Belfast 1 of 4

Belfast, where to start???

Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland with almost half a million people, is Northern Ireland’s main commercial dock (and the main dry dock for ship building-Titanic). They are “very proud” of the ship that sank. It is also known for innovation and the city murals. Sadly, it is also known for The Troubles, the period from 1969 to 2006 where in the first 29 years 3,532 people died, 48,000+ were injured in 40,000+ shooting incidents, with 23,000 robberies, and over 16,000 bombings.

We can not forget about their Guiness and Irish Whiskey (the “e” added for excellence), Irish Coffee and yes, Game of Thrones.

Our all-day private tour featured the Giant's Causeway, a World Heritage site created as a result of a Volcanic Eruption over 60 million years ago (although legend has it that the Causeway was built by Finn McCool a local giant who was over 12 feet tall and fought for this land). It has 43,000 pillars created over this time (see photos of us walking on them). We also stopped at: Ballycastle for lunch, Dunluce Castle ruins (on the dramatic coastal cliffs of north County Antrim in 1513), saw the Glens of Antrim, Portaneevy View Point (and a view of their rope bridge to get their) / Rathlin Island and Cushendall (a quaint little coastal town). We made important stops in the city of Belfast to see the houses, some key buildings and the Wall murals.

Back to the Troubles. Just these magnitudes of number of terrible events which involved death and injury to 2% of the population (with over 500,000 “victims”) of Northern Ireland at the time gave us an idea of what happened in The Troubles period. This time was called an “ethno-nationalist” conflict but is imposible to define in succinct terms. It was fought over the status of Northern Ireland between Unionists/Loyaltists (Protestants) who wanted Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK and Nationalists/Republicans (Catholics) who wanted to leave the UK and be a separate United Ireland nation (the current Republic of Ireland). From the “outside” it looks to most of us like a religious war but those involved will tell you it was more of a political war. The conflict started to end discrimination against the Catholic-Nationalist minority by the Protestant-Unionist government and local authorities. The Republican paramilitaries (the IRA) and the Irish National Liberation Army were the primary focus of the violence. At the end, 60% of the deaths were Republicans and 30% Loyaltists and 10% British military. The Good Friday agreement in 1998 “mostly” brought peace to the region with power-sharing, civil and political rights and reform and disarmament. The conflict is so hard to define because it actually goes back to 1609 but was highlighted when Ireland became more independent in 1800 and the partitioning of Northern and Southern Ireland in 1920.

A very sad time for ALL. Is this the END?Read more