On the subject of history

We departed Belfast and headed to Derry/Londonderry and in some ways it felt like jumping from the fat into the fire. Initially when founded, it was named Derry after the many oaks in its landscape. When Londoners came one in the 1640s to build the walls of the city, it was renamed Londonderry. Nowadays it’s Derry to the Catholics and Londonderry to the Protestants. Some road signs actually have the London part scratched out. History is not always pleasant and can be downright messy. What we always thought of as a failure of Catholics and Protestants to get along… rather silly when both are forms of Christianity, cuts so much deeper. Once King Henry broke away from the Catholic Church and established the Church of England, the Catholics got the short end of the stick and were subjected to all sorts of social discrimination from jobs to housing etc. From the sounds of it, land ownership was a pyramid scheme, with the Crown as the landlord. British nobility had long term leases for great parcels of land, which in turn they gave shorter leases of parcels to individuals of lower ranking, who in turn had tenant farmers. All along the way, everyone is paying rent and improvements would increase rent thereby reducing incentive. By the time all levels paid their rent, it didn’t leave much for those at the bottom who never stood a chance of bettering their lot. Potatoes were rather prolific, so that was what the folks at the bottom of the food chain relied upon until the blight hit and the potato famine either killed them or forced emigration. Ships carrying these starving folks were referred to as coffin ships as it was not uncommon for passengers to have a 60% mortality rate. To put it bluntly, life was pretty grim for Irish Catholics and it didn’t improve much when you fast forward to after the Republic of Ireland gained independence from the UK and Northern Ireland was created. Discrimination remained rampant and religious persuasion was fairly simple to discern based on name and address. Voting was tied to property ownership. If you owned 2 houses, you had 2 votes. If you didn’t own property, then you didn’t have a vote. The civil rights movements in the US fueled/coincided with civil unrest in Northern Ireland, with Belfast and Derry being epicenters for riots and violence. John Hume was a visionary leader and peace maker who finally succeeded in bringing about peace, earning the Nobel Peace Prize, Gandhi Peace Prize, and the Martin Luther King Jr Nonviolent Peace Prize. The mind boggling part is that the Peace Accords were just signed in 1998, and many vestiges of the “troubled times” remain. Peace walls protect high value targets, some of which are still monitored to this day. Our local guide ended with a plea to learn from the past so we don’t repeat it.Read more