Belfast: Day 2

Sunday morning in Belfast means....nothing's open in the City Centre for breakfast!  We wandered around for 45 minutes looking for ANYTHING to eat until we stumbled upon a shady cafe serving "eggs" on bagels.  It did the trick I guess.  After breakfast we walked back to our hotel and grabbed a "Black Taxi" Tour - a literal old school black taxi that takes you around the parts of Belfast that were deeply affected by the religious and political strife.  Thank GOD it was sunny out, otherwise it would have made it even more depressing.  Yay! 

So...for those of you dummies out there (me included), there's been some political and religious tension in Northern Ireland the past....gazillion years or so.  And when I say political and religious, it's virtually one in the same.  The Catholics ("Republicans") want a united Ireland, and the Protestants ("Loyalists") side with the British and want them to continue controlling Northern Ireland.  The neighborhoods are still very much divided into political/religious districts and the murals and Peace Wall are the trademarks of the many troubles of the violence and tension between them over the years.  Our cab driver, Brendan (which is a very Catholic name - he said in the City Centre he tells people his name is John to be safe) was incredibly informative and though he was Catholic, he did a good job of explaining everything in a non-biased way.  

Let's begin.  Brendan first took us to the Protestant section.

Shankill Road is the main road in the Protestant Working Class area and these murals are dedicated to the shit that went down there.

Here are some views of the Protestant Working Class areas.  Note the Union Jack flags flying everywhere.

This is a famous mural called "The Sniper" - it's kinda like the Mona Lisa in that the sniper's eyes and gun follow you no matter where you are in the square.  Scary.

I thought this was a cool picture of a mural until I realized that the Gold Rush mural was painted after the Protestants raided a bunch of Jewish homes and found bars of gold inside and stole them.  I don't THINK SO!  

This guy was famous.  For something.  I'm sorry I don't know what it is.

Our black taxi!

This mural was depicting the children's lives in 1969, and that bombings, violence, and fear were an every day part of their summers.

This was an old, beautiful courthouse that has been ransacked and left to ruin after years of no one using it.  It's right outside the Protestant/Catholic area, with the jail (second picture) across the street.  Neither one are being used.  It's sad that these beautiful buildings are just sitting there in disrepair!

Brendan also pointed out that there are several gates in the Catholic area that are closed every single night at 6 or 7pm, to try to prevent conflict.  Can you imagine?  Geez.

This is the Peace Wall!  It seperates the Protestant and Catholic areas and is about 5 miles long.  There are more murals and graffiti along the wall, and lots of people leave their names and messages on it too.

Leaving our mark on the Peace Wall.  Peace, love, & Solomons.

Catholic Memorial Garden, honoring those who died.

These are the apartments next to the garden, on the other side of the Peace Wall.  Notice that they're caged in to protect themselves.

Bobby Sands.  Big time IRA Volunteer.

I'm sorry if this is disrespectful, but doesn't this look like Ron Burgundy?  Just a little bit?

A mural of Guernica!  Cool!

International Wall - displaying world events.

The Europa is the "most bombed" hotel in Europe.  I don't think I'll be staying here any time soon.

Belfast City Hall.  A pretty building in the midst of this dark city!

Pizza break before the train home.

You know when you've stopped along the sidewalk to enjoy the slice of pizza you've bought to eat before the train, and you set your Diet Cokes down on a pillar and you look down and there's a POTATO sitting there?  Yeah, us either. Only in Ireland.

A large clock near our hotel that we kept calling "Little Ben" - though I don't think that's what it was actually called.

The final kicker of our trip was seeing a huge red stain on the concrete near our hotel - it was too red to be ketchup and I knew exactly what it was.  Drew insisted that he was going to pretend it was just face paint.  Ha.  With that, we grabbed our bags and headed to the train station, back to civilization in Dublin.

Like I said, we're glad we went, we saw what we needed to, but we have absolutely no reason to return there.  The Black Taxi tour was really interesting and...sad.  Sad that people still live this way, that both sides continue to do stuff to rile each other up, sad that there is STILL violence going on (Brendan said "Yeah, about a year ago a huge Loyalist leader was killed out here in the street, in broad daylight, in front of tourists and everybody!"  Yikes.), sad that we all can't just get along!  But as Drew so astutely pointed out, even though we're shocked and appalled by this lifestyle, there's still division and tension and racism in the States and all over the world, even though we don't see it everyday.  Come on people!    Let's all just hug it out.  If only.

Our next trip should be to a more uplifting place so stay tuned for that one!  Peace out!