"Blue & Red: Like I Don't See What The Big Deal Is"
- sanderssam
- Jul 15, 2019
- 9 min read
I booked this trip to Belfast a while ago... like 2 weeks ago. That's a while ago in my world! 3 things I didn't realize at the time:
1) July 12, the first day I would be there, is a huge day in Northern Ireland. "Orangefest "(commemorating the Battle of Boyne) is that day.
2) The Irish Open is coming up the day after I'd leave, and despite that, the city is crazy for it.
3) The City Centre of Belfast is not a great place to stay for nightlife, etc. Cathedral Quarter would be better. It's nickname, oddly enough, is "DC", or Dead Centre.
Anyhow. We'll get there. I went through a few states of mind on my way to Belfast and the surrounding county for the weekend.
Fear:
Fear of the unknown to start? To get to Belfast from Galway, you can do a few things: take a bus, take a train, or drive. You could fly from Shannon airport, but with the waiting and all, you're probably better off doing any of the 3 I mentioned. Pro tip, for those foreigners a little uncertain traveling from Dublin to Belfast, there is a zero chance you will have your passport looked at on the border because there's a zero chance you will see or notice a border if you take the train.
So the train goes to Dublin first, and you save about 10 bucks if you book it as 2 segments, which I did. Gave most of that back to a cabbie who took me from one Dublin train station to the other. The fear got stoked here, as we talked and he asked me "oh, it's July 12, why are you going to Belfast?". Now, I didn't know what was a good appropriate answer here. I asked him about what he thought. He said i) the city will actually be pretty deserted ii) not to walk in any of the NRA parts of the city (side note: would not have known which these were) iii) no, I would not see any bonfires, that mostly happens in the country.
So... you can imagine at this point I'd wish I'd done more (NB: some) research. I get on my 2nd train at Dublin Connolly Station after my cab ride in Dublin. One of the nice things about the trains here is that if you book online they'll have your name above your seat as you get on, so you know, no disputing that you should sit there. But if there is no name above your seat, it's free, and anyone can sit there. A shambling middle-aged man asks if across from me is free, and I nod yes, he sits down and *instantly* (and somehow silently) vomits over the table and onto the floor.
Now, I think in this moment, you find out a lot about yourself. The man says nothing, just sits there and carries on as if nothing happened. I turn toward the group of Irish folks across from me, who are understandably reviled. I turn back to the guy, who is just quietly staring into one of his 3 shopping bags. And then, after some darting back and forth, I just leave my seat for an open one a couple of seats away (as do the people across from me). The train car smells... not great. Some would say this is a poor augury for my trip. Some would say I should have looked after and asked this guy some more questions. I would say I'm a hypochondriac who feared for my own health with all this Ebola talk going on lately.
Let's fast forward to my arrival though. The train lets off in Belfast in the midst of the city centre. Close to the water, a close walk to my hotel, city hall, many things! Many things that are all closed for July 12. Orangefest, as many banners proclaim it, was today, and indeed there was much parading, wearing of outfits, and everyone's either wearing blue and red union jack attire or weird orange marching band looking uniforms.
I really wish I had pictures of people's outfits or similar, but I have to be honest, I was kind of afraid here. I saw 2 street fights take place right in front of me on or near Great Victoria street, one the cops were monitoring and taking care of, the other started with broken bottles, then as I later passed the ambulance was taking care of one of them. This may have at one point been a fun parade, but I was witnessing a scary aftermath. Thank god I was wearing blue.
Combined with the number of stores closed for July 12 in my neighborhood in City Centre, I made the decision at about 10 to just turn in for the night instead of go out. I know that sucks, but with a 9 am day tour tomorrow, I easily convinced myself it was the smart move. Had a nice hotel room though!
Excitement:
Let's put all that craziness behind me. Had a full day ahead of me here! Going to see some GoT sites, Giant's Causeway, Carrick-A-Rede, Bushmills Distillery-- this is what I needed to take my mind off of that.
Another bus, another sarcastic quipping Irish guide. It's probably a good 90 minutes at least to Giant's Causeway-- which everyone tells you you should see-- so he had a lot of time to ring off some zingers. Here's a couple:
-"I had a man from Texas ask me 'Where did Jack Dawson live'? [Belfast is famous for being the birthplace of the Titanic]. I said, 'I've no idea go ask Leonardo DiCaprio'.
-[Passing Ballymena, Liam Neeson's hometown]: "This is where he acquired his set of skills"
Honestly, this was an easy drive compared with the bumpy rides I'd had on earlier coaches. We stopped along the way a couple times, first to see a "castle"
All I have to say is CGI is a hell of a technique. I was way more impressed by this lamb just chilling on a hill across the road.
We also drove by the golf course for the British Open, which did have people out on it already. To me, golf is not a big deal, but to everyone here, and the people paying hundreds of thousands of pounds to rent caravan houses nearby, it obviously is. Here's a crappy shot, that does prove that I saw it though.
So, Giant's Causeway. This place is great! I did almost zero research here, but wish I had, because I thought the non-unique parts of this place were beautiful and was wondering "why is no one else here, see below:
Nuh unh. There is a reason why people come here, and it's for the really weird rocks. Check out these pics below:
Ahhh yes, that's the stuff. Also, FYI, if you can't do the roughly 1 mile hike, there is a bus, which costs a pound. But this was pretty cool. Allegedly, Finn McCool the giant built and destroyed this causeway to try and kick some giant's ass in Scotland. It's either that or some kind of unique igneous rock formation, you take your pick.
After all that hiking, our next stop was the Bushmills Distillery. After all, the town of Bushmills was right next to here, and after all that walking we deserved it, right?
Two thoughts here:
1) The 21 year is obviously wonderful, the others are... take it or leave it. But the 21 year is 200+ a bottle, so... tasting alone it is.
2) All distillery tours are the same. Just skip to the tasting part.
Somehow, after the whiskey tasting, they thought it was a good idea to have us do a hike with a rickety rope bridge at Carrick-a-Rede, which literally means "Rock in the Road". Time was, apparently salmon fisherman would hang down their nets from this bridge and catch 300 salmon a day... now with overfishing, it's more like 300 a year. Pretty beautiful, here's some pics of the general area
That bridge, high up, is what we crossed. Only 8 people could cross at a time. The four british boys behind me deliberately made it shake for the poor afraid woman from the Isle of Man in front of me who cried out "you boys are shite!!!". Not wrong. Rough clip of the experience on the way back is below:
Apparently, there are hundreds of phones down below the bridge where people had tried the same thing I just did, you can hear how windy it was. The other thing I remember from this place is all you could hear was the cry of hundreds of seagulls making nests in the cliffs (and all you could smell was... seagull... also). Here's a taste of that sound (ignore the tourists behind me).
After this, we were on our way back. Stopped in a village for ice cream, which honestly, was nothing to write home about, and not worth temporarily breaking my diet a little just to try. Sorry "Maud". Still really want to try Murphy's back in Galway though... maybe next week!
Last, what trip to NI is complete without seeing the (tiny) King Billy statue at Carrickfergus
I have to say, all in all, I really preferred the representation of him I saw in the burlesque show by that lady.
Got back to my hotel, rested, went out to dinner, nothing special... wish I had something to write home about here! But went to bed-- had an early morning "Troubles" tour
Acceptance
Didn't know what to expect on this "Troubles" tour. Met at City Hall first thing in the morning, which is absolutely gorgeous
So, let me preface this tour with something: A cruise boat is docked in town this weekend, meaning 3,000 (let's face it, old Americans) are descending on the city. No problem with the elderly on the tour. However, Belfast-- and some other European cities-- are not handicapped friendly. So 3 folks were in wheelchairs on this tour, and... it was challenging at parts for them to keep up. So... be advised.
The goal of this tour was to learn about the history of the Troubles. Right at the beginning, some Australian lady asked "are we going to see the Peace Wall/International Murals" and "no, we are not" (she was not pleased). Basically, we were going to see a bunch of places where awful things happened on both sides of the conflict, and why the city is how it is today.
What's sad about it is, due to the enormous amount of bombings, very few of the original buildings survive, here's one below.
Wait, let's not miss this, here's the name of that clothing store, perhaps the most redundantly named shop in Ireland.
That comedic interjection aside, this was a really sad tour. So many stories of awful violence, innocent people dying or getting injured. And sadly, very little commemoration has gone on, because the sides still can't agree on how the commemorating should take place. There was one example here though of a former punk club, that again, did not survive until present day:
I really want to read more about this. Awful violence "on both sides" (actually though here...), whether it was Tartan Gangs or IRA. Out of all of this has come a ton of wonderful street art
Most of which has some pacifist sentiment... for instance, the picture on the left is praising the son of Protagoras, holding a dead bird which 2 arrows of religion killed. On the right is about the scourge of colonialism, where the blade ends up hurting the man behind the duelers.
Anyhow, learned a lot, including that I should have seen more of the cathedral quarter, here's a typical street:
Anyhow, the tour ended back at the waterfront-- I had a couple of hours before my train and figured I'd get some lunch and maybe see these peace walls I heard so much about?
First, had a great seafood lunch at Mourne's Seafood bistro (a mild miracle, since most restaurants are closed until afternoon on Sundays)
A whole sea bass stuffed and topped with lemon garlic shrimp, beans, fennel and sea beans, plus fresh langoustines. I'd never had langoustines before... kind of like crawfish, in that you really don't get much meat for your efforts.
After this, you gotta walk it off, so figured I'd walk to the "Peace Walls". It was about 30 minutes, and trust me, most of it isn't very scenic. What I will say Belfast is a very walkable city in that you can go from East Belfast to City Centre to West Belfast in less than an hour. You also see that there are certainly parts of the city that do not subscribe to this "Orangefest" thing that was happening...
On the way to the peace wall, I saw a number of great international murals, which were pretty cool... this isn't all of them, it's pretty extensive.
In stark contrast, here was the actual peace wall (according to google, because there were no defining characteristics), complete with kids smoking weed next to it and suspiciously looking at me.
Anyhow, had to hightail it back after this so I could make my train. I did catch about 2 sets of the Federer-Djokovic match, then took the train back to Dublin. Had a bit of trouble getting from one station to the other-- two big hurling matches were happening near Heuston station (go Laois?)-- so took a bit longer than expected. Had a great steak dinner, then hopped on the train home.
I'm surely skipping some things, but was grateful to see "the moon rise over Claddagh" (dammit should have saved that one for a blog title!!!) on my way home, and eventually get back.
Random Things:
-In Northern Ireland, pronunciation is really weird. For instance, they say "now" like "no--eeee". And yet, reportedly, was voted "sexiest in the UK"
-I also saw, but did not take a picture, of "the wall" from GoT. It's... too sad. Basically, it's a tiny part of a quarry that's CGI'd, and you can still see part of Castle Black. They (well, a thai billionaire) are gonna make a theme park out of it apparently though!
Moment of Zen
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