BELFAST (Northern Ireland)
28 October 2017
The Troubles was an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland
during the late 20th century. Also known as the Northern Ireland conflict, it was primarily a political and
nationalistic conflict, fuelled by historic events.
Growing up in Australia names
such as Sinn Fein and the IRA were all too well known with bombings, murders
and other atrocities making in as headline news fairly regularly.
Belfast - Northern Ireland
Belfast - Northern Ireland
Belfast - Northern Ireland
My understanding of the conflict,
as basic as I could understand it as a kid was a movement to end discrimination
against the Catholic minority from the Protestant, unionist government. Of
course my understanding severely undermines the actual complexity, volatility and
gross violence of the conflict. So I don’t pretend to know anything about
anything other than the headline news. Still, considering we were in Ireland
and Belfast, Northern Ireland was not that far a drive away, I wanted to go and
see some of the Peace Lines that acted as real of separation between predominantly
Republican & Catholic neighbourhoods from Loyalist and Unionist Protestant
neighbourhoods.
I find the idea of building such
overt and crass structures for political reasons to be both absurd and
antagonistic. Such a tangible, observable display of a schism has got to
undermine any process of reconciliation by its sheer magnitude. It becomes part
of the conscious psyche, the real split only goes to consolidate the bitterness
of the feud no matter the action status. As a powerful symbol of divisiveness it
certainly it certainly scores points.
The plan by the Northern Ireland
Executive has committed to the removal of all peace lines by mutual consent by 2023. It will be interesting to
see if this time frame is adhered to.
Belfast - Northern Ireland
Belfast - Northern Ireland
Belfast - Northern Ireland
Belfast - Northern Ireland
Seeing them for myself its hard
to believe that they actually exist. There’s a heaviness to the atmosphere
here, it’s almost palpable. They may be very crude constructs but the purpose
they serve magnifies the conflict and hatred that they represent.
The Dark Hedges - Ballymoney - Northern Ireland
If you're a Game of Thrones fan then apparently you'll 'just know'
The Dark Hedges - Ballymoney - Northern Ireland
The Dark Hedges - Ballymoney - Northern Ireland
We also spent about an hour or
two in Belfast, enough to have a quick walk around, pick up an odd souvenir and
have a drink. Not enough for us to make any real assessment of the place but Lonely Planet named Belfast and the Causeway Coast together as the best
place to visit in 2018, so it looks like we were ahead of the game in that
sense.
The Giant's Causeway - County Antrim - Northern Ireland
The Giant's Causeway - County Antrim - Northern Ireland
The Giant's Causeway - County Antrim - Northern Ireland
In our day incursion into
Northern Ireland we did also make it to the Giant’s Causeway on what was a
windy, cold and rainy afternoon. The Causeway
itself is an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns formed as a
result of an ancient volcanic fissure eruption. Certainly an impressive site on
a nice day, on a cold day like the one we encountered it was more of an act of
will to go and see it.
The Giant's Causeway - County Antrim - Northern Ireland
The Giant's Causeway - County Antrim - Northern Ireland
Like the rest of Ireland, the
Northern part has a lush greenness about it. It’s the type of picturesque view
that you quite often associate with any stories and movies that dedicate
anytime to showcasing Ireland. Again, on a sunny day you could almost fall for
the emerald green in this part of the world…almost.
