Please utilise this space to search this blog

Saturday, October 28, 2017

Belfast (Northern Ireland) - The Troubles



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.