Divis and the Black Mountain and the Coast

Famine Wall Hike

On Sunday, 25 March, Paul had us meet up at Divis to take a short 4 hour Famine Wall hike. We walked through the bog all around Divis mountain and up part of the famine wall.  On the walk, our leader and the park ranger of sorts of Divis and the Black Mountain told us history about the place.  For future reference, if you ever take a hike through a bog, make sure to wear proper boots and not tennis shoes.  Luckily I knew what I was in for.  My tennis shoes were soaked and disgusting, along with the bottom half of my jeans.  Otherwise, we had a great time!  There is even a small herd of horses that we could go play with.  They really liked raisins.

Kelsey, Paul, and I

The Famine wall was, of course, built during the Great Famine.  If you were unaware, I'll give a little history.  Throughout history there have been several famine's in Ireland, but the most notorious was the Great Famine between 1845 and 1852.  This spurned the mass immigration to the United States for those who could afford it and were healthy enough to make the journey.  Those that immigrated took ships that were called Coffin Ships because so many died on them through disease or starvation because of the cramped quarters.  This is why so many Americans claim Irish descent, myself included.  The cause of the famine was a fungal infection of the potato crop.  Before the infection spread, most of the inhabitants of Ireland, the workers anyways, farmed potatoes.  A person can live on just potatoes as it gives all of the nutrients to live, so these people only ate potatoes for every meal with the occasional meat of other food.  Therefore, when all of the potato crops failed, there was no food and no way for these Irish people to make a living.  At the time, the country itself was in a good state, actually quite wealthy.  However, they were not able to and did not adequately help avoid the famine.  People of that time had a hard time accepting charity, so public work schemes were developed. One such scheme was to have the poor and suffering build walls, or other unnecessary structures, all over the landscape.  These walls serve no purpose other than to have fed those people and keep them out of the estates of landowners.  Another important fact, that show one of the contributing factors of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, was that these poor who suffered the most from the famine were Catholics whereas the Protestants were the wealthier class that did not have to suffer this.  The Trouble of course started from these class differences between the Catholics and Protestants.

Here is the website for the area that we went with some great pictures of the views:

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/divis-and-black-mountain/

Costal hike

On Wednesday, 28 March, Paul took Kelsey and I on a hike along the coast.  We took a train up to Helen's Bay, walked along the coast to Bangor, then took a train back to Belfast.  The hike was only about 5 miles, but we took our time to enjoy the amazing day we were having.  We got some great views along the way and took a few amazing pictures.  I was more concerned with seeing the view than taking pictures of it though.  Below are some of the pictures from the hike.  It almost feels like spring with the sun and lack of rain or clouds that we have had the past few days.  We had to enjoy it while it lasted!

Kelsey and I with 99's, courtesy of Paul

Playing in the water, it was quite cold..