Northern Ireland

BELFAST TRIP 08

Well the first thing I'll say is that we drove about 1200ks over the course of the weekend. We hired a car in Cork and drove to Belfast via Dublin - a bit like if you needed to get from CT to Jub but the only highway went via Durban - yeah, kinda like that, but on a smaller scale. At any rate, there's basically no other way. It is a long drive, but we had the car for free basically, compliments of getting a free weekend if we hired four times.

Belfast was really beautiful. It was my second visit as I had headed up on the bus to watch the SA cricket side play Ireland in the previous year.

We also noticed that there were a lot of, how do I say this nicely, WEIRDOS around Belfast. You know the type - the 20 piercing just in your upper lip type. Or the wear your hair like in the photo below left. Maybe there was just a weirdo convention on?

It was around about here that Cath got shat on by a bird. Got her right on the head and in her hair. Oh yes, she moaned for ages about it, but I WAS THE ONE who had to get it out with my fingers! Besides, it's lucky having a bird crap on you - but that's not how she was feeling.

We took this photies just to show that this was a mall. It looked like a bloody palace or national monument but it was just a shopping mall. Belfast city was pretty pretty.

While wandering around we found tourist info, which had flyers for... THE SPUR. Yay, quality, reasonably-priced food! We high-tailed it for a spur burger and a surf and turf, washed down with a windhoek light.

But we didn't have much time to eat cos we still wanted to do a bit of sight-seeing before we found our camping spot.

I had my heart set on seeing the Belfast murals - walls where the locals painted their allegiances - Catholic or Prot. Driving through the areas we were left in no doubt which area was for which 'side' of the conflict...

The murals are really good though...

Eire amach na casca - which I think means the Easter uprising of 1916 - a battle to declare Ireland independent of the Brits - a move which got a bunch of Irish slaughtered by the Brits who were not keen to lose a colony of the British empire - kinda like they did with the Boers.

Right - Bobby Sands - a hunger striker who dies in 1981 in prison after the British govt refused to agree to granting the IRA what was, effectively prisoner of war status. A wiki search tells me "his death resulted in a new surge of IRA recruitment and activity. The international media coverage sparked a wave of support and sympathy around the world for Sands, the other hunger strikers, and the republican movement in general."

Other murals simply bemoaned wars or political situations around the world.

Note the one below which has a picture of Bush and the words 'America's greatest failure'.

We then headed off further around Co Antrim to find a camping spot. We actually got lost but a farmer offered us the chance to pitch tent on his land. With rain in the air and the sun already having set, it was an offer we couldn't refuse.

His land looked over this massive loch - it was really stunning. We set up, trying to avoid cow crap,etc. We'd already eated so it was pretty much straight to bed.

Saturday driving about

One of the main reasons we came up to Northen Ireland, or 'the North' as they refer to it in Ireland, was to see the Giant's causeway. So we jumped in our car on Saturday morning and headed for Ireland's north coast. Along the way we came across a castle...

Giant's Causeway

The Giant's causeway is basically a series of rocks right on the coast that are all column-like, each an octogon (or something). See other photos for what I mean)

Funny how a bunch of oddly shaped rocks can attract so much attention. Thank God we don't make so much fuss about oddly shaped things back home. Table mountain... well (ahem) that's, ummmm... different, that's A rock, not a bunch of small ones. Totally different I say.

Don't ask me what formed the rocks like that - look it up on the internet you lazy ass - but it was pretty cool. The weather was crappy though so we took a walk and then headed off for a warm cuppa tea and a cake.

Carrick-a-rede rope bridge

The other nearby attraction is the Carrick-a-rede roap bridge which takes you from the mainland over a rope bridge about 10-20 metres high to a little outcroppy of land. We headed off to see that too.



Cath wonders about the futility of it all.
Blue steel.
Alan's love of heights clearly in evidence...

... while Cath is totally at ease on the stupid death-defying, swaying-in-the-wind, thin wood that could splinter into a million pieces sending you crashing to your death on the rocks below where your body would probably be eaten by sharks and the bones never found bridge. I was okay on it, really.

Hmm. Looks a bit higher than 10-20m now!

A thistle made us think of Madz again... so a quick Jap-style photo...

Stunning. And the scenery is good too.

Derry

We headed to Derry and this time we actually did stay in a proper campsite. It was a bit tough to find mind you, courtesy of typical Irish road signs. Click on this one below to see why we struggled to know we had to turn.

The campsite was good and we had some nice take-away food, did a sudoku or two and had a relaxing night's sleep. I think the rain even stayed away, which was a bonus. There was also a beach closeby so we went there for a stroll and a photo or two while the locals drove their cars up and down the beach.

And so the next morn, on to Derry City, why Derry? Well Derry has an interesting history and there was a wall I really wanted to see. I once did a project on the conflict in Northern Ireland - probably the worst mark I ever got at UCT actually, and I was quite interested in 'The troubles' as they call it in Ireland. You have to like that phrase - the troubles - as if bombs going off, terrorism, counter-terrorism, random beatings, etc, etc was nothing more than 'Oh no the drain is clogged, we'll have the troubles again' or like you can't find your socks or something.

Anyhoo, Derry strikes me as being the Cork of Northern Ireland. I.e. - what Cork is to Dublin, Derry is to Belfast - a bit more 'real' Ireland. It was really stunning and I would have liked to spend more time there. The signs of Catholic - Prot problems are clear to see though - in this photo below, this area of houses are fenced in because these houses are for Prots who were determined to live in the so-called Catholic area. So people would throw bricks at their houses, etc when they put up the British flag, etc.

This photo was taken from the walls of the old city. Old Derry is completely surrounded by a massive stone wall - from days of yore (or something like that) when all the locals would run into the city and the gayes would be closed when attackers came.

Below, Cath taking a stroll on the city wall.

A sculpture we found along the way.

This below, is an infamous area of Derry, known as the bogside. At the peak of the Troubles, an area of Catholics barricaded themselves in against the British military, writing on the side of a house - YOU ARE NOW ENTERING FREE DERRY - clearly saying that the rest of Derry, the part under British control was not free.

Down in the bogside...

U2's song Sunday bloody Sunday - well this is the hill, behind Cath, which the

Catholic protesters apparently ran down on Bloody Sunday, only to be mowed down by the British using machine guns.

There are reminders all over the place, many with fresh flowers indicating that the wounds are still a bit raw.

However it was the murals which I really came to see... those and my wall.

At last - my wall (with a mural on a house behind it).

Cath and a peace mural.

A lot of the murals had little signs beneath them explaining what they represented - which was helpful. I haven't included all of them here - I don't want to bore you, but they were huge. There were about 10 of them in this area, the bogside.

And then, back home. This time via Donegal - where I had never been before.