Ireland Trip

August 29, 2001

Northern Ireland Write-up

Friday morning started our tour of Northern Ireland on the Tir na Nog tour bus. Met up with our guide, Oli (Oliver) who was really cool and joined 6 others for the tour. Headed north out of Dublin and up to a place called New Grange which is this funky burial chamber place that is really old but really not very interesting. Beautiful countryside none the less. It is in an area called Bruna Boinne which basically means the dwelling place of the Boyne. The local river that runs through the area shares the same name and goes to Slane. Slane is known for Slane Castle which is host to many concerts through the year and is a natural amphitheater. U2 was playing the day after we went through the city. Huge event in Ireland. 80,000 tickets sold out in 45 minutes. The bus sort of broke down for a while until we realized it was just this emergency engine cut off switch and once that was disabled we got on our way.

We were supposed to head up to Derry for the first night, but because of the delay, ended up just going to Belfast for the first night. Amazing town. A little scary crossing into Northern Ireland given all the bomb threats and the like, but also so amazing to hear the history of the place and actually see the cities that you only read about in the newspaper. The boarder between northern and southern Ireland is just a change in the edge lines on the road from yellow to white in the north. Belfast used to be a thriving city as the industrial revolution really only affected the north, but now with all the trouble, investors stay out of Belfast and Dublin is by far the economic center of this country. The Celtic Tiger as it's called clearly is only seen in the south. The police in Belfast drive these armored tank like vehicles and everything is caged in on the car. The police and fire stations have these huge 40 foot walls and barbed wire and there are cameras everywhere.

The British installed the cameras to keep an eye on the IRA and didn't put wipers on the cameras and since it rains a lot in Ireland, they had to install wipers on them all. The electricians who worked on them were getting picked off by snipers so they had to hire Scotish electricians (at extremely high wages) to come and do the job but also had to have look out men on the ground patrolling the area and helicopters overhead looking for snipers ... the whole process cost the British government something like 30 million pounds ... just to install wipers.

Belfast is one of the safest cities in the world. More baseball bats are sold in Belfast then anywhere else in Europe and no one plays baseball in Belfast. They just deal with things differently here. It was a little unnerving to be in such a violent city but at the same time, a little exciting to be in the middle of it all. Our hostel was in a safe part of town though we couldn't park the bus near it because of the Celtic writings on the side. The Unionists up there don't really care for the Republican Irishmen. As we drive through some of the city with the bus, several teenagers would make obscene gestures to the bus and make similar remarks ... Amazing that stuff like this still goes on. Had dinner that night with the group and Oli at a small Irish pub and then went to this cool pub called the Crown. The Crown is right across from the Europa Hotel and is known to be the safest pub in the world! This is because the Europa has been bombed 9 times and the Crown still stands! Crazy. Really cool pub though with these tables that seated like 15 but were completely seperated from the other tables by high walls and even a door that you could close for complete privacy. The Crown pub was about 500 years old.

The tour group: There was an american guy, Arthur. Very annoying guy actually. Always whistling. Always saying things like "isn't it lovely!?" Lisa, an American studying in Brighton for the coming year who was pretty cool, though I didn't really get to know her. Then Voitech, from Poland. For the first couple days, we all thought his name was "High Tech" ! Quiet guy. Always keeping to himself. He's now working as a Gardener in London. Two German girls, Natasha and Katerina. Both very cool though their English wasn't very good so it was hard to talk with them. Natasha was going to do a week of work in Killarney park in southern Ireland after leaving the tour. The other girl was heading back to Germany to work (somewhere near Cologne). And finally, Carla. The Kiwi who has been traveling for 6 years! She works for 6 months in London, makes enough money to travel and leaves for 6 months ... amazing. She's seen just about everywhere in the world. Really cool to talk with everyone though in 3 days, you can't really get to know anyone.

Belfast to Derry: Woke up on Saturday morning and immediately got in a black cab tour of the more violent parts of the city. The black cab is simply because it lacks any markings on the vehicle and these cab drivers know the city very well and all it's stories. So the whole thing is very interesting. We went up to Shankill Road which is the center of the Unionists / UFF (Ulster FreedomFights) / Loyalists to Britain / Protestants and also to Falls Road, the center of the Republicans / IRA / Nationalists / Catholics / Sinn Fein etc. Murals everywhere depicting political prisoners of war, those lost in riots and also the 10 who died in the Hunger Strike including Bobby Sands, the first to die after 61 days without any food. You know which part of town you're in, primarly by the flags that are everywhere depicting various groups or alliances, but also by the curbs on the roads. Red, white, blue on the Unionist side and Orange, green, and white on the republican side. The history of this part of the world is incredible and the fact that the fighting still continues today .... they don't even know what they're fighting over anymore. Religion originally divided them, but now it's turned into just doing what they've always done ... fighting against one and other. Now, you have to really be someone special to worry about your life ... tourists and those not involved are very safe. If any memeber of either group kills and innocent person, they are put on the hit list by BOTH sides of the wall, not just the opposing.

We also visited this wall that divides Belfast into the two sides. They still close the gates during the marches which actually were going on while we were there by the "orange men." It was cool to see. The feeling though of standing on Shankill road and looking at these murals, and overhearing, somewhere in the distance, the marchers ... very erie.

I continued my running through all of these places that I visited and Belfast was by far one of the coolest places I've ever run. Got up at about 6:30 for a morning run and the streets were completely empty. Even during the afternoon and evening, there isn't a whole lot of people around.

Left Belfast and headed up the coast, first stopping for lunch in a place called Cushendall which is this cool little town with one small pub where we had lunch. Very remote. Continued up to the rope bridge ... which is just great for the views of the coast. And finally that day to the Giants Causeway. Formed by volcanic activity millions of years ago, it is this huge area of similar hexogonal pillars going out into the sea.

The Irish have a much better legend of the Giant's Causeway. The reason for the strange landscape involves two giants from Ireland and Scotland who are to fight. They build this causeway across to Scotland so the Scotish Giant can come over for the event. The Irish giant realizes that he can never win the fight so he goes in and talks with his wife who tells him to just do as she says and everything will be alright. She dresses him in baby clothes and puts him into a small child's bed. Then she makes biscuits, some with, some without, large stones in the middle.

The Scotish Giant arrives and the wife tells him that the her husband will be back soon as he is out running around Ireland 10 times to wear himself out so that there might be a fair fight. So, he decides to wait. While waiting, he sees this enormous child in the one bedroom and is startled to hear that this is the Irish giant's son of one year. Then the wife offers him a biscuit with the stone inside and the giant breaks all his teeth trying to eat this biscuit. She gives one of the normal biscuits to the child giant which he quickly devours with no trouble. Seeing all of this, the Scotish giant is tricked into believing he cannot win this battle and rushes back to Scotland. On the way, he breaks up the causeway so the Irish giant cannot chase him, hence why the causeway today is not complete. (But can be seen partially on both the Scotish and Irishcoast, 12 miles apart.) As he leaves in such a great hurry, he loses his shoewhich is shown in one of the pictures.

This story is clearly the more accurate of the two.

Finally, we arrived in Derry (or LondonDerry depending on which side of the city you live on and where your alliances lie). It's a walled city and supposedly is one of the places where all this mess started like 500 years ago. The Bogside is allegedly one of the most dangerous areas in the world (or it was at one time). Our hostel was inside the city walls and right outside was the wall and a fence on top of it (20 feet high at least). The fence was put up because there were riots earlier in the year and people were catapulting TVs over the wall to do some damage! It was good to know that my hostel was so close to all of this! Our first night there, we just went to a couple of pubs and hung out. Nothing too exciting. Got approached by someone selling U2 tickets for 250 punt for two (200$ each)! Probably a scam.

Sunday: Derry to Dublin, did a walking tour of Derry and learned all about the city and its history. More murals. There was one funny story on the tour. In the middle of the walled part of the city, there is a monument to those lost in the second world war. It was originally a gift to England but the English thought it was too violent (There is a soldier on top, rifle in hand, in battle.) So the city of Derry thought it was cool and as our guide said, "We bought it on the cheap!"

Started our drive out of Derry and back to Dublin. Stopped only at The hill of Tara on the way home for a Pagan ritual site and great views of all of Ireland. They really don't know what this place was used for but it dates back to the stone age or before. Cool to see though not very interesting considering how little they know about it. Got into Dublin, checked into Isaac's hostel which is alright though a little cramped. Went out with some people from our tour and had some more pints at a couple cool bars including the Brazen Head, the oldest pub in Dublin.

Monday in Dublin: Nothing much to do ... should have flown home today. Explored Dublin a bit. Saw the Book of Kells at Trinity College which was less than exciting. Met up for dinner at Wagamamas with a few people from our tour and from our hostel. Had a few pints at the coolest Irish pub in Dublin. All locals. Great music by this one man band on the guitar playing traditional Irish music. Everyone in the pub singing along to every word ... stayed all night there and closed the place down.

The River Liffe	Cool Bridge	Sailboats and Viking Ships	The Original Temple Bar
Grafton Street Shopping	Temple Bar Square	St. Patrick's Cathedral	St. Stephen's Park
Dublin Castle	The River Liffe	A Typical Pub	The Brazen Head Pub
Sean with Guinness	Dublin Skyline	Guinness Bottles	A Guy and His Horse
Guinness Brewery	Some guy steps in my picture	Guinness Tour Pub	St. James's Gate
St. James's Gate	Brewery from Across Liffe	Brewery	Celtic Cross
New Grange	Slane - U2 Concert	Group: Oli, Natasha, Liisa, High Tech, and Carla	British Watchtower
Hunger Strikers	Northern Ireland Border	Police Station	Bobby Sands
Orange Men March in Belfast	Peace Wall in Belfast	March in Belfast	Marchers
Shankill Road Mural	Grim Reaper Mural	UFF Mural	Police Force
Fire Bomb Protection Near Peace Wall	Black Cab Tour - Shankill Road, Belfast	State Building, Belfast	Irish Coast Line
Sheep Island with Sailboat	The Beauty that is ...	... Ireland	Panorama of Cushendall
Irish Coast	View of Rope Bridge Miles Away	Big Brother	The Bog Side, Derry
Peace Wall, Derry	Mural in Derry	Bloody Sunday Depiction	Derry Mural
Wall in Derry	The Hill of Tara	Group at Rope Bridge: Voitech, myself, Carla, Liisa, and Sean	Rope Bridge
"High Tech"	The Giant's Causeway	Hexogonal Columns	Giant's Shoe
Sean and I at Causeway	Giant's Causeway from Above

Dublin and Northern Ireland trip
August 21 - August 28, 2001
Northern Ireland Tir na nOg Tour

Dublin Write-up

Northern Ireland Write-up

Dublin and Northern Ireland trip August 21 - August 28, 2001 Northern Ireland Tir na nOg Tour

Dublin Write-up

Northern Ireland Write-up

Dublin and Northern Ireland trip
August 21 - August 28, 2001
Northern Ireland Tir na nOg Tour