An Afternoon in Belfast

About 2 weeks ago Chris and I headed over to Northern Ireland for a long weekend. We spent the early afternoon in Belfast before driving along the coast to a little town called Portrush. Several people recommended a black taxi tour of Belfast that would take us through the history of the "troubles" as well as tour the hotspots. The sky was only slightly ominous...

Apparently back in the 70's when things first started to kick off, people started painting murals as a way of marking their neighborhoods. This practice continues. Our tour guide insisted the murals are now peaceful and positive but the neighborhoods are about 100% segregated and the murals are specific to the neighborhood...

I don't think a man with a rifle in a ski mask is how I would depict a positive and peaceful message! To each their own!!!

The picture to the right is the peace wall. It is one of 6 or 7 walls that divide a Catholic neighborhood from a Protestant one. This one is just about covered in grafiti. Most visitors sign their name on the wall to show their support of the peace process. However, am not so sold on the idea that they have peace. Things are clearly better than they were in the past but the country still has a long way to go to be at peace. The Monday or Tuesday after we got back there was a car bomb outside a courthouse in Newry. The bomb was apparently in response to a decision to return policing responsibility to the capital of Belfest from London...     

                                        

The wall on the left is covered in murals in support of "troubles" in other parts of the world. Irish refer to the fighting as the "troubles."

Downtown Belfast was pretty small and fairly rundown but we did visit a pretty awesome pub. The original plan was to have a pint but since we had a couple hours worth of driving ahead of us so we just took a look around the loos and then headed on our way! The capital was impressive and looked very similar to St Paul's Cathedral in London...they even have their own mini-Eye!

Next post... pics from the drive and Portrush!!!

Until then...