Northern Ireland

Last weekend was our second and last program trip. We bused to Northern Ireland, saw Belfast, Giants Causeway and Stormont (a political building), here's the summary:

Friday 26 September:

10:15: Meet with Aidan Gough, Policy Director of Intertrade Ireland, basically an organization set up to create economic unity between Ireland and Northern Ireland. The presentation wasn't too interesting, but they did give me post-its, and therefore gained my love.

1:30: Stormont, learn about history and constitutional arrangements of Northern Ireland, also met with Francie Molloy, a Sinn Fein (nationalist) member. The building was really pretty and the government is pretty interesting. There are actually two prime ministers, one from each of the top two political parties (there are about 8 major parties), and the two ministers have exactly equal power. Right now the government is sort of at a stand-still because the ministers are not playing nice together...

4:30: Head to dinner, make a beach break:
6:30: Eat dinner (mmm banoffee pie) then head to Sheep Island View Hostel for the night.

Saturday 27
8:00: Wake up to this:
Then hop on the bus and head to Giant's Causeway, making another beach stop along the way:

After a long walk around Giant's Causeway we bused to Belfast to meet with Peter Maguire, a resident of Belfast who lived through the Troubles and had many stories to share. He was actually hospitalized a couple of times after being beaten by police and knew many people who died in fighting for Irish unity and Catholic equality. The town of Belfast is still divided by a wall with Catholics on one side and Protestants on the other and there are streets in which you only walk on one side of the road depending on your religion. It's crazy! Peter also mentioned that if you said your name it was immediately apparent as to which religion you belonged, this seemed hard to believe, but yesterday we were talking to some Irish kids in class and we mentioned Francie Molloy they immediately knew that he must be a Catholic Nationalist - it's so weird to be able to judge someone so quickly based on name alone! But anyway, we walked through one Catholic neighborhood in Belfast and up and down the road there were houses covered in murals (seen below) to remember all those who fought and died during the Troubles. It was also interesting because in the Catholic neighborhoods there were lots of Irish flags hanging on houses, but in the Protestant neighborhoods there were only British flags. It seems so minute and passive, but it really signifies a great tension. Belfast is the only walled city left in Europe and there are zero plans to take it down anytime soon.


(Click on the last picture for a link to more pics)