Belfast, Northern Ireland

Today we went on the Hop On Hop off Bus tour of Belfast, it was wonderful to hear the Northern Irish Brogue and their craic about Belfast. Things like their famous 24 hour Tesco store that advertises it's open 24 hours a day but shuts at 9.00pm every night.

An important part of Belfast is the Queen's Island area that has the twin yellow shipbuilding gantry cranes, Samson and Goliath, which are prominent on the city skyline. This shipyard is where Titanic was built. Although ships are no longer built here the yards are still used for the maintenance of ships and the building of the giant wind turbines that are dotted throughout the country. Also situated on Queen's Island is the studio for Game of Thrones.

We continued onto Stormont Parliament Building which is the seat of the Northern Ireland Assembly. To camouflage the building during World War II, the building's stone was painted with supposedly removable "paint" made of bitumen and cow manure. However, after the war, removing the paint proved an enormous difficulty and still stains the stone. Now they say there is shit both inside and outside the building. Some more Irish craic.

We toured both the Unionist and the Republican sides of the city. Belfast you have come a long way in working towards peace but still to see the physical divide of a Peace Wall that is closed off at night and on weekends is saddening. The Peace Wall is used to minimise inter-communal violence between Catholics (most of whom are nationalists who self-identify as Irish) and Protestants (most of whom are unionists who self-identify as British). One mural in particular speaks of what, I hope, will be the future. The mural is based on the poem No More and is designed to send a message to those who wish to continue violence that the next generation wants no part of it.Read more