The Troubles

I sure have gotten behind! I'll take a few posts to catch up....

Here are a couple of pictures of the Lanyon Building, the first main building of Queen's and the first thing you see:

Our Day:

Paul, our program manager, had us meet up early (10AM) to go on a walking tour of the city.  We started off by walking from the University down to City Center and seeing everything.  City Center is the hub of Belfast, it centers around the City Hall.  There are many stores around this area, including the Vodaphone store where I bought a new sim card for my iPhone.  That way I can use my phone to text and call UK phones with paying the outrageous international fee that Verizon desires.

Here is a picture of the City Hall:

One of the first places we went by was the Linen Hall Library, which is kind of hidden away in the City Center of Belfast, a small place with lots of character.  They have exhibits there as well, at the time we were there, they had a Robert Burns exhibit.  Along with the occasional exhibit, this place has many posters from the times of the Troubles when the Unionists and Republicans were warring in Northern Ireland.

Here is a picture of Paul, Paige, Kelsey, and I observing said posters.

On our tour we saw the Albert tower, which leans pretty significantly.  This tower was built in 1865 for Queen Victoria for her Prince Albert.  The tower leans because it was built over the underground river, so eventually the foundation started to give way and the tower started to lean.  The foundation has since been repaired.  Legend has it however, that the tower leans because ladies of the night used to come out and lean against it every night. 

Here is a picture of Kelsey, Paige, and I in front of said tower:

One popular place in City Center is Victoria’s Square, which is basically a shopping mall.  However, it has an atrium with amazing views of the city and surrounding landscape.  We could see the all the sites, from the Albert Tower to the Castle of Belfast.  We could see the water and shipyards where the Titanic was built.  Off in the distance, we could see the Moorn mountains and the Black mountains.  There is a mountain in the shape of a face laying down.  I was not able to snap a picture at the time, but I'm sure one will come.

After this portion of our walking tour, we stopped at a pub to have lunch.  I had fish and chips, which were pretty spectacular.  Soon after lunch, the Manchester United versus Liverpool football (soccer) game started.  Unfortunately, Liverpool won, but we’ll get them next time!!

After the game, we decided to take a tour of West Belfast.  Sunday, a bus tour was planned for all of the new international students, but we decided to go ahead and see West Belfast.  We continued walking around City Center first.  We went to St. Anne’s Cathedral, this church was a beautiful large protestant church.  It had a spire coming up from the top, The Spire of Hope, which was meant built back in the early 2000’s for about 1 million pounds. 

Then we headed off to the black taxi depot to acquire a taxi to take us up through West Belfast.  On the way through West Belfast, we passed the Protestant cemetery.  No Catholics are allowed to be buried here because of the separation and segregation that has gone on throughout history that hit a turmoil in the past century with the Troubles.  For the past decade or so, there has been peace in Northern Ireland, but full peace, recover, and integration will take time, like all conflicts.  


Then we stopped at the Catholic cemetery, Milltown cemetery.  This cemetery was the place of many conflicts during the Troubles.  Paul told us several stories about what has happened in this cemetery, and the reasons for many of the graves here. There have been shootings, bombs, mobs... Luckily that is in the past and Belfast and Northern Ireland is repairing.   

We walked through the cemetery to the grave of the Republicans.  These were the people that fought the hardest to get equalization and to create a complete country with the rest of Ireland.  They unfortunately lost, and Northern Ireland is a part of the UK still, where as the rest of Ireland is now the Republic of Ireland.

If you would like to learn more about the Troubles than what I have the knowledge to discus currently you can see the following websites:

BBC's information: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/recent/troubles/
The traditional Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles

Fun Note:

Taxi vs. Cab

In Belfast, there is a law that will not allow a cab to stop if you hail it.  In order to get a cab, you must call the service, such as Fonacab or Value Cabs.  If you find a cab parked on the street, you can usually get the driver to take you where you need to go, but even that is still questionable.  There are hubs where cabs can wait for people to come along and ask for one however.

Taxis on the other hand can be hailed. You can also find these parked and ask them to take you.  If there are taxis about, a cab will take you if it is parked nearby, as we discovered recently.  The problem with taxis is that they can stop while you are in them to pick up other pedestrians.  I've only ridden in two, and that has not happened to me yet.  However that could happen.  Black taxis, as they are called since they are generally all black. These taxis are considered unsafe though, so usually we just take cabs.

The law is going to be changed soon so that all cabs can be hailed as well.  Until then, if you are in Belfast, this is good information to know!

Until next time...