and learned that ten years ago, the Protestants had set that place on fire and killed several young people. There’s a memorial there, with a Phoenix as the symbol to show that they rebuilt everything from the ashes there. Much of the Catholic side no longer has street names so that, since Belfast is also a Viking city (i.e. illogical roads that go everywhere), you would get lost if you weren’t from that side. Apparently U2 has a song about that (where the streets have no names). Then, after driving to the outskirts of the city, we crossed the wall and there is a church right at that neutral area. On the Protestant side, we saw more murals, but they were of a very different nature. The others were like paintings, each in their own little square. This was a long continuous mural almost because there had been some world graffiti contest and they needed a place to accommodate all of the finalists. Well, where else is there a massive, ridiculously long wall (i.e. I think like 3 miles long)? So this was the perfect place to hold it. We got to write a message on the wall and the only thing I could think of was Psalm 46, so I wrote that. That was cool to leave a mark on something historic. We also went to some neighborhoods on the Protestant side and saw some of their murals. They were much more of the character – we belong here, you can’t kick us out – kind of thing. They had one that is done in the same way as the Mona Lisa’s eyes: a sniper who has his sights on you no matter where you are in the field. If you can see him, it looks like he’s aiming at you. Obvious message and kind of creepy. The others were famous Irishmen or battles where the English established their rule and all. That was the end of the tour – I really enjoyed it because we had an excellent driver/tour guide who was quite entertaining and very knowledgeable. He was very kind and brought us by our hostel to drop our bags before leaving us at the Titanic museum.

We got to the museum in time to do our tour. The museum doesn’t look very large, but it actually has a ton of stuff inside. Belfast city used to be famous for many things, for textiles and other manufactured goods. It was most known for its shipping industry and this is where the Titanic was built. Just before it received the commission for the job, the city had enjoyed a ten-year booming economy. Turns out that while White Star Liners and the other company (forgot the name) were the companies ordering and owning the Titanic, some of the funding came from other rich people, like J P Morgan. I thought that was interesting because I thought it was completely British/Irish involvement, but I’m not surprised as he was ridiculously rich back then. The Titanic was built in just over a year, which I really can’t believe, though it took another 6 months to make it ornate and luxurious inside. They also didn’t have much scaffolding or any kind of safety anything for the workers who put it together and they were up probably half a mile from the ground, so that must have been extremely nerve-racking. The working conditions just weren’t good, and even though that seems to be the theme for things built during that time and before it, it amazes me that they still managed to accomplish it, especially something as large and detailed as the Titanic. There was a mini ride inside the museum that showed us how they made some things, like the rivets (I think that’s what they’re called, they pegs that hold the sheets of metal together). You have to have people on either side hitting and holding it while it’s still red hot to mold the metal. After we saw how they put it together, there was an exhibit showing the different cabin types and what some of the rooms looked like. I think the movie actually did a good job of portraying what most of the ship looked like. The rooms varied greatly, with the economy class with maybe a foot between the bunk beds and wall. Really small, but having lived on a ship, you don’t really spend that much time in your room, so it wasn’t terrible. Also, apparently that only cost like $1000? Still a lot of money for back then, but not as much as I thought it would be to ride on the Titanic. Fun fact – it’s last port of call was a little city right near Cork, so that was the last time it saw land. Anyways, there was a room with all the transmissions that night, showing how the Titanic was saying there were icebergs and what should they do and some of the other ships were telling them to shut up. Then, once they’d been hit, there was no one close enough – well there were but their intercoms weren’t manned. It did split, like in the movie and sunk. Took much longer than the hour that the movie makes it look like – I think it was more like 5 hours from when they got hit to when they stopped sending out signals. The Irish like to joke that the Irish built a feat of engineering and the ship was fine but that the English sunk it (because they were the ones sailing the ship). Well, after that, they had a room with the things that have come from this tragedy: SOS now a standard, universal signal for distress; there has to be a space on a lifeboat for every person; you have to practice going to the lifeboats so everyone knows how; radio rooms must be manned at all times and a few more that I can’t remember right now. Many of these things seem logical now (and I’ve enjoyed the benefits of them), but it’s amazing that these simple changes could easily have saved most of the people on that ship, which is tragic really. The last area showed some of the footage of them finding it underwater and the things that have survived. That was pretty cool. However, one thing to remember is that what Belfast was known for and took so much pride in building then ruined it’s reputation once it sunk. It took a long time for Belfast to bounce back from that.

After we finished at the museum, we went to a restaurant for dinner. Most things close early in Belfast and by early I mean we had a hard time finding food at 730. The place we ended up in was more of a date place, but whatever, we were hungry. Then, we went to the city centre because they had a massive TV set up to show the Olympics opening ceremonies. Since that didn’t start until 9, they had some entertainment beforehand. We missed the acrobats, but they had fire throwers and the Belfast city band. That was great because they played fun music and everyone danced around and celebrated. Then we sat in the grass and watched the ceremonies, which were very well done – confusing at first, then impressive, then entertaining and very informative overall. I really enjoyed them. Finally, we got a taxi and went back to our hostel.