Belfast: A City Divided

I have learned a lot of history today that I definitely did not know about but we will get to that. We are still currently in Northern Ireland and I can't believe that on Wednesday I will be in London! This trip has gone by so fast and I have dutifully cataloged my adventures so that I will always remember this wonderful country!

Random statue here, my dad decided to help the shepherd with his sheep!

Today we drove into Belfast and spent most of our time in the new Titanic experience. For those who don't know (I didn't) the Titanic was built here. This museum was incredible. The first thing you see is an entire floor dedicated to how ship building in general helped this city to flourish and grow. It went from having a population around 80,000 to over 350,000 in a very short amount of time. It was also one of the cities that people fled to during the famine. Then you go to the 5th floor via an elevator similar to the ones used to get to the different decks of the Titanic as it was being built. At the top of this elevator you got on a ride (similar to the Peter Pan ride in Disney) that explained how the massive ship was built. After this you continue to travel along and see how the different classes lived on the ship. You also saw the footage of the Titanic being launch and the care that went into its creation. It actually spends a lot less time on the actual voyage and sinking than say the exhibit that has been in Houston. It has different audio accounts of what it was like for the survivors but it did say things like half past ten the ship sunk and the first compartment was filled or anything. It still inspires such respect and silence when you watch an animated artists rendition of what the ship looked like as it sunk. After the ship sinks we then get to watch a video of what it looked like as explorers viewed it from its submarine. It was a fascinating experience and very different from other exhibits I have seen.

The sign outside the experiance

This gave me chills

This was animated and slowly sank as you listened to survivors describe the event

The last telegraphs

Next we took a black taxi ride around the city. The Black Taxi actually gave us a political history tour of Belfast centering the conflict between the Protestants and the Catholics. Our driver is Catholic and was alive during the "troubles" as the locals call it. Belfast is now the safest city in Europe but it definitely did not use to be. We started in the West Belfast which is the Catholic community. Period. This area still shows signs of the struggle for Catholic freedoms. There is a wall called the peace line that is eerily similar to the Berlin wall. It literally separates the Catholics from the Protestants and has passage ways between that close at 6 pm sharp. There are murals in West Belfast that speak of political reforms that are actually changed fairly often and speak now of current political issues. Our driver did not participate in the "troubles" but he did lose a brother, uncle, and nephew to the political strife. It was a fascinating and sad history to learn about.

For the U2 fans that are reading this. You know the song "Streets with No Names" and "Bloody Sunday"? They are both songs about West Belfast. When the British Army was sent to separate the two groups (but was run by the Protestants and so did not really protect the Catholics) the Catholics took all the street names down so the soldiers would get lost.  Bloody Sunday was for the death of innocents in Northern Ireland. It was humbling to see how the wall still exists and how the backs of houses are protected by metal grills to cause projectiles to be pushed away from the homes. However, its not all bad. The Protestants and Catholics now sit together in government and go to school together. Our driver believes that the wall will be down in the next 20 years or less. Plus, as I said, this is now one of the safest cities in Europe.

We also went to the Protestant side of the wall. That side of the wall is filled with people who have gone on the Black Taxi tour and written their names on the wall. The city tried to clean up the wall by bringing in street artists. They had a tagging competition and it is quite good but there are still names written all over the art work. There was also one really creepy mural. It was a picture of a masked gun man pointing his gun at you. No matter how you walked the gun was always aiming right at you.

All in all I had a very wonderful and informative day today! This is my favorite kind of hands on learning and I hope you found the tiny tibits I gave you to be very interesting. Well until tomorrow!